The theatres of George Devine - 1978

London: Jonathan Cape, 1978. xvi, 295pp. With four leaves of photographs. Original publisher’s black cloth, brown label lettered gilt to spine, top edge aubergine. Overall a little shaken with light markings. Internally bright and clean. Inscribed 'Dear Larry, Happy Birthday, John Dexter' and further signed by a multitude of theatrical contemporaries, including Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Margaret Tyzack, Vivian Pickles, Lindsay Anderson, Mary O’Malley, and many more. Someone also appears to have signed ‘Henry Irving’, though this is almost certainly in jest. Though he died some twelve years prior to Theatres being published, George Devine was a close friend of Olivier over many years, including acting together in Olivier’s production of The Skin of Our Teeth alongside both Olivier and Leigh. Devine’s professional goal 'was to get writers, writers of serious pretensions, back into the theatre', and thus to make the theatre 'part of the intellectual life of the country'. With this in mind, he formed the English Stage Company, based at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, in 1955. Their fourth production, John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, became one of their most important productions. While the inscription is undated, many of Olivier's friends and contemporaries were gathered in 1987 at the National, attending a tribute to him in honour of his eightieth birthday, which seems a likely occasion for this signed gift. From the library of Laurence Olivier, now dispersed, to whom many of these books were gifted over the length of his illustrious, industrious, and enduring career as one of the most important figures of stage and screen in the 20th century. . First edition. 8vo.