- 81
White, Michael.
Description
- Oh! Calcutta! files, principally relating to the original London production, comprising:
- ink on paper
ii) letters by other correspondents about Oh! Calcutta!, including two autograph letters signed by the director Jacques Levy (2) ("...As far as the music is concerned, I think you are right about The Stones being doubtful..."), the remaining letters chiefly by agents and managers and concerning contracts, agreements, and royalties, including Margaret Ramsay on Joe Orton's contribution and her concerns of possible police interference in the production, and correspondence relating to Samuel Beckett's Breath and the author's unhappiness about the use of his work, also an invitation to the opening night party, in total about 130 original letters, retained copies, royalty statements and related items, chiefly 1968-70, housed in a folder
iii) Scripts: Joe Orton, top-copy typescript of his short play Until She Screams, 14 pages, foolscap, with accompanying letter, 1 page, "Friday", also with a photocopy of the script; Kenneth Tynan, Homage to St Dominic's, carbon-copy typescript, 4to, 10 pages; together loose in a manila folder labelled in pencil ("Joe Orton original script")
iv) original signed contracts for Oh! Calcutta! by John Lennon (Four in Hand), Samuel Beckett (Breath), and other contributors, dated 19 February 1969, with weekly statements of receipts and expenses for the play (1970), later summary financial and royalty statements (1970s), related correspondence and other papers, in a folder, with a second folder containing later correspondence, royalty statements, and other documents (chiefly 1977-80)
v) Volume of press cuttings relating to the original London production of Oh! Calcutta!, including reviews, opinion pieces, editorials, cartoons, and news items, providing a vivid insight into the furore over the production, c.240 pages (most pages with several cuttings), 1970, leaves loose
vi) framed poster for Oh! Calcutta! at the Roundhouse (527 x 335mm.), with two other framed posters, a framed seating return for the show at the Duchess Theatre (1978), and two original unsigned pen-and-ink cartoons by Mark Boxer, Roundhouse poster with 16mm. puncture mark
Catalogue Note
"...I showed you a painting by the ancient French surrealist Clovis Trouille of a reclining girl displaying her bottom, with the caption: "Oh Calcutta!" While in Paris I discovered that this is a pun – "Quel cul t'as", meaning "what an arse you have!" I therefore suggest calling the show "Oh Calcutta", subtitled "An Erotic Revue" and using the Trouille painting as a poster..." (Ken Tynan to Michael White, 28 June [1968?])
An extensive archive about a production that marked a milestone in the sexual revolution. With extensive nudity and explicit sexual content, the revue Oh! Calcutta! was intended to push boundaries in response to the changes in social attitudes that had marked the later 1960s. Its huge commercial success (and indeed the fact it was not prosecuted) ensured that its influence was felt in the commerical theatre for decades, and the production is widely seen as an important moment in the development of modern liberal Britain and the unabashed commercialisation of sex. The show was inspired by Kenneth Tynan, a friend and mentor of White's, who (as the current archive reveals) came up with the concept in some detail in 1968 and wrote to prospective contributors from Gore Vidal to John Osborne. White was involved in organising the production from its very earliest stages, although eventually it opened in New York in 1969, produced by Hillard Elkins, before the production at London's Roundhouse opened in 1970.