US Invades UK or UK Invades US?

The London critic, Michael Billington, recently ruffled some feathers with his article entitled ‘United Stages of America’. In it, he laments that there is an American takeover of British stages, singling out the Royal Court who has had 24 of its 36 playing weeks this season dominated by work from U.S. playwrights.

Later, Dominic Cook, the RC’s artistic director, concluded in a letter by saying, “You might even argue that the considerable American talent that exists is underrepresented - this year only 16 out of 44 playing weeks saw American plays in our main auditorium. In our second house, none of the seven plays was American. According to its founding mission statement, the Royal Court exists to ‘create the conditions for writers, nationally and internationally, to flourish’. To stage plays from beyond our own borders is our obligation and I am proud to do so.”

To complete the triumvirate, Karen Fricker, an American lecturer in contemporary theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London and deputy London theatre critic for Variety, posits on the Guardian blog that “What makes London one of the world's great cultural centres is the multiplicity of art forms available from every corner of the globe… Few would disagree that if London's arts scene were less international then the city's liveliness would start to wither.”, and then asks, “Is there a pressing need for London-based theatres in particular to prioritise plays that interrogate the state of the English nation? Are issues of national identity still of paramount importance in a 21st-century global city?"

What’s so wonderful about this discussion is that it’s nearly identical to the one being had in New York, except it is the complaint that the British have staged a takeover of American theatres, with Billy Elliot being the most recent invasion. Of course, this debate is rather moot, because it’s just re-enforcing the entire Anglo-American worldview. The upcoming Bridge Project at BAM is the prime example. Cross-cultural exchange and collaboration is incredibly important, and The Bridge Project is an important first step, but it is still the safest choice on the block. Sure, they are taking a victory lap around Europe between NY and London, but that doesn’t really amount to real engagement; only spectacular star-worship.

The real question that needs to be asked is, ‘Where are all the plays that weren’t written in English?’ (and staging Chekhov or Ibsen doesn’t count). There are clearly dozens of remarkable playwrights out there from every country offering unique stories that transcend national and linguistic boundaries. No doubt translation is an issue, but it is too often used as an excuse. How about the U.S. and U.K. settle their arguments by agreeing, for a season, to stage works by writers who aren’t from English-speaking countries? You want to talk about a true global explosion of stories and ideas? Let's try it.

Ivo van Hove in Conversation with Chuck Mee

[I do theatre] 'to be happy.'

'Theatre is a real part of my life. It's not a job.'

'I hate the term "deconstructionist". It's not what I do.'

‘What’s interesting about life are the things you don’t know yet.’

‘Preparation is my safety net.’

‘Our goal is always Olympic; go for the gold. Better to fail with grandeur.’

‘A play is like a holiday. We have to all decide where to go. If I decide to go to Umbria and the actor goes to Budapest, we aren’t on the same vacation.’

‘Before you find the exit to the building, you have to find the entrance.’

‘I direct texts. They are not my fantasies. I try to direct what the writer intended.’

[to Chuck Mee] ‘Eugene O’Neill is your opposite.’

‘When you close the rehearsal room door, you can live all your fantasies. You can live what is forbidden in society. All these experiences are inside us.’

‘I try not to know how the scene ends. We have a misunderstanding that we have to know.’

‘I admire actors who play it like opening night at the first rehearsal.’

‘When you don’t know the answer to something, don’t pretend like you do.’

‘Craftsmanship without passion is boring.’

‘We always play an interpretation. It’s never objective.’

‘I can tell much more about myself with someone else’s words. It’s more personal.’

Ivo van Hove Returns to NYC with 'Opening Night'

Acclaimed Belgian director Ivo van Hove returns to New York with a stage adaption of John Cassavetes’s 1977 film, Opening Night. New Yorkers know him mostly for his radical interpretations of the classics (Williams, Ibsen, O'Neill, Moliere) produced at NYTW. Opening Night shows another side of van Hove and his interest in screen-to-stage adaptions of classic films. The five performances begin at BAM on Tuesday and will be performed in Dutch with actors from Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Be sure to read Tom Sellar's fantastic article from the NYTimes here.

Weak $ = More Tourism + Higher Costs

With NY awards season finally over (and many shows getting a post-Tony bump in sales), Gordon Cox of ‘Variety’ writes about the ‘double-edged sword’ facing American producers. Though the weak dollar has meant a rise in international tourism, it also means a steep increase in production costs for anyone mounting plays from abroad. See full article here.

