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Changes at the RSC - the ImplicationsThe burning question, of course, is whether the changes will affect the company's work, and the honest answer is that it is bound to. Whether or not the effects will be good or bad is too early to tell: Adrian Noble thinks good, opponents think bad. One thing is certain: the days of the RSC ensemble are over. Prior to the changes, actors signed up with the company for eighteen months. Many actors, Noble tells us, found this too restricting and so would not join the company. This is particularly true of the "names", and it is names, he says, which put bums on seats. The new approach, which allows for more flexible contracts, will enable actors, who formerly would not consider a stint with the company, to join for a limited period, for just one production, for example. Noble instances Branagh and Ralph Fiennes. Although cross-casting (i.e. casting an actor in more than one production) is not explicitly excluded, it is clear from what Noble says that it will be the exception rather than the rule. Under the exisiting dispensation, of course, it is the norm. Those who oppose the changes feel that the RSC will be losing something unique, a highly skilled ensemble company in which the experience of working together over a long period leads to a higher standard of production and which also means that those who are "star" names will take small roles in some productions, thus strengthening the ensemble. They also feel that the idea of star names "parachuting in" for one production does not make up for what will be lost. It may be thought that the new system will be a means of avoiding those periods when the RSC seems to sink into the doldrums and the standard of productions slumps, something which does happen from time to time. However the problem in these situations is not the quality of performance but of direction, and the new system will not make any changes here - or, at least, nothing has been explicitly said about directors. In any case, one might almost say that such periods are inevitable in any institution. And that word "institution" lies at the heart of what Noble says he is trying to achieve. He believes that the words "art" and "institution" do not fit well together: "I suspect the words 'arts' and 'institution' are a contradiction in terms. There's a natural tendency to a furring-up of the arteries and a situation whereby the structure defines the art - for instance, having to do a Stratford season with a single company and then transfer it all to the Barbican." And it is that mention of the Barbican which brings us to another point of contention: the loss of the RSC's permanent home in London. However it is true to say that the company has rarely been out of the West End: "We have never really been out of the West End in the last 10 years," Noble says. "And who is to say that we won't also be staging plays in buildings that are not theatres in future?" The worry, of course, is that, by abandoning its permanent home in the capital, the company is putting itself at the mercy of commercial managements which are more worried about the bottom line of the accounts than artistic integrity. Whilst what Noble says about the company's presence in the West End is true - and, of course, the Aldwych was its London "home" for a long time before the Barbican deal - it has not been the Shakespeare aspect of its work that consitituted its West End presence. And it is not that long since the Arts Council demanded that the company should produce "more and better Shakespeare". Stratford Articles Indices: |
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