Survival Mode
Are the lights dimming at the Playhouse? Tim Carlson investigates
By the time the Playhouse’s artistic director Glynis Leyshon amassed her hardware collection at the annual Jessie awards in June, rumours of trouble in the company were already swirling around the theatre scene. As Leyshon clutched one of the nine swooning-lady statuettes—six for an assured production of Equus (the seminal 1973 Peter Schaffer play) and three for the musical Hello Dolly!—she sighed and acknowledged the brutal irony of the situation: “It’s been a challenging year … no, it’s been a shitty year.”
Far from squelching the rumours, it seemed to me that Leyshon was broadcasting an SOS. Although the jury had shone the spotlight on the company, awarding it all but three prizes in the large-theatre category, behind the scenes the situation was far less festive.
Only two plays of the five-show mainstage season, Stones in His Pockets and Equus, had hit revenue projections. Based on the performance of its recent musicals, the company had expected 90-percent houses for Hello Dolly!, its most expensive production. Instead, the show flooded red ink into the books. While the Playhouse had run deficits in the $90,000 range since 2000 (with the exception of 2002), the most recent season was far worse, leaving an approximate shortfall of $400,000.
When the Playhouse announced its change of mandate to post-1950s work this spring, rumour had it that a bleak financial picture had inspired the move. After all, contemporary work generally requires smaller investment in casts, lumber and lace. The evidence of trouble mounted with the company’s brochure, which showed that most of the upcoming season’s runs had been cut by a week. Gone, also, was the Urban Series—the Playhouse’s crack at second-stage productions in recent years.
By mid-summer, news had filtered out that the Canada Council for the Arts, which had been instrumental in creating the company in 1963, had taken the Playhouse off three-year operational funding (preferred-client status, in a way). This adds a substantial administrative burden, since the company will have to re-apply each year. Complicating matters further, the building that houses The Playhouse’s offices, shop and rehearsal space on West 1st Avenue faces the wrecking ball within two years as part of False Creek redevelopment.
No wonder an apocalyptic tenor infused the debate among local actors, directors, designers and administrators. Not only do they want to see quality work (including the classics) continue on the Playhouse stage, most are also professional freelancers looking to work on it. Changes at the company reverberate widely because the local theatre scene is as cooperative as it is competitive. Practitioners, after all, refer to a “theatre ecology,” as opposed to an “industry” or a “business.” And even though the Arts Club now programs twice as much theatre and has a much wider range in terms of touring, development and outreach, the Playhouse retains its status as Vancouver’s flagship company. Since Leyshon arrived from Victoria in 1997, an evolutionary leap not seen since the late ’60s has reformed the local theatre scene on every level. With new theatre spaces and companies offering compelling alternatives, the competition for audiences has become intense. Part of the problem may be that Leyshon moved from a less complex ecology, and has taken some stumbles on the shifting ground. Another important factor is The Playhouse’s status as a “regional”—one of a half-dozen created by the federal government more than 40 years ago to ensure that classic, contemporary and Canadian plays were seen across the land. Regional status has its advantages, but cultural institutions also have inherent structural flaws that can get in the way of dramatic action.
With a new mandate, Leyshon can play to what is regarded as her strength—contemporary
work. If her vision introduces a stronger theatrical strain into
the ecology, she will be the toast of the town. And if it doesn’t,
well, evolution serves up harsh realities.
* * *
There’s no longer anyone behind the reception desk at the Playhouse. When I arrive to interview Leyshon, a ticket seller in a separate office calls her out over the phone. She appears and greets me with a characteristic hug, then we proceed to her office in a corner of what’s essentially a warehouse. There are no windows to the outside.
Leyshon is frank about last year’s financial debacle. “If the Playhouse were to sustain season after season of the difficulties we had last year, then yes, we would be in trouble,” she says firmly. “But this is a significant organization and it has the strength to weather difficulties.”
