In his first season leading the National Theatre, Trevor Nunn is rediscovering neglected treasures like Flight

By JULIE K.L. DAM /LONDON

hen Trevor Nunn took over as artistic director of the Royal National Theatre last October, many critics complained that he was too safe a choice compared to the much-hyped Young Turks who have emerged in Britain's renascent theatrical landscape. After all, despite being the youngest-ever director of the Royal Shakespeare Company when appointed in 1968 at age 28, Nunn had become during the 1980s universally famous directing musical extravaganzas like Cats and Les Miserables. One reviewer dismissed his production of An Enemy of the People at the National last year with a snide "This is Les Miz kitsch, not Ibsen." But in fact, there is no danger of the National's becoming Andrew Lloyd Webberized. "I am interested in finding the neglected areas of the repertoire rather than revisiting all the things that have been done before," says Nunn. The theatrical treasure hunter has already hit pay dirt. Currently in the repertoire are three little-known plays that have been brilliantly recovered: Tennessee Williams' Not About Nightingales, Edward Ravenscroft's The London Cuckolds and Mikhail Bulgakov's Flight.

Not About Nightingales, which Nunn directed himself, is that rarity that everyone in the theater world dreams about: a world premiere of a master playwright's lost work. Williams wrote the play--which is based on a true story of prisoners on a hunger strike who were punished by being locked in a steam-heated cell block--in 1938, before his writing career took off. Rejected by the Group Theater at the time, the play was never produced and was placed in the archives of the University of Texas. After reading a reference to this work in an article Williams wrote in 1957, actress Vanessa Redgrave obtained the script for her Moving Theatre company and a collaborator, Houston's Alley Theater. Realizing that the ensemble piece required a large cast and much rehearsal, she brought it to the National.

Staging Not About Nightingales in the National's smallest theater, the Cottesloe, reinforces the suffocating mood and intensity of the play. The protagonist, Canary Jim, is a caged (jail) bird who yearns for space and freedom, love and redemption--not unlike a number of characters in Williams' later plays. While it is clear that Nightingales belongs to Williams' early, unpolished oeuvre, it is still a revelation, containing more than just a hint of what was to come, and deserving of the opportunity to find an audience.

In contrast, Edward Ravenscroft's bawdy romp, The London Cuckolds, was an instant hit when first performed in 1681; it was a favorite of David Garrick, who presented it every year on Lord Mayor's Day until the Puritans pressured him to stop. By the mid-1700s, it had virtually disappeared. Nunn's rediscovery of the play--after poring over some 50 works--was an extension of a career-long obsession, which had previously led to the revival of Dion Boucicault's London Assurance and John O'Keeffe's Wild Oats. "I once had the idea that I wanted to open a theater in Stratford that would be devoted to the neglected plays of 1570 to 1750," he says. "I was aware there was a vast amount of that literature we didn't know."

The London Cuckolds revolves around the sexual exploits of three randy bachelors and the wives of three foolish men. Director Terry Johnson's adaptation is fast-paced, with a frankness well-suited to a 1990s audience: bed-hopping, coitus interruptus and lewd gestures are all presented with hilarious effect. Unlike other Restoration comedies, the play relies heavily on slapstick humor rather than on wit alone. Says Nunn: "It rewrites conventional dramatic history" as an important precursor to modern farce.

But the National production of which he is proudest is Flight. Bulgakov--most of whose works were banned by Stalin in his lifetime--wrote this dream-play about the Russian Civil War in 1925, when the chaos and exile caused by the power struggle between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians were still fresh in people's minds. As immediate as it would have been to a contemporary audience, Flight also evokes strongly, poignantly, the images of upheaval in our age: Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia.

The play was banned while in rehearsal at the Moscow Art Theater in 1928. Only in 1957, 17 years after Bulgakov's death, was it staged in the Soviet Union. English translations, which attracted much interest, became available in the 1970s. But producing Flight was a daunting prospect: until now, there had been in English only one regional production, one London studio reading and a radio version of the play.

Despite rave reviews, the National production has failed to sell enough tickets to remain in the repertoire beyond May. With a huge cast and epic scope, Flight had to be staged in the vast Olivier theater. With up to 1,160 seats to fill, it can be a dangerous revenue-drain when undersubscribed. "It's not a risk to do a play even if it's unknown if you think it's a really fabulous play," says Nicholas Wright, a playwright and literary consultant to the National who helped bring Flight to life. "But it's very bold to do an unknown play in our largest auditorium."

Unknown to the general public, perhaps, but Flight has long been close to the hearts of those involved in this production. Director Howard Davies first read it in the 1980s and had recommended it to Nunn, for whom he then worked at the RSC. "In fact Trevor chose to do [Bulgakov's] The White Guard instead," says Davies. "At the National Trevor inherited Ron Hutchinson's version and came to me saying, 'I'd like to encourage you to read a play called Flight,' and I said, 'Trevor, you twerp, you've forgotten that I was the person who put it in front of your nose 12 years ago.'"

As disappointed as he is about Flight's fate, Nunn believes that it was vital in defining the role of the National Theatre. "The gratifying thing," he says, "was the number of critics who said this is precisely why we have a National Theatre with the resources to do those pieces of work that otherwise would never be done." To that end, later in this season, Nunn plans to present new plays by Michael Frayn, Sebastian Barry and Frank McGuinness. And yes, there will be a big musical production: Oklahoma! Because the RSC is now away from London half the year, he intends to do his share of Shakespeare too.

This ambitious agenda calls to mind something Nunn said in 1991, several years after leaving the RSC. Physically drained by the experience, he stated that one day he would like to run his own company, "a small one, but multi-talented enough to do Chekhov, followed by a musical, followed by a new play." Welcome to the National, Trevor.

--With Reporting by Brigid O'Hara-Forster /London