A new Sir David Hare play, Gethsemane, about Labour Party funding with Tasmin Greig playing Tessa Jowell. Honestly, you couldn't make it up, could you ? Is there anyone at all out there apart from a few London-based members of the chattering casses who are at all enthused about this ? It is a pity that Nicholas Hytner seems to be as in thrall to Sir David Hare as Richard Eyre was (but at least neither allowed him to direct the worst production of King Lear anyone has ever seen - but only because Peter Hall had already made that gigantic mistake).

What next ? A play about some vain old Establishment playwright, sustained almost entirely by public funds, who sucked up to Tony Blair, compromised his much vaunted Socialist principles to accept a Knighthood, and then got all upset when Blair was somehow ungrateful enough not to act on every single piece of advice he spouted ? All we need to do is paste in the transcript of some enquiry into the Iraq war and I'm sure the Tricycle would be happy to stage it. Michael Sheen to play the playwright, of course.

Nicely put, Jan. Hare has gone off the boil with his political protest plays or presentations, not really plays. But with Tamsin Grieg I'll give this one a shot and then let you know.. x

Normally I wouldn't go along with this kind of advance negativity ahead of a production, but in this case I have to admit it sounds almost like some kind of satirical parody of Hare, only it's actually him. Tessa Jowell is tedious and irritating enough in real life; I'm not sure I want to see a dramatised version of her.

Lynette's Hare-going-off-the-boil remark reminds me of an amusing moment (among many) from Ken Campbell's one-man show Pigspurt, which he performed at the NT in about 1993. He was recounting his experiences in an Essex rep company in the early 60s, appearing as the 3rd-act detective inspector in a very trad crime thriller Passport to Murder, by Monte Doyle. He wondered if the time might be right for a Monte Doyle renaissance, and suggested the NT might want to look into reviving the Doyle canon, as (adopt nasal rasping Campbell voice) "apparently, David Hare's running out of steam."

The idea sucks

Remember the 12 months or so when it appeared everything at the NT was like a Guardian head line? – Some directly Stuff Happens, Playing with Fire & Un Inspector or indirectly like Henry?

The Guardian are already in a frenzy of excitement over this one

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/aug/1...vidhare.theatre

It might turn out to be superb.

I recall Hare being laid into by wounded-sounding irate Labour supporters, led by Michael Ignatieff, on a Late Show after the Absence of War came out. They were very unhappy at what they saw as his betrayal. It was amusing.

I'm a signed up Guardian reader, but I despair when I learn that swathes of tickets for Gethsemene are being held back because Sir David doesn't want just NT subscribers to see it and that they are to be distributed to poverty stricken East Enders and non-Guardian readers. I'm not sure what planet the man is on . Who will put money on there being Guardian offers for tickets for this production with a glass of pinot grigio included.....

oh so that's why you can only 4 tickets?

I have been taken to task in recent days for calling the prospect of Nick Hytner remaining at the NT until 2013 unutterably depressing. Well the brochure for the new season -including Gethsemane - explains exactly why. I was already down to 2 or 1 per season & this is the first season where NOTHING interests me - & I used to go to virtually everything put on at the NT from as long ago as it's Old Vic days. Will no one rid us of this dreadful Artistic Director or are we destined for another 5 years of the likes of Market Boy, Funny/Forum, Harper Regan, Vienna Woods & Theatre of Blood?

Another jolly for the NT's house playwright. Another disgrace for the NT that they continue to feather the nest of this dreary, risible, superannuated throwback.

Yes, I'm prejudging Gethsemane. If it turns out to be a masterpiece (do I hear an oink from the heavens?)... well, he's had enough chances in the past to produce one of those, so how many more bites should he get of the publicly-funded cherry?

Nothing - NOTHing - gets my goat like David Hare's overblown career.

Job

You're such a negative nancy. What about the War Horses and Coram Boys and Much Ado About Nothings? No one can please all the people all the time; stop focusing on the sad things.