Leyshon insists that the new mandate is part of a long-term vision that began with her arrival, rather than a result of last season’s disappointing numbers. Nor, she says, is it a knee-jerk response to the widespread—but possibly short-term—drop in performing-arts attendance across North America since the events of 9/11. However, she concedes that some of this season’s programming decisions were based on the response to last season—i.e. no musical this year. The theory behind the mandate change, she continues, is that the Playhouse will engage a wider audience if a familiar world is reflected on stage—one that begins in 1950. “Canada was starting to redefine itself then, it was no longer Euro-centric.”
These aren’t radical changes, Leyshon sums up, but more a sharpening of focus. “We’re not avant-garde or cutting-edge,” she adds. “We do inclusive, accessible work. We are interested in having an intense and meaningful dialogue with our audience—an audience in a 700-seat house.”
* * *
The classics have made up a significant portion of Playhouse fare over the years. Through most of its history, the company produced at least one pre-’50s work each season, such as Molière’s School for Wives and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. Those few shows should not be dismissed, argues CBC Radio theatre critic and UBC professor Jerry Wasserman.
“If we’re going to have a world-class theatre ecology here—or one that competes with Toronto or even Edmonton—we need, at the professional level, variety,” he explains. “Whatever you might say about Bard on the Beach and its lack of cutting-edge artistic values, it’s great to have that access to Shakespeare. But there is other classical repertoire, and it once carried a certain amount of cultural cachet—cultural capital—that only Shakespeare seems to have now.”
“We’re not just talking about Greek tragedy and Restoration comedy, we’re talking about Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, O’Neill—fundamental figures in the history of drama. This is part of a larger cultural trend that involves de-historicizing a culture. Why does that matter? If you’re continually living in the present, you’re not learning from the wisdom and artistry of the ages. You have to have some context, some historical consciousness. And that is as true in theatre as it is in any other aspect of civic life.”
Leyshon, however, argues that Playhouse shows such as last year’s production of G.B. Shaw’s Arms and the Man, while well reviewed, didn’t draw. “I’ll be provocative—I think in a certain part of the community there is an intellectual or perhaps sentimental longing for [the classics] more than any real visceral, passionate, get-out-and-see-it response.”
The Shaw Festival in Ontario, in an attempt to broaden its appeal, has in recent years programmed contemporary work set during Shaw’s lifespan (1856–1950). Leyshon has devised a similar strategy: “We are still interested in exploring the classics as seen through the eyes of contemporary writers. For example, we are doing Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy, which is a very savvy view of Hamlet through the voice of an interesting young contemporary writer.”
She hopes future budgets will allow a wide choice within the new framework. “There are a lot of Tom Stoppard plays that I’d like to do that have large casts and period costumes. The reason right now that we haven’t jumped into Arcadia or Invention of Love is a financial rather than a repertoire question.”
Leyshon also points out that smaller theatre companies and theatre-training programs are choosing to mount the classics, which takes the onus off regional stages. She was impressed with Rumble Productions’ Hedda Gabler at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre two years ago, and Theatre at UBC’s The Marriage of Figaro in 2003. “If there is a genuine appetite for these works and a need for us to see them, they will be done.”
Rumble’s artistic producer Norman Armour, agrees: “Classics should not be the province of regional companies.” He staged the Ibsen classic because of his interest in the play, not classical repertoire generally. He will not be more likely to program classics because they are off the Playhouse agenda, he adds. However, Arts Club artistic director Bill Millerd says the gap will naturally be a consideration when planning the next season. Perhaps there’s some foreshadowing in the fact that the current Stanley season opens with George Feydeau’s 1907 farce A Flea in Her Ear—last seen on the Playhouse stage in 1978.
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It’s pretty much a given that the new Playhouse mandate will affect the future of Vancouver’s theatre ecology. The influence, however, has flowed both ways. It seems clear that tectonic shifts in Vancouver’s theatre scene over the past seven years helped to shape the Playhouse revamp.
The biggest change was the Arts Club’s opening of the Stanley Theatre for the 1998–99 season, which almost doubled that company’s box-office revenue (up by $2 million to $3,705,000). The same year, Playhouse box-office revenue sank by $200,000 to $1,626,000, while the year before it had been up significantly. Forces including the Stanley’s novelty factor and pricing changes were obviously at work, but the numbers did signal a readjustment in the financial landscape of Vancouver theatre.
