Chained to the kitchen sink drama

We have all adopted the mantra of diversity, but women seem to have been forgotten within this. Female playwrights are rarely afforded the opportunities and status of their male counterparts — why? The industry is inherently sexist and we need to interrogate this.

Playwright Lucinda Coxon, quoted in The Independent recently, speaks of a “subconscious misogyny” and how other industries have tackled this issue with more success. Another experienced female playwright, under commission to Clean Break, speaks of an “unconsciously imposed glass ceiling”. If our women playwrights are experiencing these conditions, how can the theatre industry act to remove these barriers, however subtle and unconscious they are?

First, let’s dispense with the myth of the dearth of women playwrights. There is no dearth — our company alone has 16 playwrights currently under commission and many more waiting in the wings. We have a commitment to produce all of the plays and to work closely with the playwrights to get the best out of them. For us, the critical ingredients are the playwright and her view of the world, the experience and support of an all-women team of artists and theatre-makers, and a unique and challenging commission, and research process bringing the playwright into contact with women offenders who are on the very margins of society. Other theatres and companies need to identify how they can get the best out of their women playwrights.

Another barrier is often the focus of the commission itself. There is still a distrust of women in many spheres and in theatre, I believe, a resistance to giving female artists a platform for their own voice. In limiting their voices, we limit our audiences’ view of the world. Expectations and sometimes desire for women’s work tend towards safe and comfortable territory, which reinforces the still stereotypical view of women in society. There’s the kitchen sink drama, the fractured lyrical poetic lament, the character-led piece, plays that aren’t overtly political, plays that don’t challenge the theatre establishment or audiences in their form or content.

Of course, I’m generalising, as there are indisputable successes that chart new territory. However, more freedom for women to write about what’s important to them through open commissions, with the right support structures and fees and, crucially, a commitment to produce, will bring new narratives on to our stages.

Women playwrights, like men, should be encouraged to challenge and surprise us not just in content, but also the form they choose. Many of the writers we work with find that artistic directors - and critics - struggle with women experimenting with form. Criticisms of work being ‘unmuscular’ collide with work being perceived as ‘too muscular’ and inherently un-feminine, illustrating the perpetuation of contradictions and stereotypes about women’s role and behaviour in society.

Women playwrights are sometimes criticised for playing with structure, subverting the dominant culture with its accepted narratives. Those narratives maintain the status quo - authored by men they are more likely to portray a world where women’s experience (particularly of inequality) is unrep­resented. If the status quo isn’t challenged, if we aren’t open to the world that is portrayed and the questions being asked, we won’t necessarily understand what is being subverted — or the form.

Through theatre, we have the opportunity to effect real social change at a time when it could be argued we are morally - as well as economically - bankrupt. But we cannot do this without untapping the potential women playwrights have for making us look at the world in new ways.

• Picture shows playwright Chloe Moss (with Sigourney Weaver), who won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize earlier his year for her play This Wide Night — commissioned by Clean Break, the play runs at Soho Theatre this autumn