US (play)

US was a 1966 experimental theatre play for the Royal Shakespeare Company, created by a group that included Denis Cannan (writer), Michael Kustow (documentary), Sally Jacobs (design), Richard Peaslee (music), Adrian Mitchell (lyrics), Geoffrey Reeves (music director), Albert Hunt (associate director), Michael Stott (associate director) and director Peter Brook.[1][2]

The play deals with "British metropolitan attitudes" to the Vietnam War, rather than the facts of the war itself. The first half of the performance consists of "comic-strip…anti-Americanism", but after the interval the work considers aspects of the conflict as if taking place in London: "I want it to come here…" announces one character. This is achieved by having a player contemplate burning himself to death, in the manner of Buddhist monks in Saigon, on the streets of London. At the end of the play a live butterfly, representing a monk, is symbolically burnt.[3][4][lower-alpha 1]

It premiered on 13 October 1966, directed by Brook, at the Aldwych Theatre, London.[2]

The cast included Glenda Jackson, Michael Williams, Clifford Rose and Patrick O'Connell.[5][6]

Benefit of the Doubt, a documentary about the making of the play, was released in 1967. Tell Me Lies, a British film based on US and directed and produced by Brook, was released in 1968.

See also

Notes
  1. Although live butterflies had been brought to rehearsals, in performance a paper butterfly was substituted; the audience did not realise this.

References
  1. Michael Kustow (2006). Peter Brook: A Biography. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-7913-7.
  2. "RSC Performances: US". Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  3. "Playwrights and the 'theatre of fact'". The Times. London. 3 December 1966. p. 13.
  4. Reeves, Geoffrey; Hunt, Albert (1995). Peter Brook. Cambridge University Press. pp. 118–120. ISBN 9780521296052.
  5. "Peter Brook Returns to the RSC". Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  6. "US". Theatricalia. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
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