Plea for Fall Fund shows lack of realism theatre sector

Nothing worse than having to play an unsuccessful play thirty, or a hundred times, just because the show has been sold to theatres so many times. That's why it would be nice if companies could decide not to do it. Because now they wouldn't be able to.

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It seems that not touring with failure costs too much money: theatres have to get their money back, actors have to be compensated, PR money is wasted. So there should be a fund for that. That was the opinion of a large number of theatre makers and theatres during a debate which was organised on Monday 8 April by the Circle of Dutch Theatre Critics. (Watch 25 minutes into the above report)

Since politicians have declared the word 'subsidy' tainted, calls for a fund for one thing or another have been heard more frequently. So this plea for the Failure Fund is not so strange. What is strange is that the theatre sector, or at least that part of it that is in favour of such a fund, shows that it has learned little. After all: with their demand for risk exclusion, they indicate exactly where it goes wrong between art, politics and society: the theatre maker may well want to be a 'cultural entrepreneur', as long as he does not have to run any entrepreneurial risk.

During the debate, there was great admiration for director Jakop Albohm, who had had the audacity to present his play 'Dracula', which had already sold to dozens of theatres, a week before its premiere to be blown off, because he had not reached the level he wanted.

Logical and sensible: you are either an artist or not, so you have to be strict about your product. The audience, the subsidiser, deserves that. However, the admiration and even applause from his colleagues and other theatre people for his move shows that it is thus much more common for a show that the creators find unsuccessful to just go on tour, and just be sold at full price to unsuspecting audiences.

No wonder audiences have stayed away so massively in recent years.

What's worse is that - especially with a subsidised show - it doesn't cost that much at all to put on a show cancellen. Theatres with a gap in their programming always have an opportunity to fill it through rentals or last-minute programming. Sometimes perhaps more profitable than the likely loss they would have made on a bad show. The company doesn't have to travel with the set and players, the PR department can do other work, like explaining to the grantmaker why they don't want to waste money on a bad product.

On balance, cancelling a tour, especially in the subsidised circuit, makes money rather than costs money.

Those who might suffer are the actors, but for them - as for everyone else - there are unemployment benefits if they fail to take on another project to replace the cancellation. The director has time left over for other plans, and might one day plunge into answering the question of how he caused this humiliating failure.

With the Failure Fund behind them, there would no longer be any reason at all for theatre-makers to really worry about the quality of their work. Failures are no longer even a risk, but an annoying bump in an otherwise smooth career. Even if there were a cap on the number of times someone could appeal to that Failure Fund.

But the worst part is: it cannot be explained to a society that is increasingly made up of at-risk self-employed and flex workers.

There is only one alternative to the Failure Fund: creativity.