Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director.

Life and career

Stafford-Clark was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). He was educated at

Felsted School Felsted School is a co-educational independent school, independent boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school, situated in Felsted in Essex, England. It is in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, and was founded i ...

, in

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, and Riverdale Country School in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, followed by

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

. His directing career began as Associate Director of the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded as The Traverse Theatre Club in 1962 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes, Richard Demarco, Terry Lane, Andrew Muir, John Martin and Sheila Colvin. The Traverse Th ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, in 1966. He became artistic director there from 1968 to 1970. He was Director of the Traverse Theatre Workshop Company from 1970 to 1974. Stafford-Clark then co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1974. Joint Stock worked with writers using company research to inspire workshops. From these workshops, writers such as David Hare,

Howard Brenton Howard John Brenton FRSL (born 13 December 1942) is an English playwright and screenwriter, often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, and David Hare. Early years Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, so ...

and

Caryl Churchill Caryl Lesley Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non- naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.

would garner material to inspire a writing phase before rehearsals began. This methodology is sometimes referred to as The Joint Stock Method. Productions during this period included Hare's ''Fanshen'' (1975), Brenton's ''

Epsom Downs Epsom Downs is an area of chalk downland, chalk upland near Epsom, Surrey; in the North Downs. Part of the area is taken up by the Epsom Downs Racecourse, racecourse; the gallops are part of the land purchased by Stanly Wootton in 1925 and are ...

'' and Churchill's '' Cloud Nine'' (1979) which Stafford-Clark directed, as well as ''The Speakers'', a promenade production. From 1979 to 1993, Stafford-Clark was Artistic Director of the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...

. He remains to date the Court's longest serving artistic director. He helped nurture emerging playwrights including Andrea Dunbar,

Hanif Kureishi Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British Pakistani playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, and novelist. He is known for his film '' My Beautiful Laundrette'' and novel '' The Buddha of Suburbia''. Early life and education Hanif Kureish ...

, Sarah Daniels and

Jim Cartwright Jim Cartwright (born 27 June 1958) is an English dramatist, born in Municipal Borough of Farnworth, Farnworth, Lancashire. Cartwright's first play, Road (play), ''Road'', won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the B ...

. His regular collaborators on his productions included the singer

Ian Dury Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 27 March 2000) was an English singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame in the late 1970s, during the punk rock, punk and new wave music, new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Kilburn ...

. During this time the theatre's productions included ''Victory'' by Howard Barker, ''The Arbor'' by Andrea Dunbar, ''Insignificance'' by Terry Johnson, '' Our Country's Good'' by

Timberlake Wertenbaker Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and others. She has been described in ''The Washington Post'' as "the doyenne of po ...

, ''

Road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

'' by

and ''Rat in the Skull'' by Ron Hutchinson. Perhaps the most important commission and production of this era was '' Top Girls'' by

(1982). '' Our Country's Good'' is based on Australian author

Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his historical fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler' ...

's book ''The Playmaker'' in which convicts deported from Britain to the penal colony perform

George Farquhar George Farquhar (1677The explanation for the dual birth year appears in Louis A. Strauss, ed., A Discourse Upon Comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1914), p. v. Strauss notes t ...

's ''

The Recruiting Officer ''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two English Army officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where ...

''. Stafford-Clark wrote about his experiences of staging the plays in repertoire in his book ''Letters to George''. He has staged productions for Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. In 1993, he founded the Out of Joint touring company with producer Sonia Friedman, one of her first ventures after leaving the National Theatre. He was Artistic Director until 2017 when he was succeeded by Kate Wasserberg. He left the company after complaints were made about a tendency to make lewd remarks to women. The emergence of this issue in October 2017 led to further accusations of inappropriate sexual comments, going back several decades. The actress Tracy-Ann Oberman was among those who contacted ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' to relate their experience, taking the number of women who had made complaints about Stafford-Clark to five. Academic credits include an honorary doctorate from

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...

and Professorships at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

and the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a Universities in the United Kingdom, university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield ...

. By May 2021, the company had changed its registered address, professional and legal names. It became known as Stockroom, presumably as a reference to Stafford-Clark's work in co-founding and leading his first company (Joint Stock). The name Out of Joint had cleverly used a famous three word phrase in Shakespeare's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

'' to simultaneously describe the evolutionary legacy from Stafford-Clark's first company.

Personal life

Stafford-Clark and Carole Hayman married in 1971; they later divorced. His second wife was Ann Pennington (m. 1981). During a six-month period in 2006 and 2007, Stafford-Clark suffered three

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

s, which left him physically disabled and impaired his eyesight. Stafford-Clark's experience, and the condition of the

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

, inspired Irish playwright Stella Feehily (the couple married in 2010) to write the play ''This May Hurt a Bit'', first performed in 2014. He has one daughter, Kitty Stafford-Clark, from his second marriage.

