Michael Billington wonders if the directors are more interested in gimmicks than the plays’ texts.
Recently, Sir David Hare raised a theatrical storm, bitterly attacking the cult of concept-driven directors whose cavalier treatment of classic texts is ‘beginning to infect British theatre’. Instantly, this produced a set of polarised reactions. On the one hand, a lot of people, many of them young, praised the rise of creative directors; others sighed wistfully for an age in which actors and writers called the shots.
Personally, I think the whole issue needs a more nuanced response. I have some sympathy with Sir David’s argument. I have also noticed how many young British directors seek to imitate their continental counterparts by treating texts as a springboard for their own fevered imagination. At the same time, the British theatre in my lifetime has benefited hugely from the vision of pioneering directors such as Joan littlewood, Peter Brook and tyrone Guthrie. Between them, they changed our notion of what a play could be, revitalised classic texts and even reconfigured our stages: the crucible in Sheffield and the chichester Festival theatre both owe a big debt to Guthrie’s tireless campaign against the proscenium arch.
Where does that leave us today? My own view is that you have to view each production on its merits rather than taking a hard dogmatic line. take the work of the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who is a god to some and a devil to others. I know that his production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler—running at the national until March 21—has almost given some people a seizure, yet I thought his modern-dress production, with Ruth Wilson’s Hedda roaming the stage clad in what I dubbed a Freudian slip, caught perfectly the heroine’s demonism, despair and helpless entrapment in a loveless marriage.
Esta historia es de la edición February 15 2017 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición February 15 2017 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds