Director Steph O'Driscoll has issued a detailed statement to The Stage industry newspaper about her production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which was cancelled at the last minute by the management of Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
In the statement, O'Driscoll describes her concept for the production, set in the drum-and-base rave scene in Manchester with the mechanicals as "a group of Manchester based MC/rappers". She claimed that the people from that scene are pro-Palestinian, and the characters in her interpretation of Shakespeare's play "expressed solidarity with trans people and the people of Palestine in a rap performed by a trans politically conscious mechanical."
However, she said, "executive staff stated that the production could not go on unless the phrases 'trans rights' and 'Free Palestine' were removed. It was stated to the full company that this decision was building-wide, including the board. The reason given was safety, citing concerns about potential audience protests and press backlash."
According to O'Driscoll, while "numerous staff members" were able to see recordings of the content of the show and some had seen runs-through, no concerns were raised until the day of the dress run. Concessions were eventually made to allow reference to trans rights and "a small badge to represent Palestinian solidarity, but it was categorically forbidden to say 'Free Palestine' verbally."
After a week of debate, she made the decision that she "couldn’t proceed under these conditions and made the difficult decision to step away from the show. I could not, in good conscience, continue with a production that undermined both artistic integrity and the well-being of myself and my team." She said she is "devastated by the loss of the production, which I have been working on since 2019" and that she had always dreamed of working at the Royal Exchange.
The content of her statement is consistent with previous unattributed comments made in The Stage and elsewhere in the press, but the theatre has so not responded to requests for comment or information. There is a very short statement on its web site under "About Us" / "Stories & connections" apologising for the cancellation with the explanation, "there have been a number of issues with the production. Every effort was made to get the show on. We apologise to all customers who had bought tickets and will issue immediate refunds." There is no longer any reference to the production at all on its homepage or the "What's On" page.
O'Driscoll refers at the start of her statement to "a growing trend of censorship and fear-driven decision-making in the arts," whereas others have made a link between this and the warning to arts organisations earlier this year from the ACE against "overtly political activist" statements. This was widely interpreted as an attempt to censor the arts through the threat of withdrawal of funding, which ACE denied.
The Royal Exchange Theatre receives Arts Council England's third largest annual theatre grant after the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company at £2.4 million per year. It also receives funding from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which told the BBC it was "in conversation with the Royal Exchange to better understand the situation."