MOSTLY SIEVES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 28, 2 August 1923, Page 11

MOSTLY SIEVES

LONDON THEATRES LOS-

ING MONEY

COST OF PRODUCTION TOO HIGH

The British theatre is in a very bad I way. declares the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Age." So much is admitted by everyone connected with the theatre. The theatrical managers put the blame on the public for staying away from .the theatre, and in a less degree on the British playwrights for not being able to supply them with plays that will attract the public. The critics of the theatre—including some of the leading playwrights—declare that the present deplorable state of affairs is due to the fact that the theatre hag become commercialised, that the business of producing plays or, more correctly, the business of producing theatrical entertainment, has fallen into the hands of business men who know nothing about the theatre, who care nothing about the British drama ac an expression of national life, who are not ashamed of debasing public taste, and have no higher ambition than to make money out of the theatre. The business man camb into the theatrical business in London during the war, because he discovered there was money in it. These were the days when there was a constant stream of pleasureseekers, with money to spend, passing through London. For the most part the stream was made up. of soldiers on leave from France and their women relatives and lady friends. The soldiers spent their money freely in enjoying themselves in London, because they wanted to forget, while they could, all about the war. They preferred light forms of theatrical entertainment, such as revues, musical comedies, aud farces, and. for the most part they avoided problem plays and serious drama pi every sort. In a comparatively brief time, serious drama was driven out of West End theatres, and distinguished dramatists like Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, and Sir Arthur Pinero and others could not get their plays produced there. Serious drama had to seek refuge in the small theatres in the "high brow" suburbs such ac Hampetead and Kensington.

During the war, and subsequently while demobilisation was in progress and wor gratuities were being spent by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, it was inir possible to lose money in producing theatrical entertainment in the West End except on intellectual drama. Everything else paid, because the pleasuveseekmg public was so largo, and therefore trie business man came into the theatrical business. "Trie business men competed with one another for the leases of the theatres, and this competition forced up the rents of West End theatres by as much as 300 and 400 per cent. Hut times have changed. Most of the West End theatres are now losing money. The cost of theatrical production, including rent, remains high, but the public has ceased to patronise the theatre to a paying extent. The floating population of pleasure-seekers, which reached such phenomenal figures during the war, has dwindled to the modest dimensions provided by the ordinary tourist traffic which London always attracts during the spring and summer. The cost of running an average-sized theatre in the West End is put down at £1300 a week. If th e entertainment provided is a revue or musical comedy the weekly expenses will be in the neighbourhood of £2000. The theatres must be tilled to .their full capacity at every performance in the week if they are to'make a profit. But at present few of the West End theatres are paying expenses. "The theatrical world of London consists of forty theatres, mostly sieves," is the way in which the situation jias been itnnmarised.

The theatrical-managers attribute the deplorable state of the theatre at the present time to many things. They blape the costs of production, which remain high. Everyone in the theatres, from the doorkeepers and stage carpenters to the musicians and actors, are paid at a higher rate than before the war.^ Everything required in the production of a play costs more than it did in 1914. The. theatrical managers cannot pass on any share of the extra cost of production by increasing the charges for admission, because the public stays away, although the prices of admission are on the pre-war scale, except for the addition of the entertainment tax, which the Government imposed during the war. The recent efforts of the theatrical managers to get the Government to remit the entertainment tax have failed. If the tax were remitted the theatrical managers would not allow theatre patrons to benefit, but would put the tax to the credit of the box office receipts, in the hope of transferring a debit balance into a credit.

The theatrical managers also complain of the popularity of dancing—a popularity which now extends beyond the winter into the spring and summer. The high-class hotels and restaurants in the West Eud are profiting by the dancine craze, and in order to persuade the dinerg to stay and dance they provide the best music and splendid large floors. An-' other complaint of the theatrical managers is- that the introduction of summer time each year helps to keep the theatres empty for five months of the year. The addition of an extra hour of dayjight keeps peopla out of doors in fine weather, playing tennis, golf, or boating on the river, long after the theatres have opened. The English BBbhc cannot be induced to go to the theatre m daylight, especially if the weather is warm. And in the winter the Englishman prefers to sit by. his fireside, instead of going out to the theatre in the cold ..,<] wet. Theatrical managers complain that the English people have not the theatre habit like other nations. In some countries, such as GerrlT Mnd *h« E»km States of Ame- :& r? hi : 6 IS parfc of the national life of the people, but it is not So man! lon* IV 'f tUa * the En^t manis fond of his home, and is reluctant to go out of it at night, is one of the reasons why the theatrical managers, the actors, musicians, singers, and others connected with" the business of providing entertainment are opposing thi &^£ ha.^rLsS" s Play r operas concerts, and other forms of entertajument he will be stillTss it

welcome the crisis as a matter for congratulation, since it will probably drive the business man out of the theatrical business, and thereby make room for the return of those interested in the theatre and in the drama, as part of the intellectual life of England. The business man cams into the theatrical business when lie found there was money in it; he is not likely to remain in it if the balancesheet continues to show a big debit But a popular theatrical success in a ATest End theatre' means big money even in these clays, though there ;ire so feu- successes in h .year, in proportion tv the number of failures, that theatrical production in tho West End has become a gamble instead-.of a business.

