The Royal Shakespeare Company co-founder John Barton has died aged 89.
Alongside Peter Hall, who died last year, Barton founded the RSC in 1960, working for the company for most of his life.
In a statement, the current RSC artistic director Gregory Doran paid tribute to Barton, describing him as “both a great director and teacher, and simply one of the greatest influences in the acting of Shakespeare of the last century”.
The RSC said Barton had recently been moved to a care home in west London, and died on 18 January. His wife Anne passed away aged 80 in 2013, and he is survived by his sister Jennifer.
Among his celebrated productions were The War of the Roses in 1963, which helped launch the RSC, and Twelfth Night in 1969, in which Judi Dench played Viola.
Alongside his productions, generations of actors have been influenced by Barton’s “Playing Shakespeare” series, which were recorded by London Weekend Television and first shown in 1982, and featured actors including Roger Rees, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Lisa Harrow, and Peggy Ashcroft.Doran wrote that Barton had in his final years “continued to conduct sonnet classes, hold master classes and one-to-one sessions in his New Cavendish Street flat, intriguing young actors, by his constant chewing of odd yellowy green nicotine gum (it used to be razor blades apparently), and getting tangled in his big woolly cardigans. Although frail in body at the last, he was always mentally alert and retained his sense of curiosity until the end.”
Tributes to Barton have poured in across the acting world. Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Shylock in Barton’s 1978 production of The Merchant of Venice, tweeted:
It is with great sadness I have heard today of John B's death. But the sadness is overwhelmed by the gratitude, respect and love I had/have for him. No one in my career had the impact that John had and the names William Shakespeare and John Barton will be for me forever united. https://t.co/WwqhBzgUsb
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) January 18, 2018
Robert Icke, associate director of the Almeida theatre, wrote: “Sad to hear of John Barton’s death. He was a visionary: pragmatic and wry, but fierce in striving for theatre that was genuinely intelligent and alive. His legacy, especially in classics, in verse, is inestimable. We don’t make them like him anymore.”
