Johannesburg Repertory Society

Johannesburg Repertory Society (or Johannesburg Reps) was one of a number of important and influential amateur dramatic societies in South Africa during the 20th century.

History

The Johannesburg Repertory Playreading Society, 1927-1928

This was a society founded by Muriel Alexander and 15 of the students from her Alexander School of Drama and Elocution on 15 November 1927, with the intention to perform serious theatre not then available from the existing commercial groups.

The Society did a public play reading of Holding Aloof by David Dainow in 1927, before it took on the role of a full on dramatic society and was renamed the Johannesburg Repertory Society in 1928.

The Johannesburg Repertory Society, 1928-1969

Its first productions under the new name was the brothers Çapek’s R.U.R. ("Rossum’s Universal Robots") and a modern dress The Merchant of Venice at the Standard Theatre in 1928, and by 1930 they were staging six productions a year. During the first ten years of its existence a total of sixty-six productions were mounted. The productions were of such outstanding quality that in 1932 the REPS were contracted by the commercial company African Consolidated Theatres to stage a production of Dangerous Corner for them. In 1933 they were again contracted by African Consolidated Theatres (now simply known as African Theatres) to stage Shaw’s Arms and the Man.

During the 1940s, the company had to restrict its membership to 1400 members, which was the seating capacity of the Standard Theatre, but were so popular that a waiting-list had to be established. The opening in 1951 of the Reps Theatre (Johannesburg Repertory Theatre, later renamed the Alexander Theatre) allowed the membership to expand to around 4000 members (by 1955) and the REPS finally became a fully professional company, with Anthony Farmer as resident director and director of the company from 1954. When he left, he was briefly replaced (for one production) by Anthony Cullen before set designer Roy Cooke took over the running of the theatre. They would hire directors per play until Hugh Goldie from England joined the company as resident director in 1959.

From 1933 until 1965, the REPS also published their own bimonthly magazine, Playtime.

Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, with Margaret Inglis, Bernard Brown, Jenny Gratus and Gordon Mulholland was the final production for the Reps at the Alexander in 1969.

The Repertory Amateur Players Society (RAPS), 1949-?

Amateur productions were also continued through the REPS Associate Players, which had been originally established in 1949 to cater for younger members. The Associate Players later changed its name to the Repertory Amateur Player Section, and eventually became a completely independent organisation, the Repertory Amateur Players Society (RAPS).

For more information, see Repertory Amateur Players Society.

Directors

Aside from Alexander’s professional experience, the REPS also employed many other professional directors, including Joan Heymann, Gwen ffrangçon-Davies, Marda Vanne, Nan Munro, Margaret Inglis and André Huguenet.

Venues

Initially they used the badly-equipped Jewish Guild Hall as a venue, but from 1936 they used the Little Theatre (or Library Theatre) in the new Johannesburg Library-Complex. In 1941, the REPS were invited by African Theatres to perform in the prestigious Standard Theatre, then the best venue in Johannesburg.

After the war ended, the REPS once again had to oscillate between the Standard and Little Theatre. However, plans to acquire an own, permanent venue came to fruition with the opening of the Reps Theatre (Johannesburg Repertory Theatre) in 1951 (it was renamed the Alexander Theatre in 1960). PACT took on the lease of the Alexander long-term in 1972. The Alexander Theatre was sold to PACT in 1978(???**).

Productions

1928: R.U.R., The Merchant of Venice

1929: Shall We Join the Ladies?, Rosalind, The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, To What Red Hell, The Young Person in Pink, The Rumour

1930: The Fanatics, Miss Lilah McCarthy in scenes from The Tragedy of Nan, Androcles and the Lion, A Merry Death, His Widow's Husband, The Romantic Young Lady, None Till Six, The Red Robe

1931: Mrs Moonlight, John Ferguson, And So To Bed, To Have the Honour, The Man They Buried, Easy Virtue

1932: Heartbreak House, The Fourth Wall, The Boy Comes Home, Followers, The Little Man, Crime at Blossoms, Art and Mrs Bottle, She Stoops to Conquer, Dangerous Corner

