Restrict The Audience, Lose More Money
Everyone has rightly said how superb is Declan Donnellan’s production of Three Sisters in Russian at the Barbican (mind you, when did you last see a bad production of Three Sisters? They just don’t happen). What nobody seems to have commented on is the barmy reconfiguration of the the theatre so that only about a third of the potential Barbican audience can see the show. Artistic director Graham Sheffield ruefully admits that in losing two thirds of his capacity he had no choice because Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod insisted on building the “environmental” temporary auditorium over the existing one.
As in their production of The Changeling last year (which really was brilliant, and yes, I’ve seen loads of terrible productions of that play) great black acres of unused space surround the actors and the design. I suspect Cheek by Jowl simply don’t know how to design in big theatres; well, they do, obviously, as they’ve worked in big opera houses and the Bolshoi Ballet, but their design language is always, shall we say, basic. Three Sisters is rather boringly designed with photographic projections and loads of grey chairs, though the dinner table placed at right angles to the audience is a masterstroke. But I reckon it’s both cowardly and sinful to reduce your capacity for no real reason. The new seating has segmented sections to the sides, creating divisions between the audience before the show has even begun. At least the seating is more comfortable than last year’s.
At a time when theatre directors talk glibly about reaching out to new audiences, how bizarre is it that they keep reducing their seating capacities? Same thing at the Royal Court, where the main house has been blocked out and turned into a claustrophobic tube train carriage, with room for about 100 people to see Mike Bartlett’s riveting My Child. I wonder what the accountants in the Barbican and Court have to say about all this loss of revenue. No commercial management would consider such profligacy for a second. Of course the counter-argument is always one of artistic integrity. But I honestly don’t see how Three Sisters or My Child is enhanced, or justified, in excluding so many patrons. The Russian actors would easily have carried the full Barbican auditorium. And there’s no logic, anyway, in the setting of the Bartlett play in a tube train.
My favourite smallest theatre was the sidecar on a motorbike driven by a wacky fringe practitioner called Marcel years ago. The show was announced at the Royal Court. The bike drew up outside and Marcel selected two critics from the first night crowd on the steps. I think the lucky two were Charles Lewsen of The Times and Jeremy Kingston, then of Punch. In they climbed. Off roared Marcel. That was the last we saw of bike, critics, Marcel and indeed that night’s entertainment. The show didn’t run for long and never made any money.