National Theatre Year

By RICHARD FINDLATER WHEN in the long, long campaign for 'a HEN I say that 1960 is likely to be a decisive National Theatre, I can be sure of a general re- sponse of loud, incredulous yawns. Most people whO believe that the theatre is something more than a poor relation of the TV industry are con- vinced that the National Theatre is a necessity, and most people are convinced that no British Government will ever build it.

Such pessimism is scarcely surprising. It is half a century since the crusade to give the theatre parity with the other arts was launched in the name of Shakespeare, and through fifty years of finagling, bungling and stonewalling—fifty years of criminally wasted opportunities—the cause has been explained and argued over and over again. with the support of most of the leading artists of the modern theatre. Eleven years ago their victory seemed to be at last in sight, when by common agreement between the parties an Act of Parlia- ment empowered the Treasury to contribute up to a million pounds towards the cost of erecting and equipping a National Theatre on a South Bank site given by the London County Council. Two years later the Queen Mother laid the foundation stone, previously dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, while. fanfares were sounded by the State Trumpeters. But not long afterwards the site was silently moved to the other side of Hungerford Bridge, leaving behind a dis- placed block of granite as the symbol of that 'new Partnership of the nation and the stage somewhat prematurely acclaimed by Her Majesty. Critics of the National Theatre, self-cast as 'realists' in a battle against outmoded and uneconomic idealism, began to exhume all the old arguments which had been neatly buried in the reign of Edward VII. And only a year ago the Financial Secretary to the Treasury—talking as if the Act of 1949 had never been passed—explained that the Govern- ment wanted to be 'satisfied that there was general acceptance of the concept of building a National Theatre.'

That seemed to sound the death knell of the cause. The National Theatre' as a concept, let alone as a building, has always had its enemies out- side Whitehall. (Among the most recent snipers are such oddly coupled guerrillas as Mr. Hobson and Mr. Osborne.) Although the most conclusive argu- ment for the 'Theatre might well be the fact that Most artists have supported it and most managers • have opposed it, if it had to wait for 'general acceptance' before it was built then it would never be built at all. If that, indeed, was the pre- requisite for Treasury action then we should still be waiting for such institutions of the English way of life as free libraries, museums, art galleries, a health service and, not least, salaries for MPs. But the Government—any government—always has an excuse on tap: if it no longer maintains that the country cannot aflord a National Theatre, it can certainly argue that the country would not unanimously vote for one.

Meanwhile the LCC is known to be understand- ably impatient at the prospect of indefinitely freez- ing two valuable sites—not only the one on the South Bank, but also the site in South Kensington for which it was swapped. But the million pounds conditionally promised in the 1949 Act is tied to the South Bank site. If the Government holds out long enough, then the site may no longer be available and the Treasury will be freed for ever from the hideous responsibility of investing money in a mere playhouse when it could be losing a bit more on some really worthwhile national asset like a Blue Streak.

But at last the squalid and apparently inter- minable farce is dragging to an end. In 1960 the National Theatre project—whose postponement, according to Sir Donald Wolfit, has made Britain the 'laughing-stock of Europe'—has .reached the Now-or-Never point. For it seems unlikely that the Government can defer its decision any longer.

First of all; the second part of the Arts Council's report on Housing the Arts (in the English provinces) is expected to be submitted to the Chancellor by the spring. In the first part of its report, prepared at the Chancellor's request, the !lowing the Arts committee—of which I have the honour to be a member—proposed that the building of the main part of the National Theatre in London was an urgent priority, and that it might be carried out 'forthwith" (after revision of the original plans) within the budget of a mil- lion pounds mentioned in the Act of 1949. (One of the main arguments of the Theatre's opponents is the fact that, on the basis of its initial costing, about two million pounds would now ,be,required for its erection.) After this report was submitted last year the Financial Secretary to the Treasury explained that the Government would not make up its mind about any of, the committee's pr posals until it had considered the .sequel on the needs of the English provinces, so that national priorities might be judged in perspective. That judgment should he made this summer.

Meanwhile, there has been considerable pres- sure for immediate effective recognition of the Old Vic as the National Theatre company by its partisans on both sides of the House, who plead for an annual grant of some L150,000. At present the Old Vic receives £20,000 from the Arts Council, supplemented for the next two years by £15,000 p.a. from Whitbreads. and an undisclosed production fee from Southern Television, but I believe that the Old Vic urgently needs more money evert to maintain its current scale of production. Since it completed the Shakespearian cycle and ven- tured into other, oddly chosen fields of drama its fortunes have understandably been erratic (bardolatry is the only certifiably safe bet), and it suffers from the frequent misconception among critics that it already serves as a kind of make-do• and-mend national theatre. This damaging fallacy —judged in that light, some of its productions would be a national disgrace—springs from an agreement made in 1946, when the Vic was at the peak of its Olivier-Richardson glories, between the Governors of the Vic and the Trustees of the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Corn. mittee (which owns the South Kensington site) -Collaborating in a body called the Joint Council for the National Theatre and the Old Vic, the Governors agreed to provide the company and management and the Trustees agreed to provide the building for the National Theatre to be. That agreement has been warmly criticised in recent years. and the Joint Council has often been bitterly attacked for its inaction over the building of the Theatre. But many of the Old Vic's sup- porters have claimed all the time that there is no need to build a new theatre while a per- fectly weatherproof, comfortable playhouse— adequately haloed with tradition—stands four- square in the Waterloo Road, and that argument is being pressed particularly hard at the moment. 'Now,' the Old Vic's lobbyers may well be saying, 'our theatre can't wait any longer. It must have more money,- or it may collapse. Why not settle the National Theatre problem once and for all by giving the Vic a reasonable annual, grant to raise and train a National Theatre company, plus a 'small building subsidy to improve the old play- house?'

