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The Lure of the NewDateline: 19th June, 2005Have you seen that TV ad in which a man goes into a building society and asks if he can convert his mortgage to one of the new ones he has seen advertised. He's told he can't: they are only for new customers. Every other improvement to his current situation he asks about gets the same reply: only for new customers. I sometimes think that we've got ourselves into a similar situation in theatre: new writing often seems to be the goal of funding organisations. In many ways that's a good thing but it has its dangers. When I interviewed writer Peter Flannery a couple of weeks ago, he remarked that one of the reasons he gave up writing for the stage was that his major plays tend to get one run and are then "neglected". At about the same time some correspondence started in The Stage on precisely the same subject. New writing is important - of course it is: without it theatre becomes moribund. On the other hand, if theatres concentrate on new writing to the exclusion of all else, then new (and, in particular, young) writers are in danger of continually re-inventing the theatrical wheel. There has to be a balance. There are, of course, plays which are not worth reviving, either because they are so much of their time that today they are little more than historical curiosities, or because they are just not good enough, but that leaves a huge number of good plays which deserve to be seen again (and again, in many cases). And I am not referring here to the classics, which are revived frequently - the Hedda Gablers, the Seagulls, the Brechts and Strindbergs, the Sheridans and Anouilhs - but plays which still have something to say today, which are well-written and enjoyable to watch, but have not attained "classic" status. New is good, undoubtedly, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all of theatre.
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