Nevertheless, there still seems to be Plenty of money available for a gamble m which the profits arc big, for no ■sooner is a play at a, West.End theatre withdrawn because of the lack of public support than another one takes its place. The business men have adopted the business policy of importing plays which have been successful in other countries. Yet a number of these successes have not been successful in London. It is not every success that will stand transplanting to another country. At the present time nearly a third of the entertainments provided in the West End have been' imported. There are two adaptations of French plays, the Italian marionettes, two plays from Prague, and half-a-dozen from America. In these days the London theatrical manager is getting a lot of gratuitous advice regarding the way he ought to run his business. He is being told that the English public is a play-going public, but that the reason it stays away from the theatre is that it doesn't want the kind of theatrical entertainment that has .been provided. It appears fr<>i one of the most cocksure critics that what the public wants in the theatre is simplicity, not spectacular display. "Catering for a supposed popular craze for spectacle and over-elaborate effect of every, kind—stifling the life of the -stage under a mechanical weight of georgerfms superfluity—the theatrical managers have for years been forcing up competition in mere expense," states Mr. J. L-. Garvin, the editor of the "Observer." "The result is ruinous. As the shrewd Talleyrand suggested, ail exaggeration defeats itself, but that sound remark never applied to anything more pertinently than to the theatrical overdoing of mere display, which, having lost all novelty long since, has become a tedious convention and a weariness to the flesh. In simpler and more sensible days, a play running for 100 nights made a profit. Now there may ba a run of 300 nights, without recouping the expenses of production. From the purely commercial point of view there must'be folly somewhere. The folly is that of mutual imitation upon a preposterous scale. In his heart the theatiiical manager feels that more ought to be done for Shakespeare, and that the neglect of our own magnificent national drama is disgraceful, by comparison with the active reverence of our French neighbours for Moliere and Racine. But in his head he persists in imagining that the British public does not want Shakespeare. What the public does not want, and will not tolerate, is the falsification and smothering of the spirit of Shakespeare by the costly waste and stupidity of over-elabo-rate scenery and ensemble, directly destructive of his imaginative effects. He did not depend upon scenery and full materialised ensemble. He provided in word and movement for the absence of these. The more you spend upon producing Shakespeare with stultifying accessories the more surely you destroy lug magical power of kindling in the mind by word and movement a world more vivid than any accumulation of external spectacle can suggest. There is everlasting _ dramatic life in Shakespeare. There is money, and a mine of it, in Shakespeare—yes, and in the others of the great Elizabethan and Jacobean cycle. But the life and the money will te found to reside in the simplicity of Shakespeare, and not in a method" of prpduction which is merely like jiiakin.sj the frame of a picture twice as l-.voail ,and conspicuous as'the canvas. In the case of old plays, and new ones ulike. it comes to tliis. Massed spei-tstflc <n. deavouring to draw chief attention to itself is static and dead, even in its attempts at movement. True drama is dynamic or nothing. We have to got. back from the modern predominance of tcinic accessories, to the very life of Die acting —to the predominance of the plavtrs and the words. The remedy for "the state of the theatre is the return to drama. Melodrama in the old Drury Lane fashion was better than the modern competition in mere undramatic specticle, resulting, as far as London is concerned, in 40 theatres, mostly sieves • through which money runs like water."

It is obvious that less money would be. lost on theatrical productions if less were spent on spectacular effects. It is also true that many people would prefer Shakespeare's plays produced with the simplicity of the stage for which Shakespeare wrote. But at all times there is only a modern public in London which prefers Shakespeare and intellectual drama to light forms of theatrical entertainments such as musical comedies and revues. The pleasure seekers who come to London in thousands during the spring and summer, and the pleasure seekers who live in London, do not attend the theatre in order to improve their minds, but i n order to ba entertained and amused. The fact that the English public is staying away from the theatres does not mean that tha public taste has turned towards intellectual drama, and that theatrical-mana-gers are lgnorantly standing in their own light by refusing to cater for this improved taste. The present financial distress of the theatre can be explained by the simple fact that times are bad for everyone, and that people have little money to spend on entertainment of any kind. The theatre, in common with every othor "luxury trade," is suffering from the general depression in business 0