Sexual harassment allegations

In July 2017, an employee of Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint theatre company made a formal complaint about his behaviour. An investigation followed and he was asked to leave the company. Stafford-Clark stepped down in September 2017. In the weeks that followed, three more women stated that he had "made lewd comments to them."

Legacy

In 1999 the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

acquired Stafford-Clark's papers consisting of production diaries and rehearsal scripts covering his time with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, and Out of Joint theatre company. The Library also acquired supplementary production diaries and rehearsal scripts in 2005.Max Stafford-Clark Papers Supplement
archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 21 May 2020

Productions since 2000

* 2000 ''A State Affair'' by Robin Soans (Out of Joint/Soho Theatre) * 2000 ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'' by Andrea Dunbar (Out of Joint/

Soho Theatre Soho Theatre is a theatre and registered charity in the Soho district of the City of Westminster, and Soho Theatre Walthamstow in north-east London. It produces and presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret, across three pe ...

) * 2001 ''Feelgood'' by Alistair Beaton (Out of Joint,

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. History The original ''Hampstead Theatre Clu ...

and the

Garrick Theatre The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, named after the stage actor David Garrick. It opened in 1889 with ''The Profligate'', a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, and another Pinero play, ...

) * 2001 ''Sliding with Suzanne'' by Judy Upton (Out of Joint/The Royal Court) * 2002 ''Hinterland'' by

Sebastian Barry Sebastian Barry is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He was named Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2018–2021. Barry has been twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels '' A Long Long Way'' (2005) and '' The Secret Scripture'' ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2002 ''A Laughing Matter'' by

April De Angelis April De Angelis is an acclaimed British playwright known for her powerful exploration of feminist themes and women's lives. Her work spans theatre, radio, and television, blending sharp wit with deep emotional insight. De Angelis began her car ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2002 '' She Stoops to Conquer'' by

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. A prolific author of various literature, he is regarded among the most versatile writers of the Georgian e ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2003 ''The Breath of Life'' by David Hare (

Sydney Theatre Company Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in the Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Theatre ...

) * 2003 ''Duck'' by Stella Feehily (Out of Joint/Royal Court) * 2003 ''The Permanent Way'' by David Hare (Out of Joint/ The National Theatre) * 2004 ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

'' by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

(Out of Joint) * 2005 ''Talking to Terrorists'' by Robin Soans (Out of Joint/Royal Court) * 2006 ''O Go My Man'' by Stella Feehily * 2006 ''The Overwhelming'' by JT Rogers (Out of Joint/ The National Theatre) * 2007 ''King of Hearts'' by Alistair Beaton (Out of Joint,

) * 2008 ''The Convicts Opera'' - Stephen Jeffreys - Based On The Beggars Opera * 2009 ''Dreams of Violence'' by Stella Feehily - (Out of Joint/Soho Theatre) * 2009 ''Mixed Up North'' by Robin Soans - (Out of Joint/Octagon Theatre Bolton) * 2010 ''Andersen's English'' by

(Out of Joint/Hampstead Theatre * 2010 ''The Big Fellah'' by Richard Bean (Out of Joint/Lyric Hammersmith) * 2011 ''A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson'' adapted by Russell Barr, Ian Redford & Max Stafford-Clark from

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...

. * 2011 ''Bang Bang Bang'' by Stella Feehily - (Out of Joint/Royal Court Theatre/ Octagon Theatre Bolton/ Salisbury Playhouse/ Leicester Curve) * 2011 ''Top Girls'' by

- (Out of Joint, Chichester Festival Theatre) * 2012 '' Our Country's Good'' by

- (Out of Joint) * 2014 ''This May Hurt A Bit'' by Stella Feehily * 2014 ''Pitcairn'' by Richard Bean * 2015 ''Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage'' by Robin Soans

Bibliography

* Ritchie, R. (1987), ''The Joint Stock Book'', London: Methuen * Stafford-Clark, M. (1997), ''Letters to George: The Account of a Rehearsal'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. and Roberts, P. (2007), ''Taking Stock: The Theatre of Max Stafford-Clark'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. with McKeown, M. (2010), ''Our Country's Good: Page to Stage'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. (2014), ''Journal of the Plague Year'', London: Nick Hern Books

References

External links

*
Max Stafford-Clark Material
at the British Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford-Clark, Max 1941 births Living people Academics of the University of Hertfordshire Academics of the University of Warwick English theatre directors People educated at Felsted School Riverdale Country School alumni