Hall together at the Rose
Sir Peter Hall was looking almost like his old self at the Rose Theatre press conference to announce his hand-over to Stephen Unwin. He’s shrunk a bit, and he’s lost a kidney — I think he’s been a lot less well than he’s been giving out – but otherwise he’s also lost the recent appearance of a giant gnarled old sea lion looking for a shoal of fish to devour.
He invited the journalists to follow him onto the stage of the Rose; there’s a slight rake now which will “present” the actor more easily to the audience and there’s no disputing the extraordinary intimacy now achieved without losing the epic proportions.
Unwin claimed that, as about twenty per cent of the acting profession lived nearby, there would always be a queue of South London’s finest at the casting sessions. This reminded me of Robert Atkins declaring on the opening night of the Regent’s Park Theatre, as he indicated the greensward of the acting area: “Every sod on this stage comes from Richmond.”
You can buy a gallery seat for £5, or sit on a cushion for £7. The only trouble is that the venue is remaining a touring house indefinitely: Unwin and Hall (who stays on as emeritus director) need to find £600,000 a year to kickstart their in-house producing plans and activate the association with Kingston University next door, where Sir Peter is chancellor.
A local journalist asked if they might not be duplicating the theatre options for a catchment area with the Richmond Theatre only ten miles away. Would the same audience want to visit both places?
Unwin suggested that, while he always enjoyed touring to Richmond, the general perception was of a rather stuffy grand old theatre on the green; this place was more, well, relaxed and democratic.
Sir Peter concurred discreetly but added that the more theatres there were, the merrier everyone should be. After all, audience surveys in his time at the National Theatre indicated that the biggest section of the regular audience came from this well-heeled part of south of the river, just twenty minutes’ train ride from Waterloo.
None of this reassurance disguised the overriding impression that, all the same, the whole Kingston Rose project was precariously balanced between the achievement of a fine theatre and the prospects of a real contribution to the theatre ecology.
Hall’s reminder that the RSC he founded in 1960 was driven by the phiolosophy that “If we did the work, they [the government] would have to support us” was not all that comforting. Even Sir Peter himself admitted that such derring-do in the current climate would be madness; “We are in very dangerous water.”
And unless he and Unwin raise the money, they won’t be able to pursue their policies. He absolutely could envisage the place as a community centre, a children’s theatre, a home for the amateurs; and executive director David Fletcher mentioned the potential for conferences not once but twice. Oh dear, oh dear….I do hope they reach their targets, and quickly, too.
