Lyn Gardner's theatre roundup: Three Kingdoms and the fourth estate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/may/21/three-kingdoms-theatre-roundup

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Getting critical

It felt as if something shifted this week with the fervid debate over Simon Stephens and Sebastian Nübling's play Three Kingdoms, which has just finished at the Lyric Hammersmith in London. It's given voice to all sorts of issues – from the representation of women on stage to the role of mainstream critics and their approach to radical work.

Only last weekend I spoke at the Getting It Out There conference, and suggested that when it came to experimental theatre and live art perhaps it was time for companies and theatres to stop hankering after broadsheet coverage and instead pursue a dialogue with bloggers and commentators who were prepared to learn the vocabulary as well as able to write at length not just about the work itself and its process, but also more tangentially about the ideas and feelings it evoked.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that mainstream criticism is redundant (that would be like a turkey voting for Christmas), because it serves a purpose both for theatres and theatregoers. But it does often feel as if much of it is stuck in the mid-20th century, while the theatre it describes has long since moved on. I do wonder whether this week will mark the moment when theatre and critics began to seriously consider not just what it might be in the 21st century, but also how and where we might develop the criticism to support it.

Scottish power

With only 10 days to go before the launch of the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme, some people are getting in on the act early. The arts development body Creative Scotland this week announced the companies selected for this year's Made in Scotland showcase. As ever, the lineup – mostly hailing from the independent sector – looks great and includes Molly Taylor's Love Letters to the Public Transport System, which focuses on those who work to keep us moving and Donna Rutherford's Kin, which handles the relationships middle-aged children have with their elderly parents. Scotland punches way above its weight when it comes to theatre for children, and the showcase includes some terrific companies, including Catherine Wheels and Shona Reppe. But while they were celebrating their inclusion in the showcase, many of the companies were also facing an uncertain future after changes to the funding system and the removal of flexible funding have led many to predict that talent will leave Scotland.

Court ruling

The outgoing artistic director at the Royal Court, Dominic Cooke, has had an undeniably good run, with hits including Jerusalem and Clybourne Park. So it was odd to read him in the Sunday Times yesterday being defensive about his record. He seemed to regret the lack of formally groundbreaking plays during his reign, and also debated whether theatre that's populist is intrinsically risk-averse. He argued not: "When a play's radical gesture is not immediately evident on its surface, but hidden in its content," he said, "that surely doesn't make it less original." To which it might be replied: of course it doesn't. There nothing at all wrong with being popular, as shows such as Black Watch, or the work of a playwright such as Dario Fo or companies as varied as Welfare State and 7:84 have proved. What does get tiring is when plays repeat a vocabulary that has no new places to go.

Playing the percentages

Under the late, great John McGrath Scotland's political 7:84 company was both popular and radical in every way. Last week, Arts Admin's Judith Knight gave a moving speech about the history of radical touring theatre that included an anecdote about 7:84. Turning up with their van at a petrol station one day, they were asked by a garage attendant what 7:84 painted on the side of the vehicle meant. The company explained that it referred to the fact that 7% of the population owned 84% of the wealth. To which the garage attendant replied: "Well, there's no need to brag about it, mate."