That would not only be empirical. It would also be cheap. And, indeed, it has already been pro- posed in part by a Conservative election pamphlet on The Challenge of Leisure. While paying the usual lip-service to the idea of a National Theatre, this pamphlet made clear that it didn't advocate anything so expensive as building one for several years.

Before it is built, we must have a living organisation of actors and actresses form- 'You aren't superstitious, are you?' ing the nucleus of the National Theatre Com- pany. We think such an organisation is best created, in the British way, round something already in being which has proved its worth. This we find in th.: Old Vic.

Expert opinion went to make up this verdict, no doubt, for among the Conservatives associated with the pamphlet was Sir John Russell, who is a Governor and Director of the Old Vic Trust. Although it was not an official party statement, the Conservatives—like the Labour Party—are committed to doing something about the National Theatre, and the Old Vic's claims may appeal to the Government as a cut-price compromise.

There are other reasons for supposing that this something will happen this year. I understand that the Arts Council has prepared a detailed memorandum on the National Theatre at the Government's request, and that the views of such official bodies as the League of Dramatists, Equity and the Theatrical Managers' Association—un- accountably not hitherto brought into consulta- tion by the Joint Council—have been submitted By the time that the Chancellor has digested the • Housing the Arts report on the English provinces, the Government should be ready to announce the future of the National Theatre—and, perhaps, of the Old Vic.

What will it do? 1 believe that there is only one thing it can do: announce that the erection of a National Theatre on the South Bank should go forward, according to the Act of 1949, as soon as the Trustees—NOT the Joint Council—submit a revised scheme for its building and management. Building the National Theatre now is supported, I think, by nearly every professional organisa- tion in the theatre, including the ultra-cautious Theatrical Managers' Association. It can also claim the support of such bodies as the Bow Group, which in its excellent pamphlet on Patronage and the Arts expressly rejected the Old Vic makeshift : It is of immense importance for the National Theatre to be housed in a building of outstand- ing architectural merit which . . . would be a stimulus both to actors and to audiences.

But for those who believe that a National Theatre isn't really necessary, and that its place can be taken now by a richer Old Vic, I make the follow- ing points: 1. None of the million pounds mentioned in the Act of 1949 can be spent on the Waterloo Road or distributed (as a powerful Labour sect believes) among the provincial reps : it is tied to the site on South Bank.

2. What do people mean when they say that `the Old Vic' should become the de facto National Theatre? The company? That changes, with the policy and the production style, from season to season. There is, in fact, only one element of continuity in the aesthetic achievement of the Vic : its name, and the plays of Shakespeare. Appoint- ing the Old Vic to hatch a National Theatre means relying on the wisdom of Mr. Michael Benthall or his successor, Mr. Norman Millar (who had no theatrical experience before becom- ing Administrator), and a colony of Governors whose only men of the theatre are Sir Bronson Albery and the dramatic critic of the Observer.

3. How can a National Theatre Company be contractually tied to one commercial television group, which insists on complete 'exclusivity'— that is, the Company cannot be televised by any other group? That is the current commitment of the Old Vic to Southern Television.

4. The need for keeping alive our great theatrical heritage, eliminating the appalling waste of talent and setting exemplary standards in the theatre arts is more imperatively urgent than ever before, as the physical radius of the theatre steadily contracts year by year. But these stan- dards cannot be set in a playhouse so relatively inadequate as the Old Vic, however patched-up.

5. If you follow the empiricists' argument that a National Theatre Company should first be created 'round something already in being which has proved its worth,' then surely the rightful claimant should not be the Old Vic, but the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on- Avon? Since the war it has built up an inter- national reputation which has dimmed the Old Vic's name; most of our leading actors, directors and designers have worked there, more frequently and fruitfully on the whole than at the Vic; it is the best-equipped theatre in the country, serviced as it is by a permanent backstage organisation with no counterpart in London; it is launching (if all goes well) a London branch which will in effect fulfil many of the functions of a stop-gap National Theatre Company; and it has not needed, up till now, one penny of State aid! 6. If the erection of a National Theatre is postponed much longer—and postponement was implied by both Labour and Conservative elec- tion statements—the South Bank site may be lost. The LCC has just pressed openly for a Cabinet decision.. Where else in Central London, then, could a free site be found? This is the 19,st chance to build a National Theatre : the det. 'vle is not far off.

7. People who believe that Britain cannot afford a National Theatre should consider that its main . part could be built now for what we spend in one month on a rocket range, for a fOrtieth part of the fortune squandered on the Brabazon. Part of the money is.-potentially on tap in the £750,000 set aside for cultural purposes in the Television Act of 1954, which could now—as our leading players have suggested—be diverted to the South Bank site, `so that Great Britain may be put on an equal footing in this respect with other countries.'

But wherever the cash comes from, we cannot afford NOT to build a National Theatre. Now.