page_title: Citizens Theatre
section_title: 1970s controversies
hierarchical_section_title: Citizens Theatre / Citizens Theatre history / 1970s controversies
caption_attribution_description: English: Citizens Theatre Shakespeare Poster Dated 1975
context_page_description: The Citizens Theatre, in what was the Royal Princess's Theatre, is the creation of James Bridie and is based in Glasgow, Scotland as a principal producing theatre. The theatre includes a 500-seat Main Auditorium, and two studio theatres, the Circle Studio and the Stalls Studio.
  The Citizens' Theatre repertory was founded in 1943 by dramatist and screenwriter James Bridie author of some 40 plays presented in Britain and overseas,
  art gallery director Tom Honeyman,
  cinema impresario George Singleton, known by many as "Mr Cosmo", whose headquarter cinema continues today as the Glasgow Film Theatre, and Paul Vincent Carroll, whose plays were first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and later on Broadway, winning the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Shadow and Substance and The White Steed.
  Under the leadership of James Bridie, the Citizens Company was based at first in the Glasgow Athenaeum. It moved in 1945 to its present site, the then Royal Princess's Theatre, where the building became the Citizens Theatre.
context_section_description: During the 1970s the Citizens started to attract controversy with its productions and advertising.
  In December 1970 city councillors called for an end to the GB£12,000 annual grant the Glasgow Corporation gave to the theatre after it was announced that anyone presenting a trade union card on 8 December would be granted free entry to the theatre. The Evening Times reported "The free tickets were suggested as a gesture of the actors' solidarity with the trade unionists' strike protest against the Industrial Relations Bill" (Evening Times, 7 December 1970). This was the first of many altercations between the theatre and the city council throughout the decade.
  Earlier in the autumn season of 1970 a controversial new staging of Hamlet caused outrage in the press for the nudity and alternative acting styles of the company. The Scotsman headline reported "Hamlet Depicted As A Gibbering Oaf" (7 September 1970) but the public flocked to the production and the theatre discovered an all new audience. Cordelia Oliver, a longterm supporter of the Citizens in her reviews, noted in The Guardian "Schoolchildren en masse rarely sit "Hamlet" out in silence, nor are they often roused to cheering as they did at the end last Friday. If Havergal has set his sights on a predominately youthful audience for the Citizens this reception suggest he may not be so wide off the mark" (10 September 1970).
  In 1975 a flier advertising the spring season was condemned by Labour councillor Laurence McGarry for its depiction of "Shakespeare, in drag with large cleavage, painted lips, corsets, suspenders and hand on hip". The councilor felt the theatre was guilty of "playing to an intellectual minority rather than the great mass of the public".
  In 1977 the Lord Provost Mr Peter McCann called for the sacking of theatre bosses after a performance of Dracula which featured nude scenes he described as "kinky claptrap appealing only to mentally ill weirdos" (Sunday Express, 13 March 1977). The Provost's calls were not supported by his councillors and his attempts to gain city council control of programming at the Citizens failed. The entire run of Dracula at the Citizens was a sell-out.
  Throughout its later existence the Citizens has been both criticised and acclaimed for its insistence on producing works which are not specifically populist, although heavily subsidised from public funds. While many have claimed that a citizens' theatre should deliberately appeal to a mass audience the theatre has a history of experimental works which have gained notice despite rather than because of their subject matter.
caption: The "Shakespeare in Drag" Poster which caused much controversy in 1975
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