American actor Hayes Gordon fled McCarthyism to found a theatre group in a Kirribilli boatshed
TENNESSEE Williams is not normally found in a children’s library but when a group of actors put on his plays in a Cammeray library they founded a long running theatre company
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THE Children’s Library in Cammeray might not seem the perfect fit for the plays of American playwright Tennessee Williams, but on May 11, 1958, together they created theatre history . This series of short plays performed by a group of actors marked the beginning of what would become the Ensemble Theatre company.
Founded by American expat Hayes Gordon, it was a bold new experiment in what was sometimes called “method acting”, taking a more methodical approach to the craft. Every member of the troupe would take turns on and off stage, in lead or supporting roles, so that everyone would gain experience in all aspects of theatre.
From the first performances in the library, it moved to a hall, but growing audiences and problems with the local fire safety regulations led to the company moving into its own purpose-built theatre in the form of a converted boatshed in Kirribilli, where it remains today.
The founder and driving force of the company for the first 28 years of its life, Gordon, was born in Boston, US, in 1920. At school he proved to be an exceptional student and liked performing in school plays. From the age of 17 he worked as a teacher at Peabody House, an institution for troubled youths, where he taught teenagers and became involved with the theatre group.
At Peabody House he also developed an interest in science and studied chemistry at university, going on to work as a “control chemist”at a food company in New York. He left to work in a pharmacy, while studying singing. One day when he helped out a customer with a sore throat, the man told him about an audition for a bass baritone. He soon went to work in the theatre. In 1943 he was drafted into the army, but was assigned to be part of Moss Hart’s propaganda musical Winged Victory. He also taught members of Hart’s company about theatre.
After the war he went back to acting, taking lessons with Lee Strasberg, a pioneer of “the method” school of acting. But in 1951 when Joe McCarthy began singling out members of the theatre industry for scrutiny, Gordon decided that his union activities might see him branded a communist, so he took a job in Australia with the J.C. Williamson company in a production of Kiss Me Kate.
Fellow cast member Maggie Fitzgibbon found out that Gordon had studied with Strasberg and convinced him to give some informal backstage acting lessons. When Kiss Me Kate’s tour ended in 1953 Hayes stayed on to appear in other productions, and was asked to teach other theatre groups, which eventually led him to setting up his own classes.
Among his students was Lorraine Bayly who said “there were about 20 of us in his classes on a regular basis. After studying with him for 18 months we thought it was time to put what we had learnt into practice”.
Forming a nameless acting troupe they staged several short plays by Tennessee Williams over two nights, May 11 and 12 in 1958 at the Cammeray Children’s Library, which they converted into a theatre. After the success of that performance they adopted the name Ensemble Theatre Company because the idea was that there would be no stars of the troupe, only the ensemble.
Their next production was held in a hall in Miller St, North Sydney, but when bigger than expected crowds packed in to see the play the company got a warning that it was a fire hazard.
Gordon went looking for a home for the group and found it in a boatshed in Kirribilli. Bayly remembers being shown the site and initially being horrified, “It had no floor, you could see the water below.” But the company eventually agreed it was a wonderful location and “very atmospheric”.
All the actors pitched in to refurbish the boatshed and turn it into a proper theatre. Bayly recalls cleaning bricks and laying down the bitumen that still forms part of the stage floor. She also remembers seeing Reg Livermore dyeing hessian sacks blue to become part of the interior of the theatre. Gordon worked on the lighting system. The first performance, Mel Dinelli’s The Man starring Jon Ewing in the title role, was held in 1960.
The original theatre was in the round and presented some groundbreaking plays for that era, including Billy Liar in 1962 and The Physicists in both German and English in 1963.
Gordon remained as artistic director until 1986 before handing over the mantle to Sandra Bates, who guided the company until appointing Mark Kilmurry co-director in 2011 before he took over as sole director in 2016.
Kilmurry said that “Hayes managed to get this fantastic acting quality out of the actors. It was incredible to see.”
Although industrial health and safety issues generally prevent actors taking on stage crew roles he said “the philosophy of the company is still what Hayes put in place.”
Gordon died in Sydney on October 19, 1999.