Christopher Hampton

Early life and theatrical debut

Hampton was born in Faial, Azores, to British parents Dorothy Patience (née Herrington) and Bernard Patrick Hampton, a marine telecommunications engineer for Cable & Wireless. His father's job led the family to settle in Aden, Yemen, and Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt, and later in Hong Kong and Zanzibar. During the Suez Crisis in 1956, the family had to flee Egypt under cover of darkness, leaving their possessions behind.

After a prep school at Reigate in Surrey, Hampton attended the independent boarding school Lancing College near the village of Lancing in West Sussex at the age of 13. There he won house colours for boxing and distinguished himself as a sergeant in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF). Among his contemporaries at Lancing was David Hare, later also a dramatist; poet Harry Guest was a teacher.

From 1964, Hampton read German and French at New College, Oxford, as a Sacher Scholar. He graduated with a starred First Class Degree in 1968.

Hampton became involved in the theatre while at Oxford University. The Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) performed his original play When Did You Last See My Mother?, about adolescent homosexuality. He drew from his own experiences at Lancing. Hampton sent the work to the play agent Peggy Ramsay, who interested William Gaskill in it. The play was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and soon transferred to the Comedy Theatre; in 1966, Hampton was the youngest writer in the modern era to have a play performed in the West End. Hampton's work on screenplays for the cinema also began around this time. He adapted this play for Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes, but a film version was never made.

Stage plays and other works

From 1968 to 1970, Hampton worked as the Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, and also as the company's literary manager. He continued to write plays: Total Eclipse, about the French poets and lovers Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, was first performed in September 1968 at the Royal Court, but it received mixed reviews; in the New Statesman, Philip French wrote of "...a most intelligent dramatic treatment of the relationship between Rimblaud and Verlaine... a compelling evening in the theatre."

The Philanthropist (1970) is set in an English university town and was influenced by Molière's The Misanthrope. The Royal Court delayed a staging for two years because of an uncertainty over its prospects, but their production was one of the Royal Court's more successful works up to that point. The production transferred to the Mayfair Theatre in London's West End and ran for nearly four years, winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Comedy. It reached Broadway in New York City in 1971.

His agent told him after this success: "You've got a choice: you can write the same play over and over for the next 30 years" or, alternatively, "you can decide to do something completely different every time". He told her that he was writing a play about the "extermination of the Brazilian Indians in the 1960s". Savages, set during the period of the military government and derived from an article "Genocide in Brazil" by Norman Lewis, was first performed in 1973. His first produced film adaptation, of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973), was directed by Patrick Garland, and stars Anthony Hopkins and Claire Bloom.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1976.

A sojourn in Hollywood led to an unproduced film adaptation of Marlowe's play Edward II and the original script for Carrington. This period also inspired his play Tales from Hollywood (1982). This is a somewhat fictionalised account of exiled European writers living in the United States during the Second World War. (The lead character is based on Ödön von Horváth, who died in Paris in 1938). The play also explores the different philosophies of Horváth and the German playwright Bertolt Brecht (who lived in the United States in the 1940s). Hampton told The Guardian critic Michael Billington in 2007: "I lean towards the liberal writer, Horvath, rather than the revolutionary Brecht. I suppose I'm working out some internal conflict". The play was commissioned by the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles; the Group first performed it in 1982. The play has been adapted in different versions for British and Polish television.

Later works

Hampton won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his screen adaptation of his play Dangerous Liaisons (1988), directed by Stephen Frears and starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, and Michelle Pfeiffer. He worked on Carrington (1995) for 18 years, writing multiple drafts. The play explores the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey. Hampton went on to direct the feature film Carrington, starring Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to literature.

Hampton both wrote and directed Imagining Argentina (2003), his adaptation of the 1987 novel by Lawrence Thornton. It explores society during the military dictatorship of Leopoldo Galtieri, when the government conducted a Dirty War against opponents, killing many in "forced disappearances". It starred Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson. According to Hampton, this period of Argentinian history had not inspired a dramatic work before. "I decided to do something which it would be difficult to finance at a time when, for once, I was bombarded with offers. In 2007, Hampton was nominated for a second Academy Award for his screenplay and adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, directed by Joe Wright and starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, and Saoirse Ronan.

Since the 1990s, Hampton has created the English translations of the works of French dramatists Yasmina Reza and Florian Zeller. Reza's Art ran for eight years in the West End, and was also produced in the United States. Hampton translated Reza's God of Carnage, which was the third-longest running Broadway play in the 2000s, playing 24 premieres and 452 regular performances. God of Carnage garnered six Tony nominations and three wins in 2009. God of Carnage actors James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden, joined Philip Glass, Phillip Noyce and a host of other artists in a short documentary celebrating their Tony Award success and Mr. Hampton's 50 published plays and screenplays.

Hampton's translation into English of Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay's Austrian musical Rebecca, based on Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, was supposed to premiere on Broadway in 2012, directed by Francesca Zambello and Michael Blakemore. The production did not open, with the producers, Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza, relinquishing the rights.

Credits

Plays

1964 – When Did You Last See My Mother?

1967 – Total Eclipse

1969 – The Philanthropist

1973 – Savages

1975 – Treats

1982 – Tales From Hollywood

1991 – White Chameleon

1994 – Alice's Adventures Under Ground

2002 – The Talking Cure

2012 – Appomattox

2019 – A German Life

Musicals (book and lyrics)

1993 – Sunset Boulevard with Don Black (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber)

2001 – Dracula, the Musical with Don Black (music by Frank Wildhorn)

2012 – Rebecca (translated from German) (music by Sylvester Levay, original lyrics by Michael Kunze)

2013 – Stephen Ward the Musical with Don Black (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber)

Adaptations

1982 – The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. from the novella by George Steiner

1983 – Tartuffe by Molière

1985 – Les Liaisons Dangereuses from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos for the Royal Shakespeare Company

1993 – Sunset Boulevard for Andrew Lloyd Webber (book for the musical, based on the Billy Wilder film)

2001 – Dracula, the Musical for Frank Wildhorn

2006 – Embers from the novel by Sándor Márai

2009 – The Age of the Fish (in German Jugend ohne Gott) from the novel by Ödön von Horváth

2024 - Visit from an Unknown Woman

Translations

The Seagull

Uncle Vanya

Hedda Gabler

Don Juan by Molière

1973 – A Doll's House

1977 – Tales from the Vienna Woods, by Ödön von Horváth

1978 – Don Juan Comes Back from the War, by Ödön von Horváth

1989 – Faith, Hope and Charity, by Ödön von Horváth

1996 – 'Art' by Yasmina Reza

1998 – An Enemy of the People

2000 – Conversations After a Burial by Yasmina Reza

2001 – Life x 3 by Yasmina Reza

2008 – God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza

2009 – Judgement Day, by Ödön von Horváth

2010 – Rebecca (musical) by Michael Kunze

2014 – The Father by Florian Zeller

2015 – The Mother by Florian Zeller

2016 – The Truth by Florian Zeller

2017 – The Lie by Florian Zeller

2017 – Christmas Eve by Daniel Kehlmann

2018 – The Height of the Storm by Florian Zeller

2019 – The Son by Florian Zeller

Librettos

2005 – Waiting for the Barbarians, music by Philip Glass

2007 – Appomattox, music by Philip Glass

2014 – The Trial, music by Philip Glass