National Theatre promises more diverse season

THE National Theatre will continue to promote diversity across race, gender and other fields, its artistic director, Rufus Norris, has pledged, while announcing a slew of new plays for the next 12 months.

These include Welcome to Iran and Kerry Jackson, directed respectively by Nadia Fall and Indhu Rubasingham, who have both been recognised in Eastern Eye’s Arts Culture Theatre Awards (ACTA) in the past.

“Based on real life testimonials, the new play written and directed by Nadia Fall, Welcome to Iran, opens at Theatre Royal Stratford East in April before transferring to the Dorfman Theatre in May,” it was announced.

“The company includes Moe Bar-El, Nalân Burgess, Souad Faress, Karina Fernandez, Nicholas Karimi, Serena Manteghi, Maimuna Memon, Isabella Nefar, Kareem Samara and Joplin Sibtain.”

Fall, who is artistic director at Theatre Royal Stratford East, visited Iran for three weeks to gather background material.

Her play, lifting the lid on “an unexpected world of raves, raids and illicit love”, “wouldn’t be passed by the censors” in the Islamic Republic, she quipped in one interview.

Fall said: “I would be on social media and see photographs of young people from Iran, proper Kim Kardashian, lips pouted, dressed up to the nines and I was thinking this so is not the Iran we are sold here in the west.”

Although she was paired with an official guide who monitored where she went, “I was able to drop her, let’s just say, at certain points and I did have some amazing conversations with people. The people are amazing, young people especially, they are into the same things anyone would be, boyfriends, girlfriends, parties, having a drink, all these things that aren’t just going to stop because it’s illegal but they have got this pressure and there is such a thing as the morality police, and if your party is raided or you are not wearing your headdress, you can be arrested.”

Last week’s announcement said: “Also, in the Dorfman Theatre is the world premiere of April de Angelis’ new play Kerry Jackson directed by Indhu Rubasingham opening in November.

“Set in a Hackney restaurant on the front line of the gentrification wars, this comedy casts a shrewd eye on a city and country in the grip of profound change.”

The announcement said: “Artistic director of the Bush Theatre, Lynette Linton, also makes her National Theatre debut with a new production of American writer Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky in the Lyttelton from February 2021 – a startling play set in 1930 during the Harlem renaissance, about four friends whose lives and passions collide when a newcomer from Alabama arrives.”

“People of colour were beginning to tell their own stories”, Norris commented, also throwing in that the cast will include Giles Terera, who was named best actor in Hamilton, the hit musical play.

The NT said: “Following a sell-out run last year The Chichester Festival Theatre production of Roy Williams’s Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads will play in the Dorfman Theatre from September. Nicole Charles makes her NT directing debut with this funny and disturbing play which takes aim at what it means to be black, white and English in 21st century Britain.”

Norris, who revealed he is to stay on for a second five year term as artistic director, said: “You may remember back in 2016 we set o u r s e l v e s public targets to reflect the nation on our stages by increasing the diversity of our actors, writers and directors working here and gave ourselves until 2021 to meet them. I am pleased to confirm that that milestone will be reached by this time next year.

“The change in representation across the theatre sector has seen some significant progress over the last few years confirming absolutely the creative case for diversity, and it is good to be part of that. There is more work to do, of course, and it is essential that we continue to work to represent the nation.

“Over the last five years, the NT has staged a wider range of stories made by a substantially broader range or artists than ever before, and we have been delighted to see au - diences respond enthusiastically.”

He added: “The targets that we have set are 50 per cent gender divide, (plus more) living writers, directors and actors on stage.

“On the writers front, (we are) just making sure that we are aware of the talent that’s out there and giving them the appropriate opportunities – really, it’s having our ears open and making sure that we are working with the range of artists that are coming through.”

He emphasised that “our diversity targets are based on the population of this country” and said: “One cannot say often enough the creative industry has contributed £110bn to UK GDP in the last 12 months. It’s the fastest-growing sector, seen a seven per cent rise in employment in the last 12 months, it is thriving in every region of the UK.

“We are proud to be a part of that and, in these uncertain times, whichever way the country is going, it is essential that whoever is in power recognises the massive contribution that the creative industries bring to this country.”

Speaking alongside Norris, the National Theatre’s executive director and joint chief executive (with the artistic director), Lisa Burger, said: “We want the theatre to be accessible to the widest possible audience. We hope to welcome a bigger and broader audience to the South Bank than ever before – (we are) working to be a theatre for the whole nation.”

The National Theatre announced “that, beginning with the shows going on sale this month, it will offer 250,000 tickets across the year at £20 or less – increasing the quantity of low-price tickets available on the South Bank by 25 per cent. There will be 50,000 £10 tickets available to everyone through Friday Rush and to young people under-26, while state schools will have the opportunity to buy tickets for £10 per student.”

Last week’s press conference was held in the spacious Gorvy rehearsal room and began with “a little preview from the music of one of the new productions we are announcing, The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams”. It was sung by the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. The Corn Is Green is a 1938 semi-autobiographical play by Welsh dramatist and actor Emlyn Williams, which premiered the same year at the Duchess Theatre in London. The revival is slated for June 2020.

Norris himself will direct “the critically acclaimed production of Andrea Levy’s epic novel Small Island” in the Olivier Theatre in late October 2020.”

There were other announcements. “Standing at the Sky’s Edge, a co-production with Sheffield Theatres in association with Various Productions will transfer to the Olivier in January 2021.”

In the Lyttelton in October, “Alice Birch adapts Rachel Cusk’s acclaimed trilogy Outline. Transit. Kudos. for the stage in a powerful production directed by Katie Mitchell.

“Simon Stone makes his National Theatre debut in the Lyttelton in December directing his new adaptation of Phaedra after Euripides, Seneca and Racine. Kristin Scott Thomas makes her NT debut as a British politician, alongside Assaad Bouab.

“In January 2021, Headlong and the National Theatre co-produce After Life, a new play written by Jack Thorne and created by Jack Thorne, Jeremy Herrin and Bunny Christie. Adapted from the film by Hirokazu Koreeda, After Life takes place somewhere between life and death and asks the people passing through it to pick one memory that they will live in for eternity.”

Norris quipped about the play: “You have a few seconds to think about yours.”

More announcements followed: “Romeo and Julie, a new play by Gary Owen, directed by Rachel O’Riordan, and a coproduction with Sherman Theatre, opens in the Dorfman on 14 July. Paradise by Kate Tempest is a new version of Philoctetes by Sophocles, starring Lesley Sharp, Lorna Gayle and Danielle Vitalis, opening in the Olivier in June, directed by Ian Rickson.

“Emma Rice’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights, a co-production with Wise Children in association with York Theatre Royal will open in the Lyttelton Theatre in September, performing at the Lowry in Salford before a UK tour including Canterbury, York and Bristol. John Pfumojena is cast as Heathcliff and Lucy McCormick as Cathy.”

The NT also said: “Around 281 youth theatre companies and over 6,000 young people from every corner of the UK are taking part in NT Connections this year, one of the UK’s largest celebrations of youth theatre. New plays by some of the UK’s most exciting contemporary playwrights are being staged and performed by young people at 31 leading regional theatres from March 17– May 9, with the Connections Festival taking place on the South Bank from June 29 to July 3.