Under the artistic direction of Norman Blumensaadt, Different Stages and its predecessor the Small Potatoes Theatre Company have furnished Austin Theatre with a considerable library of stage work. The back page of the program for An Inspector Calls lists 109 productions the company has brought to the boards since 1981.
Different Stages has given the city a good dose of the classics and a wide array of works from the British and European stages. The company has often reached back decades in the English-speaking repertoire to present twentieth century works unlikely to be offered by other enterprises in town. For example, their production last year of Shaw's Getting Married was a fine example of Blumensaadt's taste, dedication and success as a curator.
J.B. Priestly's An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945. It recounts a story set in 1912 urban Britain. It's a moral fable with an intrigue that inexorably and progressively reveals the hypocrisy of each member and associate of a wealthy capitalist family. Priestly gives the story a twist of the supernatural, but it' essentially a piece preaching to the British middle class about the wickedness of earlier capitalist generations' exploitation of the poor.
The first two productions of An Inspector Calls were in Moscow. The 1946 London production featured Ralph Richardson as the ominous Inspector Goole, Margaret Leighton as ingenue Sheila Birling, and Alec Guiness as her brother Eric. Goole's berating of the non-aristocratic capitalists touched sensibilities in post-war Britain.
Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
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