Last night’s opening of the revival of David Storey’s In Celebration at the Duke of York’s brought the number of commercially produced plays currently running in the West End to ten. Yep, ten. And that includes The Mousetrap and The Woman in Black, as well as The 39 Steps (which looks like it is going to follow in The Woman in Black’s footsteps, so to speak), as well as the return of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), back at the Arts. And the stock of what remains is, like In Celebration, predominantly revivals of old classics – Maugham’s The Letter, Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight and the farce Boeing Boeing. So the new plays can be counted on two fingers: Roger Crane’s The Last Confession (from Chichester to the Haymarket) and the Norwegian comedy Elling (from the Bush to the Trafalgar Studios).
Of course, it doesn’t seem as dire as all that, what with the subsidised likes of the National, Royal Court and Donmar Warehouse adding to the West End mix, as well as the little second studio at the Trafalgar Studios also offering a platform for new work (Mojo Mickybo this week, to be followed next week by the arrival of The Agent), but with just 100 seats, that’s just a fringe theatre that happens to be in the West End. And with more and more of what used to be playhouses now given over to musicals, from the Lyric (Cabaret) and Queen’s (Les Mis) on Shaftesbury Avenue to the Garrick (soon to house Bad Girls – the Musical) and even the smallest houses like the New Ambassadors (Little Shop of Horrors) and soon the Duchess (the return of Buddy), plays are being squeezed out on every corner.
Where will it end? We only need to look across the Atlantic to discover where: there are currently just four plays running on Broadway, all nearing the end of limited runs, and once the last of them, The Year of Magical Thinking, closes on August 25 (with Deuce, Frost/Nixon and the Roundabout revival of Old Acquaintance all departing the previous week on August 19), there will be precisely none until things get going again in September when Roundabout stage revivals of Shaw’s Pygmalion (at the American Airlines Theatre) and Terrence McNally’s The Ritz (at Studio 54).
The writing is now on the wall for us, as well: As Charles Spencer wrote in a review earlier this month, “Enjoy The Last Confession while you can. It could be one of the last of its kind…. It’s popular drama at its best, asking tough questions about faith and organised religion, while also exploring conspiracy theories about the possible murder of a truly holy man….” But then he wonders, “Will it prosper? In almost 30 years of covering the West End, I can’t remember the straight play being in a more parlous state. Audiences seem to be losing their appetite for drama, comedy and thrillers, and heading to musicals instead. And producers seem all too happy to encourage them to do so.” He uses the rest of his review to ponder this state of affairs – and concludes, “Unless producers start showing more guts, enterprise and imagination, I fear the West End could become little more than one vast neon-lit jukebox.”
I wholeheartedly agree with the above, but I think it is wrong to dismiss the Trafalgar Studios 2 as 'just a fringe theatre that happens to be in the West End'. We opened The Agent on the fringe at the Old Red Lion in March, but the offer of appearing at the Trafalgar Studios changed the whole gear of our production, and we now have the potential to reach audiences we would never have dreamt of before. The limited number of seats just means that putting a show on in the West End is within reach for a production like The Agent, which cries out for an intimate venue, but also (we think) deserves to be shown in the heart of London. For that Ambassadors should be congratulated; I just wish that there were more intimate venues like this with programmers who are not afraid of showing new writing. If the only chance of getting The Agent into West End would have been one of the large venues, I too would have been tempted to change it into a musical. 'Rejection Blues' and 'Hopelessly Devoted To Proper Representation' anyone?
I'm fortunate that The Icarus Theatre Collective have taken up my debut play "Johnson's Mistake" for an October professional rehearsed reading with a view to a 2008 fringe run. Be fantastic to emulate your success from the Red Lion to Trafalgar studios - I wish you every further success, too!
While musicals continue to push plays out, the irony is no matter how hard it is getting a play off the ground, launching a musical is much, much tougher - details of mine are at www.napoleonmusical.webeden.co.uk. If you / anyone knows of the equivalent of Royal Court, Soho Theatre, Bush Theatre for musicals, I'd love to know!
I agree with Charles Spencer's comments but they lack some grounding in financial reality. I, too, would welcome new plays and revivals of great works (and the odd completely original musical) but, from what I understand of it, that's not what the commercial theatre seems to be about.
At risk of sounding cynical, it's entirely driven by money: you mount what will sell. If putting on a stage version of a film musical is going to turn into a cash cow then that's what you do. 'Buddy' and 'The Complete Works' are back in town primarily to reap financial rewards - they are safe bets. Are these productions artistically exciting? Not really. Do they make smart business sense? Absolutely. The West End is not a place for risk - the broad audience it attracts is largely averse to that - so I don't think Charles Spencer is quite right in solely blaming the producers.
Thanks for the interesting debate!
Coming back to The Agent - as a producer (not as a writer) I am also driven what I can sell, but that just happens to be drama, where my heart lies, and the Trafalgar Studios is the perfect place for me - where I don't have to second-guess what the audience might want, but just give them something different they might like. And if we do well, I'm sure the larger West End venues will seriously think about accomodating us. I don't think musical producers just put on musicals because it makes business sense, it's just that that's what they are good at. They seem to have the upper hand at the moment, but hopefully there will be room for both of us. And it's venues like the Trafalgar Studios that give drama a chance, where we don't have to raise a quarter of a million just to get a foot in the door.
(forgive an independent producer but info and a trailer of The Agent is at http://www.pinterandmartin.com.)