Theatre

There’s a reason why seasons – in which a company presents a succession of plays in a single theatre – are rare in the West End. The risk is that if one play fails, the whole enterprise, unless exceptionally well funded, can come crashing down. Then there’s the fact that the successful productions have only limited runs, bringing in limited profits. But whatever you think about the proliferation of musicals in the West End, leaking into theatres that normally house plays, there’s no doubt that plays are struggling for air these days and it’s time for radical solutions. A sign that theatre owners are looking for new ideas is that this year and next will see two such seasons running in the West End: one opening shortly under Jonathan Kent’s artistic directorship at the Theatre Royal Haymarket; and the other an expansion of the Donmar’s activities into Wyndham’s under Michael Grandage next September. In fact, there are three if you count the RSC’s presentation of Shakespeare’s History plays at the Roundhouse, where it will be hoping to lay to rest the ghost of the company’s lacklustre occupation of the same building, before its restoration, in 2002.
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Both Grandage and Kent are directors with a track record of presenting playwrights in the West End – such as Schiller and Racine – who are expected to dwell in the subsidised sector. In inviting Kent to take on the task of putting together three productions, the Haymarket’s management must surely have had in mind the Almeida’s extraordinary season at the Albery in 1998 under the artistic directorship of Kent and Ian McDiarmid, when it startlingly came up with a programme of Racine’s ‘Phèdre’ and ‘Britannicus’, Gorky’s ‘Vassa’, and David Hare’s ‘Plenty’. The challenging nature of the plays was offset by the high production values and the inclusion of Diana Rigg, Sheila Hancock and Cate Blanchett in the company. The season was a huge critical success but not in the end a financial one, because of the failure of just one of the shows – ‘Vassa’ – to attract audiences.

For the Haymarket, Kent is directing ‘The Country Wife’ with David Haig, Patricia Hodge, and Toby Stephens, ‘The Sea’ a rare comedy by Edward Bond with Eileen Atkins, and the Legrand/Boublil/ Schönberg/Kretzmer musical ‘Marguerite’ with Ruthie Henshall. While ‘The Country Wife’, a raunchy Restoration comedy, should have a fighting chance, as should ‘Marguerite’, there must be a question mark over the ability of ‘The Sea’ to conjure up a tidal wave of popularity, especially since it didn’t even manage to fill the National Theatre with Judi Dench in the cast.

But Kent rallies to its defence: ‘Edward Bond in the West End is not a sentence you expect to hear often, but I happen to think that he is a great, great writer who has been astonishingly side-lined in this country. I know that 1998 was another age but Racine was an unlikely thing to fill houses, and, in a funny way, if we had done it at the Lyttelton I don’t think it would have done so well because it would have been expected. These are plays I want to do and I feel passionate about.’

That passion gave Kent and McDiarmid the courage to present their original season and has inspired Michael Grandage in the planning of his. His motivation was the desire to open up the Donmar’s work to a greater number of people and to give himself and the rest of the company the opportunity to work in a larger space. Grandage hopes that the Donmar’s values, along with its familiar red stripe, can be transported to Wyndham’s and he believes that the combination of low seat prices and clever casting will bring audiences in. It’s certainly true that West End producers have been slow to learn the lessons of the Travelex season at the National Theatre where cheap tickets have had a powerful effect on the box office. The Donmar season includes ‘Ivanov’ with Kenneth Branagh, ‘Twelfth Night’ with Derek Jacobi, ‘Madame de Sade’ (which includes five whopping parts for women yet to be cast), and ‘Hamlet’ with Jude Law who will need to stretch his acting muscles to fill the title role. With those actors on board, Grandage should be able to raise the necessary capital although, because of the low ticket prices and the big casts, the shows’ backers will have to understand that big profits are not in order. His main problem may well be ensuring that the company’s focus doesn’t drift away from the home base.

‘You have to realise,’ says Grandage on his plans to expand, ‘that audiences want to go on a journey. If you lead from the front and allow your own enthusiasm to trickle down, audiences will follow. I don’t think there are any rules.’

‘The Country Wife’ previews at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from Thursday.