Necessary Theatre

In this short work, Sir Peter Hall distils his thinking about the theatre. Writing in a direct polemical style he pursues two linked arguments: the case for subsidy and the case for a company. In the first part he points out that theatre through the ages has always required patronage, whether through the play competitions of Ancient Greece or the munificence of kings and dukes in Shakespeare's time. Our own age, he says, is in danger of losing sight of the fact that if theatre has to support itself it will stagnate, falling back on the tried and true. Subsidy is vital if theatre is to take the risks necessary in order to find new directions. In the second part, he draws directly on his own experiences running the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and his own repertory company at the Old Vic. He argues that the very best theatre can only be made with a permanent company of actors and technicians situated in their own building, an ideal he briefly enjoyed at the Old Vic, where the company had up to five plays in their repertoire and were able to draw sustenance and inspiration from this multiplicity and from the enhanced working conditions of such a company.