“For the nonprofit presenters whose main goal is to bring international legit fare to a largely local aud, the dollar's slippage proves a major hindrance.

"Brooklyn Academy of Music is a global performing and cinema arts center," says BAM exec producer Joseph V. Melillo. "A weak dollar eats right into our operating budget."

"We pay international artists their fees, we transport them by air, we bring them to New York City and give them a per diem," Melillo chimes in. "If you're doing that in pounds sterling, you feel the impact. For us, it means more fund-raising. It means higher ticket prices."

Newer, smaller orgs can have an even tougher time. "It's not a happy situation for Under the Radar or for smaller presenters," says Mark Russell, the former A.D. of small-scale international presenter P.S. 122 and current topper of the Public Theater's Under the Radar fest of new legit works. "We're having to do fewer pieces and cut our seasons down. It comes around to the fact that often, international troupes are subsidizing a tour of the U.S. themselves."

At St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, a current production of Macbeth from Polish troupe TR Warszawa has seen costs spiral to around $700,000, rising by about $200,000. "What's hurting the most is the devaluation of the dollar," says St. Ann's A.D., Susan Feldman. "You'll make a deal and then the dollar drops. It adds tens of thousands of dollars to the budget." (Macbeth is co-funded by the Polish Cultural Institute.)

Whether to pay relocating artists in their own currency or in dollars therefore becomes an issue. "It's good for our gang when they go overseas, because they get paid in euros," notes Russell. "But when I end up paying them in dollars, they don't like it. It makes it harder to keep them interested."

Still, Gotham orgs have the prestige of the New York arts scene working in their favor. "Breaking into this market is of interest," Russell says. "Artists aren't going to take a reduced fee to go to Piscataway."

NY's International Seasonal Round-Up

With the Tonys coverage flooding the pages of the NYTimes, it’s nice to know someone is paying attention to what’s going on outside of midtown Manahttan. Once again, kudos of Jason Zinoman for shining a spotlight on international work. Here’s a little excerpt and link to the full article.

In the last year I have seen shows in Off Broadway theaters from, among other places, Argentina, Canada, England, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Poland, Russia and Scotland. New York is as much a global theater capital as ever, so why doesn’t it always seem that way?

In part it’s because the cultural world has been slowly shrinking for decades. It has been a long time since Howard Taubman in The New York Times wondered why American artists didn’t do more to welcome those from abroad. “Did they think they had nothing to learn from the visitors?” he asked in 1967 in an article about a New York meeting of the International Theater Institute, an organization designed to foster discussion within the industry.

Broadway sticks to a diet of prestige dramas from London while BAM, Lincoln Center Festival and LaMaMa E.T.C. are known for the strength of the adventurous foreign work they host. In the last couple of years a new generation of globetrotting producers, some of whom were born abroad (including Vallejo Gantner of Performance Space 122 and Peter Tear, who runs 59E59 Theaters with Elysabeth Kleinhans), has become more aggressive in pursuing international work…The result has been an excellent season for foreign shows.

The Bridge Project

The postponed collaboration between BAM (Joseph V. Melillo), the Old Vic (Kevin Spacey) and Neal Street Productions (Sam Mendes) is back on track. Originally Mendes was supposed to work on Hamlet & The Tempest with actor Stephen Dillane in 2007, but, due to illness in Dillane’s family, the project was delayed.

The Bridge Project will now begin in the autumn of 2008 with rehearsals for Winter’s Tale and The Cherry Orchard. It was announced that Simon Russell Beale will play Leontes and Lopakhin, and that Sinead Cusack and Rebecca Hall will join the ‘Anglo/American’ company. The plays will open in January 2009 in Brooklyn, with several international stops along the way, until settling in at the Old Vic during the summer of 2009.

Caro Newling, Mendes’s partner, insists that the creative team and acting company will truly be transatlantic. “Half-American and half-English.” She also promised that the roles will be performed by actors with proper stage chops.

The model for the Bridge Project was Mendes's final season as the artistic director of the Donmar, where directed Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya, which were also presented at BAM.

The name 'Bridge’ came about when Newling was walking across Waterloo Bridge one night and had a eureka moment. "Brooklyn Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and bridging the Atlantic ... oh, you get it.”