Playwrights and cultural exploration (2) Sophie Kassies: 'A pool of plays that don't find an audience is an erosion of the profession'

The previous cultural exploration among playwrights gives cause for further exploration. From the previous article take into account that further privatisation only partially captures public money and objectives. See also From elevation ideals to efficiency thinking. We also take away that an audience as all-important leads to one-sided popular culture, entertainment and false competition with the free circuit. It all has very little to do with the craft of writing itself. What does this profession consist of anno 2018? What should be publicly funded?

This article is a small international exploration.

It is 2013. In the UK, British culture minister Vaizey argues at a meeting of the Writers' Trade Union that cuts will barely affect theatre. The statement came after earlier disastrous cultural policies under Thatcher. New plays and writers are flourishing like never before.

Somewhere in that audience is the then unknown writer Fin Kennedy. Suffering in silence, this Finn listens to the minister's big words. Of course, he knows from his own experience that the statements are incorrect, but he keeps quiet. He cannot contradict the minister at that moment. Reason: lack of evidence. At that time, there are no workable definitions of what the profession actually involves, and thus no reliable statistics.

In Battalions

It might as well have been the Paradiso debate 2017 may be. Or Culture in Pictures 2014. With the difference that Fin Kennedy did not stop there, he took action. With help from Aristotle, an Oxford PhD student and later acclaim from the theatre industry, he wrote a report: In Battalions. The title refers to Shakespeare's Hamlet 'When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions'.[ref]'Sorrows are not sneaky spies but assail you as a mob.'[/ref]

Now we are not directly struggling with the consequences of conservative cultural policy here, the results do provide a nice overview of issues in the work and especially in the playwright's perception of it. It offers a different perspective.

Cultural system is a very, very broad social discussion

For instance, Fin Kennedy says he is not naive and understands perfectly well that theatre is not a basic necessity of life. Austerity, even more so with our neighbours opposite, affects everyone. But, he says, isn't the very discussion about where they take place a broader discussion about infrastructure, history, expertise and future prospects? Doesn't it force choices to be made in what should be preserved and what is minimally necessary for a healthy playwriting climate?

'Maybe it is not about evidence, studies and figures and statistics at all. Maybe it is time to shift the debate from micro to macro and focus less on economic arguments and more on the real issue: a profound difference of opinion on values.

This goes beyond cultural policy. There is an increasingly bitter fault line at the heart of our society. A rift between public and private, the intrinsic and the instrumental, and between the economy and people.'

Writer feels mostly inhibited in development

A similar situation seems to be at play in shaping a new cultural system. And from In Battalions, something interesting emerges. Writers do not so much feel deprived as inhibited in their development.

• It lacks opportunities for further development among young and midcareer writers.
• Budgets for writers at regional or city theatres disappear.
• Fewer plays lead to more plays with shorter playing time.
• Research and development do not count in the budget.
• Declining visitor numbers, or the fear of them, lead to risk-free programming.
• There are few if any agencies for writers.
• Proposal writing, funding, marketing and promotion takes time that comes at the expense of artistic activity without providing continuity.
• Audiences are still too tight-lipped (although there are also sounds of an increase in visitation as people go on holiday less often).
• Interconnection (deleting one has (direct) effect on another part in theatre).
• Increased competition in charities, exploring new norms and values and where one wants to give energy is no longer exclusive to theatre.
• Lack of knowledge among policymakers about how the sector works and what the effects and power of theatre can be. Including its contribution to the economy.

Great writers are made in the subsidy circuit

In short, if you start economising culture and not judging it on its intrinsic value, you neglect the roots of the tree. It can never come to full bloom that way. This also applies to decisions on preserving theatrical heritage as a source for contemporary writers.

Kennedy also substantiates another eye-opener. In the UK, although well-known contemporary writers are part of the free sector, they are made on the subsidy circuit. It remains to be seen whether policies aimed at increasing the role of own income and loosening more private money also ensure more quality. What is the situation in other European countries, actually?

What do surveys tell us?

The request for advice theatre sector also considers the international context. A comparative study has been promised, a quick-scan of the theatre sector in the UK, Germany and Denmark. Why not sacrosanct France, Sweden, Finland or Norway, for example? These are countries with a great tradition of autonomous, literary voices, and we share an inclusive welfare state with them. While very interesting, the outcome does seem a bit driven by definition. It could just be that writers are oriented differently, to other countries.

A quick-scan of your own via the well-known search engine leads to the book Independent Theatre in Contemporary Europe. In it, German theatre scholar Manfred Brauneck (et al) also traces Dutch theatre history. For a long time, our European neighbours saw the Netherlands as an example where space was claimed, and then even made, for movements such as modernism and postmodernism. It costs a few tomatoes, but then you have something. Contemporary work could grow from the 1960s, 1970s onwards like nowhere else in Europe. Remarkably, this growth came mainly from ensembles and companies. Not from a literary writing tradition.

That what theatres focus on

On 16 February, the Culture Council will publish its advice on the theatre sector. In order not to let artistic energy go to waste, it would be nice if it differentiated between funding for projects and for concepts. In addition, with room for 'advocacy' for theatre. The most notable difference between the European countries is also 'what theatres focus on': vision on which audience a theatre appeals to, including in the region. For example, elsewhere there is also a state-funded theatre for amateurs or a theatre for contemporary, popular culture only. In others, audiences are willing to travel for this.

