Any casual London theatregoer is unlikely to have escaped the rising tide of criticism voiced against celebrity casting in recent weeks. Sigourney Weaver, Brie Larson and Rami Malek have all faced the wrath of London's theatre critics, and social media notices haven't been too complimentary either. Here are some thoughts on this subject and a prediction for the future of film stars in the West End.
It was big news when Andrew Lloyd Webber announced that Shakespeare would return to Theatre Royal Drury Lane - the oldest and most renowned theatre in London, now dominated by popular musicals. Lloyd Webber had himself seen the last Shakespeare play staged there in 1957. That production was The Tempest and Prospero was played by the British theatre titan Sir John Gielgud. Legend has it that Gielgud broke his staff on the final performance and proclaimed that Shakespeare would never again be played at Drury Lane.
What delighted gasps and fervour then when Lloyd Webber - now landlord of 'the Lane' - revealed his plans to produce The Tempest on that same stage, with hot young director Jamie Lloyd on board and the inspired casting of Sigourney Weaver as Prospero. None could have expected the storm that was to come...
It’s telling that most of the critics' attacks were unapologetically levelled on its headline star. Admittedly, Weaver seemed completely devoid of the necessary magic and her usual big screen charisma was nowhere to be seen but - from this theatregoer's view at least - she appeared most critically hampered by the production’s lack of a clear directorial vision.
Jamie Lloyd, a director who has hardly shunned celebrity casting in the past (Tom Hiddleston, James McAvoy, Nicole Scherzinger, Jessica Chastain, etc.) seemed to have left the entire cast adrift with little to do beyond awkwardly wander around the shallow, barren landscape created for them - like forlorn toddlers left to entertain themselves in an arid sandpit. Weaver spent the majority of the play sat on a stool staring into the middle-distance, quietly and monotonously delivering her lines into a headset mic.
Having got away with similar gimmicks in his pared-down and subdued productions of The Seagull (Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke) and Romeo and Juliet (Tom Holland, Spiderman), this surely felt like an overdue case of seeing the Emperor’s new outfit for what it really was. Unfortunately for Weaver, most of the arrows were fired squarely at her. I suspect she received the brunt of the blame, both from disgruntled audience members and the press, thanks to being the more famous of the two.
Soon after Sigourney Weaver was impaled by the London critics, two more recent Hollywood stars - Academy Award winners Rami Malek and Brie Larson - came into town with a pair of Greek tragedies. There’s bitter irony in the fact that both were undone by the ancients. Malek’s ill-fated Oedipus came hot on the heels of a well-received production fronted by British theatre stalwarts Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. The reviewers still had Malek's blood on their notepads when Brie Larson entered the arena. Regardless of both actors’ failings, it seemed that audiences and critics alike suddenly made a collective decision to receive these entitled stars with wary scepticism rather than welcome garlands.
The habit of famous names turning their hand to the stage is hardly a recent phenomenon - generations of film stars have publicly declared theatre to be the ultimate test for actors to prove their worth, almost a necessary rite of passage. The West End has even occasionally been used as a comparatively safe testing ground before attempting the utmost challenge, success on Broadway - New York being a notoriously painful town to flop in.
Surely it was only a matter of time before audiences stood up to the vanity of big names seeking the clout of triumph on the London stage without earning the right to step up to the plate. Theatre is a notoriously competitive industry with more performers jostling for work than parts available, and stage acting demands an entirely separate discipline from film. The power of fame is little compensation if an actor fundamentally lacks the ability to keep a live audience engaged.
Nevertheless, it must be said that big stars can certainly make a production - two shows during Rufus Norris’ uneven time as artistic director of the National Theatre had this in common. Bryan Cranston gave a barnstorming performance in an otherwise not entirely successful theatre adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's Network, and Cate Blanchett proved utterly mesmerising opposite a similarly great Stephen Dillane in an otherwise complete mess of a production - When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other.
Stars have also succeeded in saving struggling theatres on the brink of bankruptcy. The currently vilified Kevin Spacey made global news when he sacrificed his Hollywood career to revive the fortunes of The Old Vic. Obviously not such a proud boast now but, for better or worse, that theatre still appears to be coasting off the success he achieved during his decade-long tenure as artistic director.
And our own most securely established theatre stars are certainly not immune from major flops either. It seemed a surefire hit when Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff, both National Theatre favourites, were cast as the leads in Macbeth (2018). That production proved an infamous debacle. The usually unassailable Sir Mark Rylance - for many our finest contemporary stage actor - has also not escaped a few significant misfires over the years. In 2013, he directed a production of Much Ado About Nothing starring the great Vanessa Redgrave and the late, great James Earl Jones - unmissable on paper but an unequivocal disaster when it landed on the stage. Rylance's most recent performance in Juno and the Paycock, though spared the unanimous kicking received by Much Ado, certainly didn’t fare entirely well with audiences.
Stage success is ultimately never guaranteed. Productions have limited budgets and most companies rarely have more than a month to rehearse. With such strictures, it’s almost impossible to safely foretell what will be a hit. Often the most eagerly-anticipated productions fail the hardest.
While the majority of London theatre remains unsubsidised and producer-led, financial reassurance is needed somewhere and a star name is probably the most likely assurance of a production's commercial success - much as a musical version of a beloved film has some financial security, since there's already an existing market both in musical theatre and fans of the original film. A uniquely uninspired basis from which to begin a creative endeavour but a nonetheless unstoppable trend on both the West End and Broadway in recent years.
For theatregoers too, there's always a degree of gamble involved in booking tickets in advance of a production's opening. Unfortunate or otherwise, it seems likely that this fact and the ever-rising prices in the West End ensure audiences will always be drawn by the famous name. Little surprise then when audiences groan on hearing a regretful tannoy announcing that the leading player’s role will be covered by an understudy. For all the snides posing as purists who goad the disappointed on social media, it doesn’t escape the fact that most who sacrificed £100s did so on the pretext of seeing a star they revere in the flesh. (If that feels alien to you and only draws attention to the negative impact of profit-driven commercialism effected by lack of state subsidy and the growing cult of celebrity worship then so much the better. Perhaps what's currently keeping the London theatre scene alive is also ultimately suffocating it from the inside...)
It may feel a disappointing conclusion but I predict we'll sooner see a complete decline in non-musical productions than a West End free from celebrity casting. At the rate of an average West End ticket price, it seems the safest investment for both financiers and theatregoers to employ a well-known entity. It might not come out a masterpiece - the headline personality may even hamper the entire production - but at the very least audiences will leave with the memory of having seen an actor they’ve previously admired at work. And - as the Greeks taught us - often the major downfalls are the most enjoyable stories to share.
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