Yes, it's a total disgrace that a writer whose last two plays for the NT have sold out should be offered another slot [/SARCASM]

Did they really sell-out ? Or did they just sell out in the sense the RSC Marketing Department uses the phrase when they schedule so few performances of something that the place can be filled by Hare enthusiasts alone.

I see they have scheduled his effort for the Cottesloe this time, so they are not anticipating an overwhelming demand for tickets.

Stuff Happens was definitely sold out the night I went (in the Olivier) and I'm sure you remember that there were problems about extending it - they hadn't planned to originally and the Olivier wasn't available immediately so the extension didn't happen which led to a temporary rift between Hare and the NT. The Permanent Way transferred to the Lyttleton and then went on tour.

But if the Olivier can be filled by 'Hare enthusiasts alone' (do we talk about a theate just being filled by 'Shakespeare enthusiasts' or 'Shaw enthusiasts', then doesn't it make perfect economic sense to put on his plays -ff people really hate Hare (I'm not the world's biggest fan), couldn't they just, not see his shows?

Yes, I had high hopes for that reported rift between Sir David Hare and NH but unfortuately it seems to have been repaired - probably Sir David Hare was scared that the stream of public funding that has sustained his entire career would be cut off and he'd have to make his own way in the commercial sector ( a distasteful prospect for a posturing old Leftie with an upper-class lifestyle to sustain).

Although I don't see his lectures I do feel that they are depriving another playwright of exposure. He is fairly unique in having been indulged by more than one NT Director.

Sell out or flop, it's of little consequence. The fact is that every time Hare gets a play done at the NT, another modern playwright does not.

Job

That is right. I used to feel the same when Peter Hall used to automatically stage Alan Aykbourn's latest, particularly as AA (unlike Sir David Hare in my view) could survive entirely on commercial productions of his works. However, when Hall left I don't think the NT ever staged an AA play again (did they ? I am not totally sure). The dismal thing about Sir David Hare is that he survives regime change.

NT staged House Garden under Trev

What a strange argument. Every time Chekhov is performed at the NT, another dead playwright is missed. Simon Russell Beale and Rory Kinnear are constantly accepting parts that other actors could do. Basically your argument comes down to 'I don't like David Hare and I bitterly resent the fact that other people do;.

Why strange? Are there limitless opportunities for good modern playwrights to get their work staged in the subsidised sector, then?

The only reason I resent David Hare is precisely because of his stranglehold over the NT. If that were not the case, I'd merely consider him a minor irrelevance like other playwrights whose work I don't particularly enjoy. It's his privilege and omnipresence within the publicly funded establishment that engenders my antipathy. I thought I'd made that clear.

Job

Hare's early plays were good. Don't argue, Job, they were. 'Plenty' is a good play. But he says himself he does not now write for posterity, he writes about current political issues. He could take his chances in the commercial sector, the fringe even and he would do ok. The NT is taking a political stand by staging his work, attacking the powers that be etc etc, yawn , yawn. Theatre as journalism...again. Only to be done if the play is utterly brilliant. Which it won't be because of what I have just said.

So the discussion really is about whether our National Theatre should put on political polemic or satire at the expense of a canon of accepted good work. Well, Hare would say [ maybe] that the theatre has always been political for example the story that they put Richard II on before the Essex rebellion in Shakespeare's time, to encourage the apprentices to support the rebellion. I've always found this a bit of an unconvincing story..think about trying to get the sort of audience at the National these days to man the barricades. Dunno about you, but I would prefer to go home.

The argument that the NT has put on good stuff recently is precisely because of the casting - Simon Russell Beale made that rather overblown Shaw something more interesting and his Benedict will go down in the annals because of his leap into the pond which was great because it was him! If you see what I mean. The choice of plays is very ordinary. The exception recently has been The Revenger's Tragedy which was a good choice and well presented and says more about the modern world than I suspect Hare will do in this latest offering.

