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| A light shining in London...a view of the city |
“The theatre is irresistible; organise the theatre” was the battle
cry of the big dreamers who first began clamoring for a National Theatre in
Britain. Today, their vision lies on the South Bank of the Thames, a beautiful
example of an organized effort to establish theatre year round.*
Through various financial, political, and managerial dilemmas,
plus two world wars that pushed the pause button on their efforts, the National
Theatre Company under Laurence Olivier was created before an official building
was established for them to perform in.* My favorite Shakespeare play, Hamlet, was the first play the National
Theatre Company performed; they put it on at the Old Vic in October 1963. Despite
the difficulties, in 1976 the Company moved in to the Denys Lasdun’s National
Theatre building. Thanks to this monumental point in theatre history, the
National Theatre has produced over 800 plays since, putting on 1,000 performances
each year.ǂ
Friday night, we saw Caryl Churchill’s A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire for our first play at the
National. The play used the English Civil War and the debates of citizens’
rights as a springboard for a wider discussion of religion and the relationship
between God and worshipers. The subject matter was a little dense and slow,
involving long courtroom scenes and several narrative speeches telling the audience
what happened rather than performing it. The stage work, however,
blew my non-theatre major mind. Although this play was admittedly not one of my
favorites, I have never had as many jaw-dropping moments as I did during this
one. A huge dining room table filled the stage, onto which actors climbed to
act out their parts and give their speeches. Then, when the Civil War began and
the new Cromwell government took over, the various actors took apart the dining room table to reveal dirt underneath. Maybe
that sentence isn’t as exciting to read, but I promise, the moment they pulled
out shovels and actually cracked into the hardwood of the surface to pull it
up, I had to pinch myself. At the close of the show, they triggered
water to fall on the actors as crashes of thunder echoed overhead.
Churchill’s play was difficult to understand because of its
very dry, fragmented form of presentation. Unlike another play we watched this
week called The Father that also
utilized confusion and broken scenes, A
Light Shining’s methodology made the play less accessible and therefore made less of an impact on me personally. It
played much more to the cerebral aspect than that of entertainment. That being
said, when considering what the National’s goals are, this play does not disappoint.
When the first committee began organizing its efforts for a
national theatre in 1909, one of their six primary goals was “to produce new
plays and to further the development of the modern drama.”* Now, the National
follows a similar ideal: to reach wider audiences, “representing the widest
range of voices,” and to “present an eclectic mix of new plays and classics.”ǂ
This is all done in an effort to maintain a strong sense of theatre
appreciation and culture for all of Britain.
Churchill’s play in that sense lives up to the National’s
goals. Through the debates of characters on stage over the true essence of what
God is—whether he was a judgmental, distant being or merely the goodness in
each person—the actors and the audience were allowed to engage with conflicting
ideas. As offensive as that can potentially be (I felt the need to squirt soap
in my ears after one monologue that combined scripture preaching and curse
words), it creates an environment of progress and innovation—which I believe is
key to the success of liberal arts. Churchill aimed high with her ambitious
subject matter, but whether it succeeded or not was not really the point. The
point is that the National does not just put on one type of performance; it seeks
a wide range and allows free expression of avant-garde style material. This play
undoubtedly set many precedents, both in stage performance and in bold
language, which further emphasizes the importance of a central theatre that
reflects the changing, tumultuous world we live in.
(PS, we need an American National Theatre. If you walk away
from this post with anything, that is what I hope you get.)
* means that this information was drawn from Richard
Findlater’s 1977 “The Winding Road to King’s Reach” article, found at http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/welcome-to-the-national-theatre/the-history-of-the-national-theatre/the-winding-road
ǂ means that this information was from the National’s
website information, on the tab “About the National Theatre,” found at http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/welcome-to-the-national-theatre/about-the-national-theatre
This is very interesting.
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