The news that the independent press Old Sovereign Publishing is to fund a new theatrical prize appears, on the face of it, to be glad tidings indeed. Old Sovereign has established a reputation for excellent (if unavoidably pricey) newly illustrated editions of classic books, and is now branching out into the field of drama. Its intent is to set up the grandiloquently named “The Great Panathenaea”, which is an intriguing and appropriately dramatic idea.
Budding playwrights are invited to submit a single act of an original drama based on The Lives of Plutarch, which could be anything from a small anecdote to a grandiose biographical treatment of the lives of such figures as Alexander or Alcibiades. Two finalists will see their work performed this December “on the London stage by the players of The Base”, and the winner will receive a £2000 cash prize and a book contract where they will receive 10 per cent royalties of their book’s RRP. Perhaps most appealingly for the fame-hungry, “the winner will be acclaimed on the theatre floor by the entire audience of a large London stage and crowned with the laurels of victory.”
This seems an appealingly original opportunity for a dramatist to have their work recognised and publicly staged, although as ever with these matters, the small print might need checking. If the winner’s book contract does not come with any further advance than the £2000, and their royalties are limited to a relatively paltry sum of the putative book’s sales, then this is considerably less generous than even what most cash-strapped indie publishers are offering authors these days.
Yet I suspect that there is a politicised idea to this apparent largesse, and remarks that the company’s director George Carter made to the Daily Telegraph seem to support such a thesis. Carter said: “We are hoping to take back the stage from the agitprop and overtly political nature of most modern theatre and stage, to a more serious form that is focused on the stage as a place to perform art.” He ridiculed most contemporary theatre as “navel-gazing” and said that much of the Arts Council-subsidised work, which can, admittedly, be somewhat earnest and on-the-nose in its dedication to hot-button issues, is transitory. “Whatever their merits might be, I doubt anyone will remember them next year, let alone in 10, 15, 100 years.”
Carter is almost certainly right, but I sighed at his statement that “The main impetus is to create something era defining and worthwhile, the concept takes its cue from Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Goethe who took the historical as the basis for so much of their greatest work.” While it would be wonderful if the winner of The Great Panathenaea really was a talent to rank alongside Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Goethe, it is hard not to feel that the dream of classical greatness could make it difficult to recognise real, interesting and yet unfinished talent.
I am, moreover, concerned that Carter and Old Sovereign are setting out to reject the shibboleths of “agitprop and overtly political” contemporary theatre, which can be translated as anti-woke. It is undeniably true that most new work produced in the subsidised theatre is left-wing and hand-wringing in nature, and that few leading actors and directors dare to express any views that are not impeccably right-on, for fear of their agents and managers rapidly disowning them.
One of the reasons for Shakespeare’s continued greatness is that his drama contains multitudes
Yet in defining themselves against modish agitprop, the organisers of the prize must resist the temptation to reward mere reactionary agitprop. As the National Theatre’s former director Nicholas Hytner wrote in his excellent memoir Balancing Acts, “Challenged once by an arts reporter about the perceived left-wing bias of those that make theatre, I should have rejected the attempt to corral the creative arts into categories that are no longer adequate even as an indication of political belief. Instead, I said I’d be delighted to produce a right-wing play if someone would write a good one.” Hytner’s public plea for “a good, mischievous right-wing play” led to the inevitable. “Boring plays poured in, all of them monomaniacal about making some point or other, none of them remotely theatrical.” The closest that the National got to staging a right-wing play in Hytner’s tenure was Richard Bean’s social satire England People Very Nice, which was more irreverent than actively conservative or right-leaning.
One of the reasons for Shakespeare’s continued greatness is that his drama contains multitudes, and a good staging of one of his plays should allow audiences of all political hues to challenge their own personal prejudices and preconceptions in the process. Yet many contemporary works begin with an agenda, and this agenda is dramatically stifling in its preconceptions. The difference between Hytner and his successor Rufus Norris is that I imagine that Hytner would have found Tim Price’s 2024 play Nye, about Nye Bevan, similarly partisan in its ambitions, whereas Norris was only too happy both to commission it and direct it himself.
I wish Old Sovereign’s generous-spirited initiative well, and will hope to be able to write about its winner’s work further for The Critic in due course. But if the judging panel sees its guiding intention as being cocking a snook at contemporary theatrical mores rather than producing the best and most interesting work it can, I fear that this could end up being a profoundly wasted opportunity.
