'It has been a sort of nightmare': how major theatres abroad fared in the pandemic
In the disUnited Kingdom there are glimmers of light for the theatre. Some openings are scheduled for 17 May; with further relaxation of restrictions, more are likely to follow in June. The support in Rishi Sunak’s budget, which announced an additional £300m for the culture recovery fund, is welcome. Still, there are painful gaps. Some had hoped for a government-backed insurance scheme, and for an increase to the rate of theatre tax relief. Neither were forthcoming. Crucially, while the government bailout has secured the future of vital institutions, the livelihood of large numbers of theatre-makers – actors, designers, stage managers, musicians and others – is still in jeopardy.
In the interviews below, I am intrigued by Ivan van Hove’s jealousy of Boris Johnson’s “generous” speech about the arts. I would rather have the Dutch prompt delivery of cash – less ho ho and more dough – and sadly thunderstruck by Kajsa Giertz’s calm assumption that in Sweden the theatre is “a part of democracy” that must be affordable to everyone. In contrast, the vocabulary in which the UK discusses the arts often reeks of hierarchy and materialism. Oliver Dowden talks of saving culture’s “crown jewels”: what happens to the plebby bits?
I am also struck by arrangements in France and Germany: by Stéphane Braunschweig’s description of their unemployment system, which ensures some stability for theatre workers, and by Thomas Ostermeier’s account of furlough for permanent company members. Things are different in this island. On an average UK production, 80% of theatre workers are freelance. Though the budget expanded the number of those entitled to the self-employment income support scheme, some 65,000 are still not eligible. In our national obsession with bricks and mortar we are in danger of forgetting that the theatre is aided but not made by buildings. Support for freelancers must become a priority.
There is room for private initiatives. Let sponsors of the arts look to attaching their names not only to new auditoria or theatre bars but to up and coming talent. Why not set up post-pandemic scholarships, for actors, directors, designers and technicians at drama schools throughout the country to help stop them becoming the preserve of the wealthy? The last Labour government could have established millennial scholarships but spent the money on a dome. We now have a chance to begin putting that right, proving we are not only a nation of shopkeepers but the country of Shakespeare.
Susannah Clapp is the Observer’s theatre critic
Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director, Schaubühne theatre, Berlin: ‘Livestreamed theatre is like methadone for heroin addicts’
Thomas Ostermeier has been the artistic director of Berlin’s since 1999, in which time he has transformed the
