At a low ebb once more

Press, 20 July 1987, Page 20

At a low ebb once more

From the “Economist,” London

London’s theatres are having a hard time. Well, some of them are. Seven West End plays have closed in the last month. Several others are holding on only until new shows can be rushed in. Parts of the subsidised theatre are in bad trouble: the Royal Shakespeare Company (R.S.C.) had a disastrous season at London’s Barbican Centre last year, with ticket receipts 50 per cent below budget. Takings have picked up since, but the company has debts of £I.IM. It may have to pull out of the Barbican or Stratford to survive. Yet London’s theatre as a whole is still popular: annual attendances have risen more than 1 million in the last four years, says the Society of West End Theatres. But rising ticket prices have meant fewer regulars — who are happy to see serious or experimental plays. Their place has been taken by first-timers and tourists. The number of American theatregoers in London has risen by 70 per cent since 1982.

Tourists and first-timers prefer to go to shows that have just opened or to comedies, detective plays and popular musicals like “Les Miserables" and “Starlight Express.” They are less wellinformed and adventurous than regulars: they want something they can be pretty sure to enjoy. So serious plays are finding it harder to survive — unless they star big names, who can sell anything. When he announced a new season of plays at the Old Vic earlier this month, Dr Jonathan Miller growled that tourists’ philistine tastes have turned London’s West End into a cultural wasteland. He doubts that any of his own brave selection of plays, by obscure authors like Ostrovsky, Lenz and N. F. Simpson, would ever be seen in the West End. , -. Actually, the Shaftesbury Avenue theatre owners would love to have any of Dr Miller’s productions if they thought they would make money. Their first duty is to keep their theatres

open. The recent closures are a warning against taking too many risks. So is New York’s experience: nearly half Broadway’s 38 theatres are currently “dark.” Things are not as bleak as Dr Miller supposes, although the West End does have to adjust to a new kind of audience. Lovers of serious plays are already surfeited by the subsidised theatres — all of which need to avoid the R.S.C.’s mistake of having a tedious repertory. Several promoters see signs of regeneration, in the West End, and believe that straight plays just need to be geared to contemporary themes. “Serious Money," a play about the City, was a huge success at the Royal Court, in Chelsea, and is soon to transfer to the West End. Critics have been predicting the demise of British theatre for most of this century. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “It seems the theatre is always at a low ebb.” Copyright — The Economist.