This site surveys the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company from the beginning of Peter Hall's directorship in 1960. It includes short essays on many of the most significant members, past and present, of the RSC—actors, directors, designers and others—as well as entries on playwrights, plays and theatres.
I have tried to make the text as comprehensive as possible while staying within set criteria for inclusion. My goal has been to include all individuals who have worked at the RSC for two or more Stratford seasons. Others are included because of their importance or fame. In choosing to write a dictionary my aim has been to explore the nature and achievement of the RSC through the telling of these individual stories. Although the RSC is the focal point, the biographical entries contain complete career histories, with details of film and television appearances. [For further explanatory information please click
Help.]I started to write in 1996 at a time when Adrian Noble's first major reforms (particularly the decision to leave the Barbican for six months of the year) were provoking debate and controversy, and I worked to complete the manuscript in 2001/02, easily the most turbulent year in the RSC's history.
Adrian Noble's Last Year
Adrian Noble's announcement, in May 2001, of a radical change of direction for the RSC secured an initially favourable response. In formulating a plan to improve its Stratford base, the RSC was, after all, tapping into the feeling that traditional theatre buildings, and the kind of performances they inspire, are outdated: young people crave the kind of visceral connection with performers provided by the Argentine troupe De La Guarda (seen at the Roundhouse in 1999). In proposing change the RSC was moving forward carefully—the idea of a new Stratford theatre was first mooted in July 1997, and the RSC was perhaps the last major arts organisation to apply for lottery funding. The theatre critics expressed little affection for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. At the time of the announcement, Michael Billington, who would later become an influential opponent of the innovations, could not have been more encouraging (see The Guardian, 9 May 2001).
The theatregoing public were equally optimistic. An opinion poll carried out by a theatre website in July 2001 revealed that 69% of respondents favoured the re-development of the RST, and 51% agreed with the decision to leave the Barbican. Almost a year later, another survey showed a complete reversal: 69% voted for the abandonment of the Stratford scheme, and 73% for a return to the Barbican. Since it is reasonable to surmise that many people voted on both occasions it is clear that public opinion was transformed during that year. At some point the journalistic agenda changed from an acceptance that the reforms were necessary to a determination to prevent them.
There was a case to be made against the reforms, but the oft-repeated blanket accusation that the RSC was in a state of artistic crisis seemed unjust. During the years 2000-03 the RSC staged, to considerable acclaim, a Shakespeare history cycle, the first to include an unabridged sequence of all eight plays; a season of new plays at The Other Place, including Peter Whelan's elegiac A Russian in the Woods and Martin McDonagh's controversial The Lieutenant of Inishmore (in all, the RSC performed twelve new works during this period); three of Shakespeare's late romances at the Roundhouse (the disappointing ticket sales at the Roundhouse were blamed on poor marketing, but a more likely cause was the bad publicity that coincided with the season); and a sell-out season of Jacobean rarities in the Swan, performed by a crack company of young actors.
However, a short documentary made by BBC 4 called Trouble at the RSC (broadcast on 3 September 2002) talked repeatedly of artistic crisis. The director Jude Kelly was just one of the experts who accused the RSC of delivering too many productions and of failing to generate excitement. A look at the number of productions mounted in the immediate years before Adrian Noble took over shows just how prolific the RSC used to be: twenty-seven (1986); twenty-five (1987); twenty-two (1988); and twenty-three (1989). In 2002 Noble programmed only eleven plays. There was a sense that some of Noble's detractors were against change while, paradoxically, criticising the RSC for not changing despite the fact that it had changed. This conundrum revealed just how confused thinking had become.
An important goal of the changes was to meet the requirements of actors, particularly the Company's alumni; but those who chose to speak out argued for the status quo with a self-contradictory innocence that was endearing if not very helpful (during the 2000 Stratford open day the associate actors taking part praised the Swan but dismissed the RST as 'the Odeon next door', and Judi Dench, a very prominent opponent of change, hadn't worked in the Stratford main house since 1979). An equally important tenet was to make the Stratford main house more inclusive; but the plan was savaged by critics who never sit in the balcony of the present building. One conclusion to be drawn from all these ironies and inconsistencies is that a positive response to radical change is unlikely until after the retirement of the current generation of senior actors and critics.
So what was the real case to be made against the innovations? One, the RSC tried to do too much too quickly. There was never any question that the RSC would leave the Barbican at the end of the lease in 2005, but it should surely have kept its London home until an alternative had been found. Two, in selling the Stratford re-development (most of the finance was being chased in America) a false impression was given about its nature and aims—the press started to talk about a Shakespeare theme park. The RSC failed to counter this accusation of 'dumbing down'. As a result, a long held plan to create a great new main house at Stratford (dating at least from the time of Peter Hall), a new flexible TOP and a base for the academy was never seriously debated in the public forum of the press. Creating an education facility and giving interested people a means of learning about the backstage craft of theatre (educational and other events go on all the time) does not amount to a theme park. Three, the staffing issues were mismanaged. An insensitive approach to the impact of the reforms on individual employees created a division between those managers in favour of the changes and everyone else. Four, the abandonment of a long Stratford repertory season could, over time, threaten the very uniqueness and importance of the RSC. Although the RSC was right to introduce a more flexible structure of work, an as long as possible Stratford repertory season should, in my view, be at the core of its activities.
Throughout, the RSC's business-orientated board provoked dismay. Would Peter Hall and Peter Brook have worked for such a board? I doubt it.
Michael Boyd and the Question of New Spaces
Adrian Noble's successor, Michael Boyd, spent the first year of his directorship (he took charge in April 2003) reviewing all aspects of the RSC's operation. During the course of 2003/04 the RSC abandoned the scheme to build a new RST in favour of the conversion of the existing building. The new TOP and the RSC Academy were also shelved. Boyd's prudent approach represented either a loss of nerve or the rediscovery of good sense, depending on one's view. Prudence became the order of the day, with Boyd programming only the most popular plays in the main house and forming partnerships with the commercial sector to transfer them into the West End (a deal with Cameron Mackintosh, beginning in 2005/06 at the Novello Theatre, will tie the RSC to the commercial sector for five risk-free years). Loss of nerve means that playgoers won't see the current RSC in Pericles at the Roundhouse; rediscovery of good sense means that the books will balance. When Boyd and his team finally released details of the RST re-development it became clear that they wanted a second, if bigger, Swan Theatre. The scheme, entrusted to Bennetts Associates, follows the current fashion for Jacobean-style theatres, but takes away any hope of contrast or flexibility. A re-configurable space was perhaps impossible within the existing structure. Swan Two is a compromise that could end up, once fashion has moved on, satisfying nobody.
Michael Boyd has continued to split the Stratford year between summer and winter seasons and to divide the Company by theatre or project. Seasons and contracts remain relatively short. He has spoken constantly about the importance of the ensemble, by which he means ensembles, self-contained groups of actors working on their own productions, and not, unfortunately, a single troupe performing, in repertory, an entire season's work.
4 January 2006
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