Category: theatre

“This spring there is an exceptional crop of new work by living writers including David Mamet, Stephen Adly Guirgis (who wrote Jesus Hopped the A Train) and Stephen Belber. Watching these plays, it becomes clear that American dramatists are obsessed by the failure of existing legal, religious and political systems to deal with the rising tide of prejudice. They suggest you can actually smell hatred in the air.”

The Royal Shakespeare Company has a new temporary home. “Those who have seen images of it might call it a large, rusty, flat-roofed shed resembling a giant container that has fallen off a cargo ship steaming up the Avon in Warwickshire. The theatre, a sonnet’s throw from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon, is a key element in plans for a reshaping of the company’s principal performance space.”

A number of classic dramas are coming to Broadway this spring. But there is a searth of new plays. “The high cost of mounting a play in a theater seating 500 or more people means that unknown plays are often deemed too risky, even if their authors are big names.”

British culture has become ridiculously hypersensitive, says Mark Lawson, and the UK’s theatre scene is becoming rapidly less relevant as self-censorship and a desire to please everyone become the norm. The religious-based campaign against the national tour of the Jerry Springer opera is only the latest example of the war being waged against creative expression. Worse, “while attempted censorship in the 1970s made artists more determined to speak out, there’s a risk in this mind-your-language climate of subjects becoming no-go areas for the arts.”

A bitter power struggle at Santa Barbara’s only Equity theatre company has led to the formation of a rival troupe with impressive Los Angeles connections…

“It’s no secret women buy more theater tickets than men. During the 2003-04 season, 63 percent of the Broadway audience was female,” but historically, Broadway hasn’t made many special attempts to tailor its productions to the specific interests of women. That’s starting to change, though, as adolescent girls become an increasingly devoted audience, and women continue to ramp up their buying power as a whole.

A bill in the New York State legislature would provide for cheaper electricity for Broadway theatres. “It’s hard to know what the savings would be because it’s based on usage. So up-to-date theatres’ energy costs would be less than those of older theatres. The money involved across the board would be substantial. We don’t do anything for Broadway enterprises the way we do for professional sports. It’s nutty. It matters much more for New York that we have a thriving Broadway theatre season than a baseball or football team. But we’ve never been able to bridge that gap. The sports teams get cheaper power.”

Though plans to bring Jerry Springer the Opera to Broadway have been delayed, producers still intend to bring the show. “While the widely covered but small scale religious protests in the UK surrounding Jerry Springer—The Opera have not been helpful in the completion of raising the capital for the Broadway production, they have by no means brought an end to our New York plans. We are looking to complete the finance process over the next six months and are planning a Broadway opening in the first half of 2006.”

Playwright Harold Pinter says he’s giving up writing plays. “I think I’ve stopped writing plays now, but I haven’t stopped writing poems. I think I’ve written 29 plays. I think it’s enough for me. I think I’ve found other forms now.”

Broadway seasons tend to have an overall feel to them, a theme through which various disparate productions can be linked. This season, the common thread seems to be men behaving like perfect louts. “A look around town suggests that male dysfunction is providing much of the dramatic grist in the current season. By any fair count, there are a lot more than 12 angry men working the stages of Manhattan.”