And someone somewhere has not researched new writers or even old writers writing new plays . Interesting that Bryden is doing something on the fringe, isn't he, with the old Cottesloe crowd who did certainly break new ground and give us a wonderful few seasons back in the old days. I'm not arguing for Bryden to go back the National but where is the new Bryden? Or Brydenette? I know young writers and performers who struggle to get on the fringe of the fringe. Give them a chance. Please.

I suppose what I mean to say here is that I agree, Hytner is not cutting it for me. And another Hare thing is disappointing.

Absolutely, Lynette. So much more measured than I am.

Job

(But I disagree about the merits of Plenty. I disliked it with a passion when I saw it in the Lyttelton in 1979 and only stayed to the end so I could gawp at Kate Nelligan and Julie Covington - two actresses I adored when I was in my twenties.)

To be honest, only seen his last two plays at the national.

I really liked Permenant Way. Stuff Happens was ok, but perfectly watchable.

Nothing wrong with politics at the national. And it seems to sell out generally, so if it s a commercial success, then whats the issue?

There is a massive audience for David Hare's plays, as well as for much of the programming that you often seem to dislike Lynette at the NT.

Just because something 'isnt for you' doesn't mean it isn't for others. I couldn't stand A Matter of Life & Death or Tristan & Yseult, or any of Kneehigh's work, but I recognise that other people adore it, so whilst I shan't book to see their next gig at the NT, I wouldn't say that it shouldn't be put on.

And Lynette surely a 'National Theatre' should address issues of 'National concern'? I am baffled by the conservative attitude that all the NT should be doing is avoiding 'political' work & reviving plays from the canon... zzzzzzz...

Nearly all great plays address political concerns, be they national or personal. To imply otherwise is bonkers. In particular Shakespeare, a frequently deeply subversive political commentator.

And one more thing - what an amazing cast for this play so far. If Tamsin Greig & Stanley Townsend think it's worth doing, then that's enough for me!

I really am not sure that The National Theatre should be addressing 'issues of National concern.' What says everyone?

Me neither. Anyway, I don't think Tessa Jowell is of even local concern, except in places like the foyer of the Tricycle Theatre.

A question, not one that I formulated, but an interesting one. Can you name any modern play staged at the NT which has embodied anything other than a liberal/left-wing (shorthand "Guardian") political viewpoint ?

I wondered what had happened to Mr Hare. Wrote three dull “state-of-the-nation” plays in the 90s but had gone quiet on the Broon Terror.

But, no. He’ll write a play about the Pension Thief and his friends and what will it be about? Why, the fact that the Labour Party hasn’t got any donors. Boo hoo. Better stick your hand in your pocket, Mr Hare, I’ve torn up two union membership cards already this year solely on the basis that I don’t want them handing any more of my hard-earned to this bunch of shysters. It's bad enough my taxes help to subsidise Hare's rubbish plays.

And I can't wait to hear why it's called something as pompous as "Gethsemane" - does he think we're all weeping over his rotten Labour Party? I can't see anything to sob and weep about. Why doesn't the National put on a play called "Carry On Fleecing The Taxpayer For My Failed Socialist Experiment" - or is that too near the bone for their literary managers?

Why is Hare so funded by this theatre when he's such a politically biased so and so? The theatre was full for Stuff Happens. So what?

The fact remains that it and The Permanent Way and all the other nonsense he pens for this place are subsidised by taxpayers - not the free market. Stuff Happens had an audience because - on top of the taxpayer subsidy - that show also had a commercial sponsor to sell tickets for £10. Out in the real world no-one is clamouring to see Mr Hare's plays - certainly not at real market prices We seem to have an elite clique who think it's their God-given right to fleece off the rest of us so they can hold little Leftie love-ins for themselves.

And since when has Simon Russell Beale been delivering political diatribes at the National? He's got nothing to do with it.

Why is this dreadful playwright given so much help? The only reason that I can see is that he mirrors the neo-Left thinking of the people who run the place. It's exactly the same when that trashy Zinc Bed thing was on TV the other night. Who should broadcast it but the BBC. What a surprise.

