Sitting on the bookshelf above my computer where I am writing this sits a Penguin Dictionary of Theatre from the mid 1960s that I recently purchased at a used bookstore here in New York. I enjoy flipping through it from time to time, looking up the definition of “director” and “dramaturge,” or looking at what people were saying about now-dead, then-famous theatre artists. Recently, I found the following entry for Lincoln Center Theater, written just a couple years after its creation:

A large-scale city project occupying a large site on the West Side of New York, intended to bring together an opera house, concert halls, a repertory theatre, art galleries, music, ballet, and drama schools.  The first section completed, the large concert hall, was opened in 1962; the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in autumn 1965. The theatre company was originally conceived as long ago as 1958 by Robert Whitehead, to constitute a sort of national company on rather the same lines as Britain’s National Theatre, mixing classics of all nations with the best of modern drama in an eclectic repertory.  Whitehead took, as his co-director, Elia Kazan, and appointed Harold Clurman as “Executive Consultant”; the first productions of the company were staged in a temporary home in 1962. Whitehead concentrated mainly on organization, Kazan principally on the actual staging, and Arthur Miller was enrolled as a sort of resident playwright, his two most recent plays, After the Fall and Incident at Vichy, being written for and first played by the company.  Late in 1964, disagreements led to the withdrawal of Whitehead from the company, followed by Kazan and Miller; their place was taken by Herbert Blau and Jules Irving from San Francisco.

Fascinating. Lincoln Center was once envisioned as the American answer to the National Theater in London, and it was run by some of the boldest of bold-face names in American Theater. This dream of an American National Theatre was quite short-lived, however. As it says above, the trio of Whitehead, Kazan, and Clurman didn’t last long. After their first three efforts got creamed by the critics, Kazan quit and Whitehead was fired.

Lincoln Center’s next team (who came from the San Francisco Actors Workshop) ditched the idea of being a “National Theater” entirely, but they too were ill-fated.  Their focus was on experimental work and revisionist takes on the classics. Two years (and many bad reviews) later, and they were gone, replaced by Joe Papp, amongst the most famous of 20^th Century theatre impresarios.  Papp could not make the money work, and soon he was gone too.  The theater then lay dark for nine years.

Today, Lincoln Center Theater does not aspire to being The National Theater. It is instead a large non-profit Off Broadway theater with one Broadway-sized house. Its budget hovers somewhere in the $40-50 million range. LCT has produced many big hits in recent years, including Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia trilogy and the Tony-winning musicals Light in the Piazza and South Pacific, which is still running today. Lead by former Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Andre Bishop, Lincoln Center Theater programs a season of somewhere between three and five plays in its two spaces, and has just started a new initiative to do smaller work in a smaller space under the name LCT3.

In the 1980s, there was another attempt to create an American version of the National Theater.  Experimental director Peter Sellars was named to helm the American National Theater in 1984. Housed in Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, it lasted for a few years, during which Sellars directed many shows, including Beckett’s Ohio Impromptu, a new version of The Count of Monte Cristo, and Sophocles’s Ajax.  When Sellars left a couple of years later, the theater went quietly into that good night.

Today, we have no National Theater.  We have a large touring venue in Washington, D.C. called The National Theater.  We also have a plucky, hilarious, experimental theatre company called The National Theatre of the United States of America based out of New York. Most developed nations have National Theaters, as do many developing and even some third world countries.  Should the United States get one of its own?

Lincoln Center

First, it’s important to talk about what such an entity would look like, and for that we turn to our Aunt across the pond, Great Britain. This fall, The National Theatre will present a wide variety of shows made up of new plays, classics, international touring productions (including the Steppenwolf version of August: Osage County), and multimedia performance pieces.  Between now and the end of January, roughly 14 separate productions will bow at the National.  Due to both heavy Corporate and Government subsidy, tickets at the National cost less than 25 pounds.

That Government subsidy is worth pausing over for a moment, and not just because it’s a favorite subject of mine.  Arts Council UK subsidizes the National to the tune of over 18 million pounds.  Converted to dollars, that’s the vast majority of Lincoln Center Theater’s annual budget.  It is also about a fifth of the total budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, all going to just one institution. That sum only covers 40% of the National’s operating expenses; the rest is made up of ticket sales and donations.

This heavy subsidy is one of the keys to the National’s success, along with programming that remains adventurous and inclusive simultaneously, and it is this combination that makes me pause before recommending that the United States go out and get one for itself.  I believe that a bold, heavily subsidized theater that is dedicated to “mixing classics of all nations with the best of modern drama in an eclectic repertory ” is a great idea. I just don’t think it can happen here in the near future. The only way we could have a thriving American version of the National Theatre is if we were willing to heavily subsidize it with Government money and give it the freedom to have a wide range of programming.

Neither of those things are likely to happen, because the American version of the National Theatre will also have to depend on the American idealization of the marketplace as some kind of omniscient, pure determinant of all that is worthwhile and valid. All of the past attempts to create National Theaters here in the United States have failed, and they have failed because they relied on the traditional non-profit theater mechanisms and structures to work.  History shows us you cannot build a theater the size of the National in scope, operating budget, expenses, or cultural prominence that way.

Let us leave behind our doom and gloom for a moment, however, and dream together.  What if that willpower existed here in the United States? What would such an institution look like? We’d want it to present a broad range of programming that appealed to a wide variety of audience members, while remaining ambitious and relatively pander-free.  We’d want it to have affordable ticket prices.  We’d want it to be an active member of its community. We’d want it to have a good reputation. We’d want it to employ some of the best in the business, while also launching new careers.  And we’d probably want it to be based outside of New York City, perhaps in Washington, D.C.

With the exception of the ticket price and location issues, such a theater already exists. It’s called The Public Theater and it’s one of the preeminent theaters in America. Originally founded by Joe Papp as the New York Shakespeare Festival — which still exists as part of The Public and still presents free plays in Central Park in the summer — the Public is one of New York City’s best-known theatrical institutions. Its programming is extremely broad, ranging from Shakespeare to new plays by both established and lesser-known artists.

Kennedy Center

This breadth has only increased over the past couple of years, as Oskar Eustis has taken over the organization.  Beyond its normal season, the Public now plays host to three separate new work festivals.  The first of these is Under the Radar, which features experimental and performance work, both domestic and international.  The second is SPF, the Summer Play Festival, formerly housed at Theater Row and presents workshop productions of new plays in July. Finally, the Public has its own brand new series called the Public LAB which presents developmental productions of works in progress by artists the Public is invested in.

Eustis is also on record as wanting to get ticket prices at the Public down to as close to zero as possible, a very National-istic goal. If the Federal Government is interested in saving money while creating a National Theatre, I say the Public’s the way to go. No need to fund construction of a facility. Just set aside a cool $20 or $30 million a year (already larger than the Public’s current operating budget) and send it to 425 Lafayette Street.

Am I being facetious? Perhaps. It would be amazing if we had a large theatrical institution funded heavily enough that it did not have the constant conservatizing force of financial crisis hanging over its head.  That such an entity is unlikely to be created in America in my lifetime strikes me as simultaneously sad and unsurprising.  The same free-market ethos that has given rise to our recent financial woes also dictates that anything unprofitable is also invaluable. In a country shaped by this outlook, there’s no way theatre can compete for Government attention or social investment.

Popularity: 3% [?]