Gone West

9 February 2007

The Sheffield Crucible's refurbishment is no reason to stop thinking big. Theatre should diversify and conquer.

As you liked it, we'll close the theatre ... Eve Best and Lisa Dillon on stage at the Crucible.
 Photograph: Tristram Kenton

 

Samuel West's production of As You Like It, which opened in Sheffield last night, got a rave review from Michael Billington, which makes it all the more unfortunate that West will shortly be leaving his post as artistic director after just two seasons at Sheffield. Not everyone thought that West - far better known as an actor, with limited directing under his belt and no experience of running a building - was the right man for the task when he was appointed in 2005. But he has proved the doubters wrong. As well as the current As You Like It, highlights include a brave revival of The Romans in Britain and his own performance in a perfectly judged revival of Caryl Churchill's A Number in which he appeared alongside his father, Timothy.

But now West is departing with the expiry of his initial two year contract (which had an option for renewal for a third year) and the reason is the refusal of the Sheffield Theatre's management to allow him to continue producing theatre on the scale that he would have liked while the Crucible main stage is closed for refurbishment from January 2008 until March 2009. West was very keen to take its work out into the city during its closure, create site-specific work and develop co-productions with other theatres.
Money - or rather a lack of it - and concern for the theatre's continued financial security in an uncertain funding climate is certainly at the root of the Sheffield board's reluctance to commit to West's ideas, and Chief executive Angela Galvin says that they thought hard before deciding that ensuring the theatre's own sustainability and providing "headspace" to rethink its future must be priorities over short-term goals.

But other theatres such as the Young Vic have succeeded in multi-tasking and proved that you can build, think and produce on a major scale all at the same time, and the failure to invest in art and not just bricks and mortar is one that Sheffield may come to regret. A theatre is merely a building, but theatre can happen anywhere - as the success of the National Theatre of Scotland, a theatre without walls, has proved. What's more the recent history of capital refurbishments and rebuilds increasingly suggests that it is those organisations which continue to produce during building works who settle back quickest and do best when they finally get back inside a building. It seems curious that Sheffield, which has worked so hard and put so much money into developing new audiences, should risk that pioneering work, although Galvin is at pains to point out that the continued work of the creative development department will ensure this is not the case.

The difficulties faced by Hampstead Theatre and the Unicorn after lengthy closures without significant production activity suggest that not only does the artistic policy lose momentum but that audiences don't just come flocking back when a theatre re-opens its doors. Theatre going is very much a matter of habit and when the habit is broken it is hard to rebuild even in a city such as Sheffield where the Crucible is the only producing theatre and faces no competition.

Until the arrival of Michael Grandage at Sheffield, the Crucible was a regional rep down on its knees. He and his successor, West, have cultivated a culture that has mixed glamour and risk-taking and put Sheffield on the theatrical map. Relations between West and the theatre apparently remain strong, and he may return as an artistic associate in the future. In the meantime the theatre will be saving his salary, but the long term cost to its reputation and future success might turn out to be higher than anyone realises.

The Guardian - Gone West