We can all laugh at loss-making enterprises like The Gurnydrone but there is going to have to come a point in the future when state-funding for places like the BBC and the National Theatre is either slashed or cut altogether if they can't be bothered to keep a rein on their political bias. It's an absolute joke.

If Hare is as awful as so many posters are claiming how is it his work attracts the likes of Alex Jennings (Stuff Happens), Judi Dench (Amy's View / Breath of Life), Maggie Smith (Breath of Life), Anthony Hopkins (Pravda), John Thaw (Absence of War), Michael Gambon (Skylight) and so on? You'd think the actors would recognise the Emperor's new clothes even if the directors can't. And wasn't Racing Demon done in all three NT audioria because of the big demand on seats?



As Reich pointed out TN put on House and Garden. He also comissioned AA's translation of Ostrovsky's The Forest
Prior to this Richard Eyre ran two of AA's family plays - Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays and Invisible Friends
During the period Peter Hall ran the NT (1973 - 1988) AA wrote some twenty plays of which just five were put on at the National (Bedroom Farce, Sisterly Feelings, Way Upstream, A Chorus of Disapproval and A Small Family Business) which by my reckoning leaves 15 automatically not staged. Still at least Jan admits that she's "not totally sure" which must be a first

the problem with hare (and more so with recent hare) is he's terribly literal and often very boring. (my zinc bed... breath of life... the vertical hour.... wonderful cures for insomnia, all of them...)

people come to see his plays because there's a huge appetite for plays about politics, plays about the public world. (and they come to see plays like democracy, and frost/nixon, too)... but the problem is, he's not very good, and he sucks up all the public funding and space, so other, better, writers have no place to develop their work, and there's nothing else to see. frankly, hare has had his turn. he has an audience, and he should be able to survive in the commercial theatre. it's a scandal that the national is producing gethsemane. even more so that the royal court produced the vertical hour, which had already had a commercial showing elsewhere.

This begs a broader question: why on earth do new plays have to be politically engaged in order to be 'relevant' (and therefore stageable) at the NT and other beacon companies? The same is certainly not true of film or television; but there is a stultifying and ultimately self-defeating snobbery amongst theatre folk that a play has to address urgent issues of contemporary concern in order to have any artistic worth, and that anything else is boulevard frippery.

In recent years I can only think of one 'new' playwright, Conor McPherson, who has succeeded in establishing himself with plays that explore the human condition rather than pontificating on the state of the nation.

Job

Well for various reasons I suppose. Why did Paul Scofield do that Jeffrey Archer play ? Gambon hated being in Skylight, incidentally. John Thaw is an odd choice to list - it is hard to say why he ever did stage work, especially after his very uneasy time with the RSC.

good political plays do 'explore the human condition'... it's the bad ones that are just over-long op-eds, or history lectures....

Gambon may well have hated doing "Skylight" but he still accepted being in a Hare play initially so I don't know how that invalidates my point about major talent being attracted to his work. John Thaw an odd choice? I guess most would list him as a renowned actor regardless of his ease or otherwise with a particular medium so in what way is this odd?

How to account for the others? By saying there are "various reasons" - could one of those be that they in fact rate Hare and positively wish to be in his work?

Actors like to work. They are not all saints or arbiters of taste or even good judges of plays.

You're not telling me that most (if not all) of the people I've listed can't pick or choose their roles/plays/writers. I can only assume Dames Judi and Maggie were going through a very thin time when offered Breath of Life and am I the only one who finds it strange that so many of the generally recognised top actors/actresses should sell their birthright for a mess of pottage by chosing to appear in Hare's work? Who knows perhaps he's got something on them all and is blackmailing them.

No they aren't necessarily the "arbiters of taste"; neither are we yet there does seem to be an element of "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" about some of the arguments raised in this discussion.

