BWW Reviews: Gary Naylor's 2012 Preview
By: Gary Naylor Jan. 08, 2012
With the curtain about to rise on 2012, I am full of hope for another fantastic year in London's extraordinary theatres. Surely no other city can offer the variety of venues, range of productions and quality of acting and staging that seems to pop up behind every set of traffic lights in the great metropolis. Incredibly, a night at the theatre can come in at a much lower cost than a night watching whizzes, bangs and adverts between popcorn crunching, cola swilling, fidgeting teens at the multiplex.
Theatre is still an artistic vision realised on the stage - too much cinema is an anticipation of what an audience (or prize jury) want, mediated through bean-counters and the hideous lens of marketing. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm surprised when I enjoy an evening at the cinema and surprised, amazed even, when I don't enjoy an evening at the theatre.
Now that's off my chest, I'd like to see more songs sung and music played without the dubious benefit of microphones and amplification - few theatres are so large that actors and musicians need help. And singing, up close and personal, is still a huge thrill and something of which fringe theatres could make more in their publicity. Fewer wobbly American accents would be welcome too - nobody plays Chekov in cod Russian accents, so why play Tennesee Williams in the voice of John Boy Walton? Finally, I know it's about pounds, shillings and pence, but a little more space in all theatres that are not called The National Theatre would be nice - sometimes it feels a bit like flying Ryanair as I lever myself into a seat.
That said, London's Theatre is an ornament of the capital, British culture and the wondrous language its native speakers take so much for granted. That glory is the product of talent and dedication, but also of Britain's extarordinary wealth of theatre schools and universities that have turned out graduates who have gone on to make the culture industries an engine of economic growth and international prestige. 2012 marks the year that students will pay £27000 for a BA degree - whether Mrs Worthington will want to put her daughter on the stage when Ms Worthington will be pitched into a fiercely competitive business with that kind of debt, is a question that will loom large in the minds of talented, but not wealthy, families. Theatre, not for the first time, needs to fight back against those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.That theatre begins to win a few of those battles, is my wish for 2012.
Comments
Videos