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Sir Lewis Casson was a British actor and theatrical director who was married to the legendary actress Dame Sybil Thorndike. He played a role in modernizing the British theatre, expanding it to embrace social critiques as well as new techniques, and was an advocate for a National Theatre.
Lewis was born on October 26, 1875 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England to Thomas Casson, a bank manager who had been born in Wales, and Laura Ann. The family moved to Denbigh, Wales when Lewis was still a boy. His father's passion was building organs, and in 1891, the family moved to London where Thomas became a professional builder of theatrical organs. Lewis worked for his father but eventually attended university to study chemistry but left school without completing his degree. He then trained to become a teacher at St Mark's College, Chelsea. After getting his teaching certificate, he returned to his father's organ-making business in 1900.
The young Casson was attracted to socialism and became a supporter of Keir Hardie, the leader of the new Labour Party. Lewis had always been interested in acting and had participated in amateur theatricals while young. He became a tutor at St. Mark's and acted in semi-professional productions staged in non-theatrical venues London's East End.
He turned professional in 1903 when he was recruited by the managers of the Royal Court Theatre. Whilst at the Royal Court he appeared in George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" and "Major Barbara", eventually befriending Shaw, who was a socialist and one of the founders of the Fabian Society that had helped create the Labour Party.
In 1907, he joined the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester, which was founded as the first repertory theatre in Great Britain by Annie Horniman. It was a watershed event in his life as it was at the Gaiety that he first directed a play. It was also at the Gaiety that he met Sybil Thorndike, another member of the company. She had first seen him in a production of Shaw's "Widowers' Houses", a polemic against slum lords. Initially, she disapproved of his socialism and political activism, but he -- a believer in equal rights for women -- introduced her to women suffragists working and she joined the cause of securing the vote for women. Marrying in December 1908, they would remain husband and wife for over 60 years until his death and had four children.
The couple soon moved to London to be part of Charles Frohman's repertory company. Frohman arranged an American tour for Thorndike, where she appeared on Broadway with the leading actor John Drew, the uncle of Lionel Barrymore, ' Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore in W. Somerset Maugham's play "Smith". Casson was in the cast. The company later toured America. After the American tour, Casson became focused on directing after returning to Britain. In 1912, he directed a production of Stanley Houghton's "Hindle Wakes" about a mill girl who goes off for a weekend with the mill-owner's son and then refuses to marry him so that she can remain independent. Sybil played the fiancée of the mill-owner's son.
The play was scandalous for the time and showed that Casson was determined to expand the parameters of what was acceptable theatre. He directed an experimental production of "Julius Caesar" at the Gaiety, and although it received critical praise, Annie Horniman thought it was "an experiment for experiment's sake", which led Casson to resign as director. He soon became the artistic director of the Scottish Playgoers Company, Glasgow (his son John would become an actor and director at the company's successor organization, the Citizens Theatre).
With the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Casson was torn over supporting the war as he opposed it as a socialist, thinking it was an imperialist war. Many socialists and Hardie of the Labour Party initially opposed the war. However, family members and friends had joined the military and Casson, as did many Labourites and socialists, believed that the government would enact reforms after the war if socialists showed their loyalty. He lied about his age in order to enlist in the Royal Army Service Corps and made the rank of sergeant.
In 1916, due to his half-completed chemistry degree, he received a commission in the Royal Engineers and was tasked with working on the development of poison gas warfare. He was eventually promoted to Captain and given his own company that set up gas projectiles during The Somme and other battles. In 1917, he received a shrapnel wound in the shoulder while his company was preparing gas projectiles for which he was awarded a Military Cross. He was invalided back to England but returned to the Western Front in 1918 to resume his role on gas warfare. He was credited with creating a more efficient gas missile mechanism. By autumn, he was sent on a mission to Washington to discuss gas warfare as a secretary of the Chemical Warfare Committee. His brother was killed during the war.
Demobilized in 1919 with the rank of major, he returned to the theatre and became well-known as a director whilst his wife established herself as one of the greatest actresses of her generation. He worked closely with George Bernard Shaw when directing the premiere of Saint Joan (1957), which starred his wife Sybil as Joan of Arc. The play was a huge success. He then courted controversy again by directing the Marxist Ernest Toller's "Man and the Masses". When Great Britain was hit by the General Strike of 1926 over the exploitation of miners, he fully supported the strike and strikers despite the fact that Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald refused to support it. After the General Strike collapsed, the Conservative government implemented anti-strike legislation. In 1934, during the trough of the Great Depression, Casson toured in socialist playwright Miles Malleson's "Six Men of Dorset", about workers who were transported to Australia for trying to create a trade union. The tour focused on industrial cities and areas suffering from high unemployment.
In the late 1930s, he was affiliated with the Old Vic company, and directed Laurence Olivier in "Coriolanus" in 1938 and 'John Gielgud' in "King Lear" in 1940. He called for the Old Vic to serve as the nucleus of a National Theatre, a dream that would come to fruition under Olivier in 1963. From 1941 to '45, he served as president of the British Actors' Equity Association, a union created by the amalgamation of Actors Association and the Stage Guild. Casson had been one of the movers behind the merger.
Sybil Thorndike was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931, and in June 1945, Casson himself was knighted for his contributions to the theatre. He continued to act until a year before his death. He died on May 16, 1969, at the age of 93 in a Nuffield Nursing Home.