Another significant movement was the independent-theatre boom. The See Seven series launched with the 1997–98 season, a marketing initiative that galvanized the collective energies of founding companies Rumble, Pi Theatre, Ruby Slippers, Felix Culpa and Western Theatre Conspiracy. Over the next few years, The Electric Company, boca del lupo, NeWorld and Theatre Skam started producing work, and the scene continues to grow with new companies such as Section 8 and Theatre Replacement. The audience attending these shows is by no means homogenous, but, to eyeball it, leans toward the 30- to 45-year-old demographic that has drifted away from Playhouse subscriber lists.
And then, two seasons ago, the former Ford Theatre reopened as The Centre. While it has struggled desperately to find an audience for its musicals, the simple fact of its existence can’t have helped the bottom line at the Playhouse, only a few blocks away. (Leyshon ascribed Hello Dolly!’s failure to “market fatigue.”) While the Playhouse was winning awards and losing money last year, the Arts Club was busy holding over three shows—two of them musicals. Millerd says that subscriptions this year are the strongest yet. Perhaps the latter was helped by what seemed like extreme marketing in the past few months, with brochures falling out of virtually every piece of newsprint.
Now that the Playhouse has distinguished itself with a new mandate, the question remains: How will it stack up against the competition? Filling a 700-seat house means going head to head with theatres of all kinds for a wide-ranging audience.
“I understand what the Playhouse is up to but I’m not sure it’s going to succeed,” says Wasserman. “They’re continually trying to change their demographic as they play to their demographic. It’s the same dilemma that the CBC is caught in—be edgy enough to attract a young audience but not so edgy as to alienate the bread-and-butter audience. It’s a difficult game to play, but every now and then there’s a show, like Equus, that just hits the jackpot—a good play given a brilliant production.”
I think that Copenhagen, which Leyshon directs in February, has that potential. In British playwright Michael Frayn’s 1998 masterpiece, the ghosts of Jewish physicist Niels Bohr and his German colleague Werner Heisenberg relive a tense 1941 meeting during the final sprint to develop the first atomic weapon. It’s savvy programming to run Frayn’s 1982 comedy classic Noises Off earlier in the season to pique interest in the headier work. Humble Boy, which casts an astrophysicist in the role of Hamlet, is highly regarded by critics, and playwright Joanna McLelland Glass’ Trying, a reflection on her days as personal secretary to Francis Biddle, former attorney general under F.D.R., shows promise. That leaves Joni Mitchell: River, which kicks off the season. If there’s one phrase in theatre that makes me suspicious, it’s “musical revue”—and with St. Joni as the centrepiece? I’ll have to hear a lot of raves before stepping out.
The new Playhouse season strikes me as more compelling than last year’s. And yet, like Wasserman, I wonder if it will draw the numbers that the Playhouse needs. The problem is not the new mandate or lineup. It’s that quality is pretty evenly distributed throughout the theatre scene. Sure, some people will buy a subscription without shopping around. But rather than committing to a single company’s lineup, regular theatregoers will follow the buzz—beyond the Playhouse and Arts Club stages to the Cultch for Touchstone Theatre or engaging out-of-towners such as Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre, the various spaces inhabited by the See Seven companies, the Firehall, and the university stages. This stretches time and the ticket dollar pretty thin.
* * *
Despite its efforts to reinvent itself, the Playhouse continues to struggle with expectations related to its status as a “regional” as well as the ongoing public-funding crunch. The “regional” concept, which emerged as a result of the 1958 Massey Commission on Canadian culture, is now up for debate. As for funding, the Playhouse is hardly alone in its poverty. It’s too large an issue to do justice to here, but the fact is that every year, some of the city’s most lauded senior artists simply cannot produce due to a lack of grant revenue. Arguably, this compromises the local theatre ecology as much as trouble at any specific company.
