Who’s coming out to play?
This is my last Critical Comment, so I suppose I should sound a valedictory note – perhaps a nostalgic ramble through the delights of the last two or three years. Instead I’d like to look to the future. What kind of theatre can we expect as economic recession bites? Will people shun the expense of a night out, retreat to their domestic screens and venture forth only for big, spectacular musicals? That’s what many people predict. But all the evidence points the opposite way: what is staggering right now is the palpable hunger for … plays!
I was reminded of this by a colleague who’d skipped a number of first nights and had been going to theatre with parties of American students. What amazed her was that all the theatres they’d been to were packed to the rafters. Alan Bennett’s Enjoy at the Gielgud nightly sends large audiences into a state of delirium. It’s the same story with Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane at Trafalgar Studios. I gather that A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York’s is an equally hot ticket and that Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa is drawing crowds to the Old Vic. And, at a Sunday-night celebration of the work of Simon Gray, I bumped into an actress friend who is currently in Peter Flannery’s Burnt by the Sun at the National. “How’s it doing?” I nervously asked, knowing that the advance for a play based on a little-known Russian film was not that great. “Ever since the reviews came out,” she said, “we’ve been absolutely packed.”
So what’s going on? I’d say two things of great significance. One is a demolition of the trendy dogma that drama is a dying form – the notion that young audiences, in particular, crave only interactive shows that take them on a visual and physical spectacle. I’ve long argued that plays have the capacity to make an emotional and intellectual impact that you don’t find in any other form of theatre. Looking round the current scene, I’m pleased to find that view confirmed.
What’s also obvious is that, in times of anxious cost-counting, audiences want quality rather than mindless escape: the plays that are doing well are all of the highest calibre. I’d expect the pattern to be repeated through the summer. There seems little reason to doubt that the McKellen-Stewart Godot, Helen Mirren in Phèdre and Jude Law in Hamlet will cause box office stampedes. “Ah,” you may say, “that just proves audiences love seeing stars.” But I’d also lay a small wager on a number of other plays coming up trumps. Priestley’s Time and the Conways at the National will doubtless cause a stir because it’s directed by Rupert Goold. But I’ll be astonished if Michael Frayn’s Alphabetical Order, set in a newspaper cuttings library, isn’t regarded as an important rediscovery. And my tip for the sleeper of the summer is Schiller’s Wallenstein at Chichester’s Minerva. This is one of the great political plays of all time and, providing it’s decently done, could well repeat the popular success of Don Carlos.
Obviously we need more good brand-new plays: preferably ones less cramped by the current 70-minute format. We also need to range more widely over the classic past. I can think of a whole list of plays long overdue for revival: Congreve’s Love for Love, Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Shaw’s Too True to Be Good. I hear there may be a relatively rare Shaw coming from Peter Hall at Bath this summer, but I still feel the National should be doing more than it does to keep the classic tradition alive.
That, however, is a minor cavil at a time when the hunger for drama is clearly as strong as ever. The lesson of the recession is that the theatre has to be bold, brave and fearless in satisfying the public need.