Let’s begin with a pub quiz style Q&A about British theatre history. Question: can you name the five directors of the National Theatre (NT) since Laurence Olivier founded it in 1963? Answer: Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn, Nicholas Hytner, Rufus Norris. Question: Can you spot a pattern? Answer: They are all posh white men, it would seem.
Another question for those who care about the future of British theatre: is it time a woman stood at the helm of the NT for the first time in its 60-year history, once its outgoing artistic director, Norris, wraps up his tenure?
The answer is still being decided by the nation’s flagship venue but Clint Dyer, its deputy artistic director, can envisage it. He has said that, in his view, the best person for the job could be a woman.
I would go further. “Should” rather than “could”. It’s not only high time, it’s overdue. Landmark Welsh and Scottish venues, including Theatr Clwyd and the National Theatre of Scotland have better form – Kate Wasserberg is artistic director at the former, Jackie Wylie at the latter. The Royal Shakespeare Company has just appointed Tamara Harvey, alongside Daniel Evans, as co-director too.
Theatre has been in soul-searching mode since the watersheds of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and the pandemic pause. Will artistic leadership at the NT reflect the tectonic shifts that have already taken place in the wider industry?
We are seeing a wave of super dynamic female artistic directors rising up. The industry as a whole is awash with talented women: in the commercial world there are Nica Burns, Sonia Friedman and Marianne Elliott, to name a few, and in the subsidised sector the likes of Indhu Rubasingham, outgoing artistic director of the Kiln Theatre, who is widely considered to be the industry favourite for the NT job.
I would heartily welcome that appointment. Born in Sheffield and of Sri-Lankan heritage, Rubasingham is as at home with the canon as with the new, maverick and visionary. She knows where to look for work that reflects edgy conversations in the world today and how to balance that with glamour and tradition.
A seventh man in the job would tell us that the NT is all up for soul-searching, and homilies on inclusion, but cannot lead by example. It would also run the risk of being seen as dusty, safe, pale and stale, alienating the younger, more varied audiences that Norris has done so much to nurture through his programming, and that the theatre so badly needs. All the NT has to do is grasp Norris’s baton.
To give it its due, there are more women in the building these days, but why, so often, do we find them in administrative, rather than in creative, leadership? A Women in Theatre survey, following up its original report on woeful gender disparities in the industry in 2021, has found that gender inequality is in danger of increasing as theatres become more risk-averse in a post-pandemic environment, focused on recouping finances. The report, published today to coincide with the launch of the Women in Theatre Lab, also reveals that female playwrights are viewed as being a riskier proposition for theatres out of unconscious biases and unfounded fears that they will simply not do the job as well as a man might. It is vital to expose that lie, especially at the top where the pipeline becomes clogged with men (their 2021 survey found that only 31% of National Portfolio Organisations – or theatres given larger-scale Arts Council England funding – were led by female artistic directors).
A female artistic director brings something more, not less to the job. And a woman like Rubasingham, or any number of others, will give it more than any man can – because she will be aware of the momentousness of this “first”. She won’t fail because she will know that is simply not an option.
Even so, this appointment cannot only send out a signal. There is value in a symbolic gesture, but it must go beyond that alone. We need someone robust, who can bring their A-game, as they say in business. But we must also remember that the NT is not a business, or a commercial venue with the same onus as a West End production on profit. It is a theatre with substantial public subsidy that has a responsibility to reflect Arts Council England’s agenda of diversity, and also a place in which we should see ourselves reflected: in its programming and also in its personnel. There are plenty of safe establishment males who could run the show as if running a West End venue – or a slightly paler imitation – and put on the kind of productions where polish and patina trump discovery, depth and a connection with the wider world. But don’t we want more for the NT, and for ourselves?
Women have been key to the NT’s growth and development, from actor Joan Plowright, at its inception, onwards. They have given its stages some of their finest moments, from Elliott (with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) to Lucy Prebble (with The Effect). What we cannot do is run the risk of a brain drain of female talent leaving for bigger, better appointments farther afield. We cannot lose another talent as big as Katie Mitchell to continental Europe.
And an establishment type like Laurence Olivier can no longer pave the way ahead in the remarkable way the founding director did when he gave birth to this glorious institution. The world has changed, and figureheads have changed with it. We need someone who reflects the complexities of our world. It is the nation’s theatre. It needs to be a reflection of that nation.
As Dyer said, the “now” of such an appointment is often forgotten – “who has the stories, the reach, the capability to tap into where we are today, the breadth of thinking that makes the national conversation as exciting as it can be”.
Question: What would this appointment, in our day and age, look like? Let’s leave the NT to answer that one.
Arifa Akbar is the Guardian’s chief theatre critic