Leyshon, for one, argues that the erosion of public funding necessitates a narrower view of a regional theatre’s obligations. “I think that [the regional model] definition, in the early part of the 21st century, is more about size than it is about programming,” she says. “We no longer have to be all things to all people.”
Like most arts companies, the Playhouse has been forced to rely less on public support. In the last decade, its government grants (as a percentage of the budget) have fallen from 28 to 20 percent. Notably, the actual dollar amount from the Canada Council, province and city climbed only three percent in the same period, while the company’s revenue from all other sources (box office, fundraising) climbed 42 percent. The projected Playhouse budget is down almost $440,000 (or eight percent) from last year’s $5,255,540—due largely to dropping the musical from the lineup. While the company has not yet been given grant figures for this year, it received $335,000 in each of the past three years—the same as the Arts Club.
Asked why an established regional would be taken off three-year operational funding, the Canada Council’s theatre officer, Robert Allen, on the line from Ottawa, said: “It’s easy to give it an apocalyptic interpretation because there have been fairly consistent operating deficits plus a radical shift [in mandate]. [Leyshon] has made a good evaluation and proposed [changes that are] very specific. But right now it’s just theory, half of the equation. The jury has to see the choice of material, the strength of the work, tangible proof that the marriage of theory and practice will work.”
The upside, Allen says, is the potential for a more generous grant next year rather than being locked in for three years. And while the Canada Council recognizes that this is a critical period for the Playhouse, he adds, the company is not expected to turn everything around in a single season.
Other Canadian regionals have experienced problems similar to those now confronted by the Playhouse. Allen points to the “tortuous trek” of Toronto’s CanStage—created from a merger of the official regional Centre Stage and Toronto Free Theatre in 1987—as an example of a regional that negotiated a place for itself in a city booming with established smaller companies, thriving independents, and a growing commercial industry. To set itself apart, in 1998 CanStage decided to focus on contemporary work and developing new Canadian plays.
Armour suggests that arguing the relevance of the regional model “is side-stepping the issue.” Institutions such as the Playhouse or CanStage continue to be funded according to the regional model, and so the regional must make its case for relevance, he says. “It’s up to them to say, ‘Pay attention to this; this is important.’” Making a case for relevance, he adds, doesn’t only apply to regionals, but to all companies, including Rumble.
Another of the Playhouse’s problems is its city-owned theatre building downtown. Allen, who worked in the company’s administration from 1969 to 1973, called it an “albatross.” On the surface, it looks like a good deal: The Playhouse is the prime tenant, with rent subsidized by the City of Vancouver. But it doesn’t control the venue; if a show is going well, it can’t extend the run if another party has booked the facility.
In contrast, the Arts Club owns its buildings and therefore controls its fate. The Arts Club Theatre Buildings Society, a separately incorporated non-profit society, provided the theatre company with $550,000 from venue rental and Arts Club Lounge revenue in 2003. Such income has no doubt been especially welcome in years when the company posted six-figure losses on its programming.
Along with pointing the company in a new direction and dealing with the financial situation, Leyshon has the issue of an upcoming move on her plate. She plays it down, however. “The owner of the building is a sensitive and arts-supportive developer and we have some protections in place. We’re not going to be kicked out on the street next week.”
While Leyshon’s plan has plenty of detractors, others in the local theatre ecology feel the need to support the mothership. Touchstone Theatre’s artistic director, Katrina Dunn, puts it this way: “I really don’t like the negativity that the Playhouse has been pummeled with in the last few months. If we don’t support it, we’ll really be handicapped. Perhaps it can’t contribute a lot to us now because of the financial shape it’s in, but it can, potentially, in the future. I don’t want to be in a community where the Arts Club is the only regional. Right now the Arts Club and the Playhouse balance each other off pretty well, and that’s good.”
That leaves Leyshon facing the mind-bending job of contemporizing the Playhouse and its playbill, directing shows, and ensuring that the books balance. I have to ask her how long she’s willing to play this game. “Until I get it right.”
Copyright © Tim Carlson, 2004