The Portable Theatre Company were a group of thespian

Thespian

Thespian may refer to:* An actor * A citizen of the ancient Greek city of Thespiae* A member of the International Thespian Society, an honor society that promotes excellence in high school theater...

s in the late '60s and early '70s who meant to open the eyes of the British people to what was wrong in their contemporary world.

Origins

David Hare, a founder of the troupe comments on the creation of the group. He says, "We thought, wrongly, as it turned out, that England was in a state of apocalyptic crisis. And we didn't believe that contemporary theatre dealt with that crisis. We felt that plays about psychology were simply irrelevant to what we took to be our country's terminal decline. We had lost faith in its institutions, we thought that Britain's assumption of a non-existent world role was ludicrous, and we also thought that its economic vitality was so sapped that it wouldn't last long. So we wanted to bundle into a van and go round the country performing short, nasty little plays which would alert an otherwise dormant population to this news." It was in this troupe that Hare wrote his first play, because someone had failed to deliver a script to them. He cites it as invaluable experience, because he was able to sit with the audience and learn how they received his ideas.