On an earlier point..... Gambon clearly hated doing Skylight so much that he went and did it again in New York following the London run..... perhaps he just had nothing better to do.

My source was Richard Eyre's published Diaries covering his time in charge of NT. What was yours ? They are good read, incidentally, Eyre comes out of them quite badly - particularly with a brutal comment about Donald Sinden.

Thanks for the source - haven't got round to reading the diaries yet but you've whetted my appetite. Is it the case that MG says he disliked the experience or that RE felt that he did?

My source is simply several reviews of the production (Sept - Dec 1996) available online, e.g. here Of course this doesn't give any clue as to whether MG enjoyed it or not and perhaps the money was just too tempting. However i still say that Hare must have something to keep attracting the calibre of people he does.

Job hits the nail on the head: “This begs a broader question: why on earth do new plays have to be politically engaged in order to be ‘relevant’ (and therefore stageable) at the NT and other beacon companies?”

This is an idea that is common currency among the chattering nincompoops who natter on as if this has how the theatre has operated over centuries. Nothing could be further from the truth. This ridiculous notion only began in this country after World War II when state spending on the arts grew exponentially – especially from the sixties onwards.

At one time, the state spending was moderate but once the Left Establishment worked out what they could do by subsidizing this level of bias, they pumped money into the theatre. The reason is very simple, the Left know that there are never likely to be any Right-wing plays because, even if you were a Right-winger, mind control would be completely anathema to your ideals. Why would you go about abasing yourself by trying to put on propagandist plays? What’s free-thinking about that?

The British Left are more subtle about it that Chairman Mao, but their purpose is in effect no different: use culture to spread your statist ideas.

It’s done subtly, of course, and one of the ways it manifests itself is with places like the NT putting on great classical theatre with great classical actors and saying: “Oh, look, we did all this, cut our funding and you’ll lose all this.” It’s nonsense. Theatre in this country existed before all this taxpayer money got pumped into it. Why would it vanish?

Every theatrical generation goes through its fads. The Victorians had their wailing melodramas that they all flocked to and thought would last forever and now those silly plays are as dead as a dodo. For us, it will be our modish addiction to state-funded theate and the weird brand of howling politically correct playwrights it has produced.

Just think of the theatre historians a century or so from now coming across our “literary giants”. What will they do, for example, when they get to that play by Caryl Churchill about a homosexual levitating sofa? “This is what they watched?”

i’m not a fan of his work but, on this, alw has got it. by george, he’s got it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...creativity.html

political correctness is ruining the theatre (as it is ruining everything else). it’s not limited to state funded theatre but that is certainly the fount of a lot of the marxian acid that has spattered so much else in our theatre. i’m pleased to see so many people have now cottoned on to this gigantic con but there’s a long way to go before these people are stripped of their state funding, but go it must.

I'm trying to get my head round the idea of David Hare being 'statist'. Isn't Stuff Happens just the opposite? As for the Right Wing not using theatre...well. twiddle yourself around a bit and see where the 'wings' meet.

"I'm trying to get my head round the idea of David Hare being 'statist'"

So either he's written a play lamenting the fact that the state doesn't fund political parties or he's abandoned a lifetime of Left wing hypocrisy (which has included accepting a knighthood after writing an essay slagging off such honours) and he's written a play that supports the idea that political parties shouldn't be funded by the hapless taxpayer, which would be even more ironic considering the National is funded by the taxpayer.

He might be a turkey, but I don't see him voting for Christmas.

Jordon could you say which plays deal with the funding of political parties?

Thanks

No it isn't, and no it isn't.

It might be an occasional source of irritation in theatre and other walks of life, but it isn't "ruining everything". If some of the more extreme examples of it we see reported are true, that is a worry. But I reckon the supposed pervasiveness of it is melodramatically overstated and in some cases just plain fabricated. I go to the theatre a lot and enjoy most of what I see, and get no sense of any creeping ruination of theatre by PCness. The one thing that increasingly bothers me above all other factors is the apparent deterioation of audience behaviour.