1933: Arms and the Man, Rope, Marry at Leisure, The Road of Poplars, All the Cobbler, An Evening on Dartmoor, Pleasure Cruise

1934: The Roundabout, Cherry Orchard, She Passed Through Lorraine, The Key of the Door, Avalanche

1935: The Queen's Majesty, Chinese White, The Cat's Cradle, Dear Brutus, Sixteen, Lean Harvest

1936: Lady Precious Stream, The Wind and the Rain, Lover's Leap, The Brontes, Tobias and the Angel, R.U.R., The Old Lady Shows Her Medals

1937: Villa for Sale, The Sacred Flame, The Mocking Bird, Twentieth Century Lullaby, Cradle Song, The Beaux' Stratagem, Fresh Fields, Dusty Ermine

1938: Double Error, The Skin Game, Biography, I Killed the Count, Touch Wood, Power and Glory

1939: Ways and Means, Family Album, The Millionairess, Fumed Oak, Behold We Live, They Walk Alone, The Corn is Green, Dear Octopus

1940: The Man with a Load of Mischief, Of Mice and Men, The Importance of Being Earnest, Tony Draws a Horse, They Fly by Twilight, Thunder Rock

1941: The Night of January 16th, Candida, How He Lied to her Husband, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Counsellor-at-Law, Double Door

1942: The Late Chrisptopher Bean, The Women, Amphitryon 38, Anna Christie, French Without Tears, Love From a Stranger

1943: The Light of Heart, The Flashing Stream, The Play's the Thing, Stage Door, Tapestry in Gray, Yes, My Darling Daughter

1944: The Doctor's Dilemma, The Rivals, Granite, Cottage to Let, Life with Father, The Man Who Ate the Popomak

1945: Music at Night, Junior Miss, Uncle Harry, A Bell for Adano, The Seagull, Our Town

1946: The Circle, Call it a Day, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, Dangerous Cover, We Were Dancing, Still Life, Red Peppers, Play with Fire by Edward Percy was performed in 1946 and starred Michael Venables.

1947: Pink String and Sealing Wax, Laura, My Dear Children, Mrs Warren's Profession, The Silver Cord, Joan of Lorraine

1948: The Taming of the Shrew, The Witch

1949: Romeo and Juliet

1950: Sweeney Agonistes, Salome

1951: Much Ado About Nothing (staged for the opening of the new Reps Theatre)

1952: The Madwoman of Chaillot, The House of Bernarda Alba, Tartuffe

1953: The Old Ladies, The Gioconda Smile, The Young Elizabeth, Private Lives, Gigi

1954: Witness for the Prosecution. The National Theatre staged a celebrity concert in aid of the National Theatre Development Fund at the Reps in 1954. The line-up included André Huguenet, Dawie Couzyn, Margaret Inglis and Taubie Kushlick.

1955: Third Person (The Company of Three), My Three Angels, Spider's Web, Bus Stop, Dear Charles, Rose Without a Thorn, The Winslow Boy (National Theatre Organisation), Larger than Life

1956: The Tempest, The Confidential Clerk, Dead on Nine, The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker, The Sleeping Prince

1957: A View from the Bridge, The Diary of Anne Frank, The House by the Lake, The Queen and the Rebels, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Peter Pan

1958: Career, Thieves' Carnival, Romanoff and Juliet

1959: Hot Summer Night, Affairs of State, Under Milkwood, The Glass Slipper (in conjunction with Children’s Theatre and the National Theatre Organisation)

1960: Caesar and Cleopatra, The Sound of Murder

1961: Time to Kill

1962: Burning Bright, The Andersonville Trial, Boeing-Boeing, Guilty Party, The Mousetrap, Come Blow Your Horn

1963: Oklahoma!, Policy for Murder, The Physicists

1964: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

1965: Pickwick, The Deputy (also known as The Representative)

1966: Twelve Angry Men, Trap For a Lonely Man, The Constant Wife

1967: Forever April, Hostile Witness, Seidman and Son, A Day in the Life Of ...

1968: A Flea in Her Ear, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (with PACT), Fanny

1969: Androcles and the Lion, Red Peppers, Present Laughter.