Jo Caird: A Good Week for Elizabethan Dramatists

Aside
from being named after great Elizabethan dramatists, these two
theatres don’t appear to have very much in common. The Globe is a
replica of the 17th-century playhouse for which
Shakespeare wrote many of his plays, complete with groundlings yard,
‘heavens’ and ‘frons scenae’; the Marlowe is a startlingly modern
structure whose steel and oxidised copper exteriors and sleek and
sexy auditorium design stand out against Canterbury’s traditional
surroundings. The Globe stages the works of Shakespeare and other
Elizabethan and Elizabethan-inspired dramas; the Marlowe is a number
one touring venue which will receive all manner of commercial shows
in addition to performances by subsidised companies including
Glyndebourne and the Philharmonia Orchestra. The Globe is in the
heart of the UK’s cultural capital, surrounded by other world-class
arts venues; the Marlowe is the only theatre and music venue of its
size in a region with relatively little provision for the performing
arts.

In
spirit though, the theatres – or at least the announcements they’ve
made this week – are perhaps not so different after all. Globe to
Globe is a remarkably ambitious undertaking. The festival is costing
£1.8 million, is a logistical nightmare (two shows by two difference companies practically every day), and will succeed or fail
largely on the theatre’s ability to sell a substantial enough number of the theatre’s 600 standing places and 900 seats at each performance. Some of the
performances will be relatively easy to sell – I’m thinking of shows such as
the South Sudan Theatre Company’s Cymbeline
and the National Theatre of China’s Richard III
– but some will be a major challenge for the theatre’s marketing
department, something Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole
joked about during Monday’s press conference when he mentioned niche
theatrical delights such Gabriel
Sundukyan National Academic Theatre’s King John in
Armenian.

The
Marlowe may not be programming the sort of challenging work like that
we can look forward to as part of Globe to Globe, but it is
undoubtedly a brave and risky venture in itself. The £25.6 million
project, in the planning since 2001, was put to a vote by Canterbury
City Council in 2009. It would have been all too easy to shelve the
plans at that stage, but the council went ahead, with cross-party
support, putting £17 million of public money into the arts via this
unashamedly modern and beautiful construction. The 1930s Marlowe
cinema – converted for performing arts use in the 1980s – and the
second hand car dealership that stood next to it were torn down and
the new, fit-for-purpose Marlowe has risen in their place. When you
consider the potential pitfalls of building a new theatre with public
money, in a recession, on the edge of a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
the fact that the Marlowe is here at all is quite an achievement. The
fact that it is opening on time and on budget is all the more impressive.

In
addition to the 1,200-seat main auditorium, the Marlowe boasts a
150-seat black box studio, which will used for smaller touring
productions, youth theatre projects and artists’ residencies. Mark
Everett, the theatre’s director, knows his programme must be broad in
order to reflect the wide range of audiences the theatre will
attract, but hopes to be able to include some work, not just in the
studio space, but in the main theatre too,  that will “make people think”.
It’s an encouraging stance from the director of a building that will
be on its own funding-wise from 2014, when its financial support from
the council is curtailed.

Who
knows what Shakespeare and Marlowe would think of the projects being
pursued in their names? I like the idea of the pair sitting
somewhere in the afterlife comparing their theatres playing host to
musicals like Grease
and Avenue Q on the one hand and performances in
isiXhosa,
Maori, and Korean on the other. I hope they’d find it all incredibly
exciting. I know I do.