A nationally subsidized theatre...that's a novel idea!!!

(Photograph: Marc Brenner; The Guardian)

Since 1963, the national theatre has sought to be the epicenter for the British stage. This institutions sole purpose is to provide artistic opportunity for all of Great Britain. With four different theatres joined: Lyttelton, Olivier, Dorfman, and the Temporary Theatre, variety becomes ever present. The Theatre’s mission statement has committed to at least staging 20 productions a year. With that said there could be more seven or eight productions in repertory at one time. That is incredible!

It’s refreshing to see a county to take nationalistic pride in theatre and to take such great pain in perpetuate creativity just for the sake of art. I even got see this at first hand. I got to see Caryl Churchill’s A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire. It was a very avant-garde performance. The plot focused on the English civil war and followed by the restoration. The production shared their ideas through the symbolic. There were no characters presented per se, the cast symbolized different allusions from history or represented different ideologies at the time.  Interesting concept, but it became very dense and dry. In order to follow the plot audience members had to be exposed to the history of Britain. It was very difficult for me to feel emotionally attached to cast and the story, even though I what was going on. What made up for the plot were its aspects of scenic design! They entirety of the set was a mock first person perspective. It looked like you were at the foot of a long table. There were no set changes, yet the set went under changes. The stream of consciousness didn’t stop. The table represented the status of England. The first half featured members of the monarchy eating and living in luxury to represented The reign of King Charles the I of England. Then in the second half you see round hats writing legislature to represent the Republic of England. What so revolutionary about this giant table was that the subflooring was made entirely out of soil. There was a scene that represents the allotting of former royal land and estates to English citizens and agriculture. The parliamentarians proceeded to lift of the floorboards to soil. It looked like the whole cast was involved in the stage business. The rest of the production was done on the soil. There was even a moment when it rained on the table to create a muddy environment. Even though the plot structure was not easily accessible, but featured a lot of surreal and abstract means of scenic design that could inspire new forms or theatre.