The National Theatre Presents: A Night I Care to Never Remember

15Aug09

Edgy.

I witnessed a crime last night. The culprit? The National Theatre in London. The crime? A heinous act of fraud and open thievery. Using taxpayers’ money, they produced and marketed, with colorful, flashy billboards around town, something promising to be entertaining. In reality?  …I walked out at the interval. Now, I want to assure anyone reading this – I have never, ever in my life walked out of a show. I did a mental showreel in my head of all shows I can remember seeing, and I can confidently say I have never walked out – not even at my half-cousin’s christmas pageant when he played a goat. And to be honest, it wasn’t the absolute worst theatre experience of my life, I have seen worse come out the other end of a well meaning theatre ensemble project aimed at ‘education.’ But the true horror, what makes this the final straw that sends me out without so much as a mid-show ice cream tub, is the audacity of a publicly funded, emblematic institution producing something so amateur and pathetic. Not only does this constitute a misappropriation of public funds in my mind, but it damages the state of theatre. Simply put, when the standard by which something is measured is diminished, so does the entire field, even if by perception, diminish. For instance, to illustrate my point, last night there was an entire class of American students in attendance. It was clear (because you can tell) that this would be, for many of them, their first taste of professional theatre. And with that show being their sole exposure, I am fairly certain that this will also be their last venture to theatreland. And it’s not their fault. The National Theatre of a country is rightly perceived, by most, as the representative of the potential and merit of that nation’s theatrical artists. In simplest terms, it is their vested responsibility to produce theatre that, at its most simple, tells a story well. I am not even asking that it aim for greater artistic horizons or new heights of spoken word – just that it simply not suck.

Rachel is an expatriate (who lives in London), a writer, an actor, and a director... and she works for a fancy film company. Yes, yes. That means she's a "Renaissance Woman."

In trying to justify the National’s decision to take on this show, I happened upon not only the likely story behind the production, but a case perfect example of a growing symptom in Theatres with Means both in this country and back home in the States. Hanif Kureishi is a well-known, well-respected author of previous darlings ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ and ‘Mother,’ as well as countless novels. He predominately writes stories set either in the Indian subcontinent, or in the immigrant story of Pakistanis in Britain. He recently published and won many prizes for his novel Black Album. I am an artistic director at the National Theatre. I see a man of clout, carrying his own press interest, writing an ‘award-winning’ book about ‘edgy’ immigrant youths in ‘uncertain and even edgier’ times in ‘edgy’ London, and I could commission a script from the writer himself, get a bunch of young, ‘edgy’ Indian or Pakistani actors and BADA BING, front cover of the Culture section in the Times and maybe even a transfer for Brooklyn Academy of Music. Edgy. But, you see, this is when a business mind mars art. This was the brainchild of someone seeing the ingredients for what SHOULD be great, without first considering what about this story makes it suitable for the stage. I contend that an artistic mind would have known better, and would have pulled the plug if he or she had doubts before knowingly taking money from prospective audience members. But like most theatres, the National has too many businessman making the decisions – the Roundabout must have  a running flow chart of how much certain stars, when cast, could potentially make the company. And as a result, the art suffers. The standard by which we measure is lowered, and the National stops representing the possibility of the theatrical community, and starts representing the working business plan dreamed up by the Chairmen of the Board. Yes, the show was bad, but the worst part is that no one up in the turret of this theatrical insitution seemed to care, or have the sense of artistic integrity to not want it to represent them and thus pull it for further development. No, as I remember, they pushed to add more seats to each show to sell more tickets before press night. Meeting sales projections over cultural obligations, priceless.

Addendum: That being said, I just went to see the National’s version of All’s Well That Ends Well. It was truly a work of innovation and reinvention. Who knew such a difficult play could be so light? And work well as a storybook fairytale come to life? I might just keep my membership at the Nash after all…

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Tags: Acting, Bad Night, Cut Myself, Drama School, London, Playwrights, Rachel, Relevance, Review, Revisionist, So Help Me God, The National, Theater, West End