When was the last time anyone read a synopsis in a theatre programme? At a lesser-known Shakespeare, perhaps? More likely at an opera being sung in a foreign language with a typically clotted plot. The last place you’d expect to find one is at a musical.
Discovering one detailing the otherwise baffling action in the programme for Rufus Wainwright and Ivo van Hove’s musical, Opening Night, felt not just necessary but a woeful admission of defeat. A musical in English needing a printed explanation for audiences to follow what was going on?
The impenetrability of the material to anyone who didn’t know the 1977 cult John Cassavetes film on which it was based strikes me as the reason for audience walkouts during previews. The presence of fan favourite Sheridan Smith encouraged even more reviews than normal across the internet, but the resultant collection of mostly (though not exclusively) bad notices didn’t help. Wags throughout the industry swiftly renamed it Closing Night and, sadly, on Saturday, two months early and at a gigantic financial loss, that will come to pass.
But according to Wainwright in an interview last week, although he graciously concedes the show “wasn’t perfect by any means” and that “there were mistakes made on many fronts”, the real reason was Brexit. As he told the Guardian: “I do feel that since Brexit, England has entered into a darker corridor where it is a little more narrow in its outlook and the vitriol because we put ‘English rose Sheridan Smith through this ordeal of European theatre’ felt a little bit suspect to me.” His conclusion? “I think the West End has got pretty staid.”
No one, obviously, has the data to create a Venn diagram of the overlap between Brexit voters and regular theatregoers, but I’d hazard it was close to empty. However, even if theatre seats are filled with Brexiters, there are problems with his assertion about the West End having grown stale. Did this really begin with the Brexit vote?
The West End has never been the home of experiment for one simple reason: cost. The basic true one-liner about being a theatre producer is that you can make a killing, but you can’t make a living.
Most theatre owners are in hock to venture capitalists who demand a high return on their investment. Thus the fees that owners charge anyone wanting to produce a play in their premises, which include rent and paying for the resident staff, are perilously high.
And then there’s the production’s physical creation and rehearsal, plus the weekly wage of the backstage technical crew, the creative team, the running costs, administration and marketing – let alone the cast and, in the case of musicals, musicians. None of this comes cheap.
Even with commensurately expensive seat prices, it’s a vertiginously high-risk business with no guarantees. Producer Judy Craymer’s brainchild, Mamma Mia! – a smarter, more feminist and life-enhancing show than its detractors would have you believe and one audiences adore – just celebrated its 25th anniversary in London. That, plus productions worldwide and two movies, have made her wealthy. But when she tried the same trick with Viva Forever!, her Spice Girls musical written by Jennifer Saunders, it tanked, lost everything and hasn’t been seen since.
Yet West End experiment can prevail. Last night saw the final performance of Harry Clarke, a fascinating solo show (with the amorality of a Patricia Highsmith novel) by David Cale, a British playwright who moved to America and is unknown here. With Billy Crudup playing all the characters, it sold every ticket of the run. And what about A Little Life? The gruelling three-hour-and-40-minute adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s 814-page, literally painstaking novel of extreme sexual abuse – highly emotional or torture porn, depending on your view. From the same producers of Opening Night, it sold out its three-month run last year at the 796-seat Harold Pinter Theatre so fast that it transferred for another five weeks to the 1,158-seat Savoy Theatre. Tickets vanished. The director? Ivo van Hove.
The other problem with Wainwright’s view is that it suggests London theatre is confined to the West End. But one of the glories of the capital – and the UK as a whole – is its subsidised theatre sector. Daring work may be risky for the commercial West End, but there’s plenty on offer – and at significantly lower ticket prices – at venues such as the Almeida, the Bush, the Donmar, the National and a host of imaginative fringe venues.
The truth is, even a deeply committed Smith and the rest of the hardworking cast couldn’t persuade audiences that Opening Night was enjoyable enough to persuade their friends to book. Without word of mouth, you’re lost.
As for the state of play(s) being anything to do with a post-Brexit malaise, let me draw Wainwright’s attention to a quote from this very newspaper. “The bare fact is that, apart from revivals and imports, there is nothing in the London theatre that one dares discuss with an intelligent man for more than five minutes.”
So said Kenneth Tynan. In 1954.
• David Benedict is the London theatre critic of Variety and weekly columnist for the Stage
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