Littlewood, (Maudie) Joan

Littlewood, (Maudie) Joan (1914– ), English director, born in London of working-class parents, who studied for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although she did well there, her training, combined with a naturally aggressive and experimental nature, left her impatient with what she regarded as the inanities of the normal West End theatrical routine, and she moved to Manchester. While working there in radio she founded with her husband an amateur group, Theatre Union, which soon made a name for itself with unconventional productions, in halls and in the open air, of experimental plays. The group dispersed on the outbreak of war in 1939, but came together again in 1945 as Theatre Workshop, with Joan Littlewood as Artistic Director, and in 1953 took over the lease of the Theatre Royal at Stratford, London. There, working on a system entirely her own (though it seems to have some affinities with those of Stanislavsky and Brecht), she became responsible for a series of successful productions. The constant drain on the company's resources, and a feeling that commercial success was inimical to her ideals, led her to leave Theatre Workshop in 1961 to work elsewhere, though she returned in 1963 to undertake the production of Oh, What a Lovely War! From 1965 to 1967 she was at the Centre Culturel, Hammamet, Tunisia, after which she again returned to Theatre Workshop. Since 1975 she has worked in France.