Unfair to single out the arts for elitism, says National Theatre director

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jan/30/arts-elitism-social-diversity-nicholas-hytner

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Nicholas Hytner, the outgoing artistic director of the National Theatre, has hit back at accusations of elitism in the acting profession, saying it is unfair to blame broader problems with social mobility solely on the arts.

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Speaking as the chair of judges for this year’s Bruntwood prize, the UK’s biggest playwriting competition, which this year marks its 10th anniversary, Hytner responded to comments made recently by the shadow culture minister, Chris Bryant, that the arts world was dominated by privately-educated actors such as Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch. It was a point also voiced last week by the actor Julie Walters, who, in a Guardian interview, lamented the lack of working-class actors in contemporary drama.

But Hytner disputed the claims and said he believed the problem of social diversity on stage “is, if anything, less acute than the problem in other professions”.

“I don’t have the statistics, but I bet you they are better than they are at the Bar, at the top of the medical profession, than they are in banking, than they are in politics and journalism. I bet they are better,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it’s good, it just illustrates that this is an issue across the board. Social mobility has decreased, but singling out a handful of good actors who happen to have been privately-educated and successful, and turning that into a statement about the acting profession and the arts generally, feels unfair.

“The problem is a much wider social problem. We have been brought to a place where, whatever you want to do, if you’ve been privately educated you are going to find it easier to do it.”

Hytner, who in March will step down from one of the country’s most prestigious cultural roles to be replaced by Rufus Norris, was adamant that despite the financial straits being placed on arts institutions, it had been one of the most exciting periods for new playwriting in decades.

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He praised the recent emergence of a generation of young playwrights and directors “who are incredibly resilient. I don’t think I remember, over the 35 years that I’ve been in theatre, a generation who are more inventive, energetic and ambitious.

“I think this new crowd have found ways of producing, ways of finding spaces and turning them into theatres that is unprecedented. They’ve got lots of things to say, they say it in all sorts of different ways, and they find all sorts of ways of saying it.”

While Hytner was optimistic that the appetite for new plays remained as healthy as ever, he conceded that it was increasingly difficult to get them staged, a fact he said made the Bruntwood prize even more of a vital platform to get new and interesting voices heard in British theatres.

The winner of the Bruntwood prize, which is open to playwrights of all ages and levels of experience, receives £16,000 and their play is staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Anna Jordan, 34, was last year’s winner. Her play YEN, which deals with themes of lost innocence, will have its debut at the Royal Exchange from February.

“The biggest challenge if you are a young playwright is to get produced,” Hytner said. “There is no shortage of theatres who will read your play, but it is becoming an increasing challenge to find properly and sufficiently funded companies.”

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He continued: “I don’t think there are any topics not being dealt with in theatre. But certain forms of experience are not being written about first hand – there are certain people from certain backgrounds to whom it might not occur that writing a play would be a good thing to do, but that’s one of the things that the education departments of all of our theatres are working very hard to overcome. We do what we can given the way we are handicapped now by what happens in schools and what the curriculum dictates.”

Over his 11 years as artistic director of the National, Hytner said he was particularly proud of his legacy of bringing swaths of new writing to the theatre’s prestigious stages.

“During my time at the National there has been a lot of new writing staged, and I think that is as it should be,” he said. “Obviously some [are] more successful than others, but I’ve been particularly proud of reintroducing an ambition to occupy the larger stages with new writing. Only at the National are we really giving new writers the opportunity to write for an audience of thousands and it’s fantastic that so many of them have stepped up.”

Entries for the Bruntwood prize can be submitted online at writeaplay.co.uk. The closing date is 6pm on 5 June