In the 2015 State of the Theatre Text, Sophie Kassies argues: 'I fear that many writers and other creators are ending up in what has been called the precariat. A variation on the term proletariat. It refers to a layer in the population that is always in an economically precarious situation, going from job to job, never getting security, building up nothing'.

Leaky on welfare

When I speak to her now, she adds: 'In my early days, when we were all sitting comfortably on welfare and trying to make beautiful things in the meantime, that was of course true. The idea: if you don't produce, you are invisible and you will never get a foothold, is of course true. But it is an erosion. I have also seen people lost in benefits, from lack of appreciation, from lack of real work, from lack of response.'

What was it like to work in an earlier culture system with decentralised factor?

'Thirty, forty years ago, there was a lot of policy, but playwriting in the Netherlands was very limited - we were considered a country where drama writing only got off the ground with difficulty, there were almost no playwrights who could make a living from their work'.

What should come again? 

'I can sometimes look back longingly to the days of TheatreNetworkNetherlands - I think it was called that. It was an alliance of flat-floor theatres that often programmed each other's performances. So if you were at Frascati (Amsterdam), it was easier to find an entrance at Grand Theatre (Groningen), at LAK (Leiden), at all these other similar theatres in the country.'

Hermits

What should a new policy look like?

'Fortunately, there has been a bit more focus in the sector on decent pay and working conditions, see The Code of Fair Practice. But of course, it remains the case that makers want to make and are therefore vulnerable. I sometimes face applications where, for instance, no payment for rehearsals is in the budget. There is, of course, all sorts of things to fight for, but indeed I think I have done my bit after a few years of union work. I, like many writers, am also a recluse. When you look at how gigantic the theatre supply is, I think it is difficult to get more productions to find a place in the theatre.'

Fin Kennedy also has a Dutch equivalent, Willem de Vlam counted: about 20% of the plays premiering in the Netherlands between 2009 and 2014 have a newly written text. In 2006, Dutch-language texts were still at the heart of 44% of theatre performances. Is not enough space made for autonomous, contemporary work? Is it socially important, a 'free flow of ideas' and working with concepts? Could this percentage go up via tax rebates, both for institution and creator? Where is social value added and where economic? 

'I have a problem with the whole concept of autonomous, because for me theatre is a conversation with the spectator. I honestly find the idea - everyone write lustily and then we'll see what finds a place - rather risky. Because, for now, we live in a society where professional work and money are linked. A pool of plays that don't find an audience is, in my view, an erosion of the playwright's profession. Then it becomes very easy for a producer to say: why should I pay you, there are plenty of people who write for nothing?'

Master of your own work

Looking ahead, could a stage text be used for other things?

'I do think, for example, that in the near future writers can become more masters of their own work; the internet facilitates direct contact between writer and user of the work. That can take the layer of copyright offices out of it.'

'I also see new markets emerging, outside mainstream theatre. Playwrights are regularly at work in community art-like projects, often outside the suburban cultural spotlight. Or within institutions and companies - think of Lucas de Man at Rabobank.'

Zeitgeist

A few years ago, Jibbe Willems made a nice attempt for the Polish magazine Dialog (no. 6) to explain what it is like to be a playwright in the Netherlands. It took him eight and a half pages. In that article, that no longer read online, but, believe me, very worthwhile, he quotes Willem Frederik Hermans with "It is even better to start a ski school in tropical Africa than to start writing plays in this country.

At first glance, this sounds a bit moonshiny, but it may be partly explained by the fact that writing a play still takes the same amount of time. The stage text has not co-economised. No more efficient or effective work process has emerged; it is not an industrial product. Except for the digital typewriter, playwriting has remained as labour-intensive. Possibly this will change in the near future through personal digital A.I. assistants like Winston in Origin, as long as perception and feeling cannot be left to bots, theatre is stuck with this fact.

Carpenter

Above all, the theatre text has remained itself. What changed is the policy, even if writers wish the policy too had remained more itself in some ways. Holds the thought of skiing for a moment, and then counting back before descending the mountain, 3, 2, 1 ...

Sophie Kassies: 'I almost always work on commission, I would love to make free work a little easier. But you are also just a carpenter, your work on a commission consists largely of finding connections between what you want to say yourself and what the client asks. We cannot all be autonomous playwrights, there is not enough work.'

Manfred Brauneck wrote the following in 2017: 'Of course, a performance has to be interesting enough, stimulate curiosity and offer something of value. But it also needs social connection to be able to attract attention below the surface, to move us, keep us engaged and prompt change. It needs energy, engagement and urgency to become relevant and expressive. Once we set our sights on reforming cultural politics and policies, theatre will be able to live up to this in post-postmodernism.'

Afriski Mountain Resort

Jibbe Willems nuanced his skiing quote in 2015: 'Hermans may have written that playwriting in the Netherlands has even less chance of success than opening a ski school in Africa, even if it is not obvious: one can ski just fine in Africa. As in the Afriski Mountain Resort in the tiny kingdom of Leshoto .'

Marianne Van Kerkhoven 1992: 'A common choice for the artists discussed in these pages is their penchant for artistic freedom and to get as far as possible is that they reject recovery through the 'system'. Not wanting to be locked into the system means that other means must be sought to enhance the work of these artists, and their work deserves that.'

Good to know

The theatre sector opinion will be published on 16 February presented in Utrecht.