Josie Rourke on why 2016 has been the year of the woman in theatre

All-female ensembles, unforgettable star turns and off-stage power players. It’s been the year of the woman in theatre, says the Donmar’s artistic director, Josie Rourke
British theatre director Josie Rourke.
CAMERA PRESS/Chris McAndrew

I would like to take a moment to reflect on these past 12 months for women in British theatre. Last weekend, Harriet Walter stepped on to the stage of Donmar King’s Cross to play for the first time, in the course of one day, a trilogy of Shakespeare roles: Brutus in Julius Caesar, Henry IV, and Prospero in The Tempest. The three plays are directed by the incomparable Phyllida Lloyd, acted by an all-female company and set in a women’s prison.

The criminal justice setting binds the plays into a trilogy. It also ensures that they pass the Bechdel test, which asks that a work of fiction features at least two women discussing something other than a man; rather than linger in the romantic and domestic, they take on tyranny, leadership and redemption. It’s a marathon endeavour, and a first for a company of women to tackle Shakespeare’s plays on this scale.

Alongside Harriet, and the Trilogy company, there have been some dazzling performances from women over the past year. I’ve been fortunate enough to direct the force that is Janet McTeer, reprising her Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons dangereuses on Broadway, as part of the Donmar’s New York season. Earlier this year, I worked with the truly great Nina Sosanya, Barbara Flynn and Zoë Wanamaker in Nick Payne’s new three-hander, Elegy.

Rourke, Janet McTeer and Mary Beth Peil at the opening night of Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Patrick McMullan via Getty Image

Right now, I’m having more fun than I imagined was possible in a rehearsal room with Gemma Arterton on Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. I became determined to cast Gemma as Joan when I saw her light up the stage in Jessica Swale’s West End hit Nell Gwynn, produced by the brilliant Eleanor Lloyd in Nica Burns’ Apollo theatre. Joan talks a lot about ‘daring’. Eleanor and Nica, alongside Kate Pakenham (with whom I run the Donmar), Sonia Friedman and Caro Newling are daring producers, making great theatre happen.

At the Donmar we are immensely lucky to have visionary sponsors such as businesswoman Miranda Curtis, a director of global communications giant Liberty Global and a non-executive director at M&S, who immediately grasped our artistic ambitions, and got behind the social mission of our Shakespeare Trilogy. Her generosity gave us courage.

The Donmar Warehouse
Alamy Stock Photo

These have been 12 months in which talented actors such as Noma Dumezweni and Denise Gough, long-admired by the industry, reached the public acclaim they deserve. Both through their astonishing stage presence and also their courage and honesty — as advocates and artists.

There have been some inspiring ensembles of women, from the quartet of great actors in Caryl Churchill’s compelling Escaped Alone at the Royal Court to the young Scottish cast in Vicky Featherstone’s production of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, sweeping audiences away.

We’ve also been treated to some of our most celebrated actors returning to the London stage, such as the luminous Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea, Glenn Close reprising the role she created in Sunset Boulevard and the fearless Billie Piper in Yerma. At The Old Vic, Glenda Jackson is back on stage and changing the game as King Lear in Deborah Warner’s production.

The cast of the Donmar’s Shakespeare Trilogy
Helen Maybanks

And yet… Less than two weeks before Jackson’s return, came the dispiriting announcement of Emma Rice’s departure from Shakespeare’s Globe. As artistic directors, we’re sometimes not very open about the struggles that take place behind the scenes to create change on our stages. Few can really know what occurred, but what I do know is that we have lost a tremendous artist from the leadership of one of our theatres. ‘Authenticity’ is such a beautiful word when it finds the route to a universal truth, never when it shows up our fear of change. And artists are meant to change things; but they need the encouragement and courage of boards, teams and producers to be able to dare.

In the final moments of our current production at the Donmar, One Night in Miami…, the great Arinzé Kene, playing Sam Cooke, sings ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’. When we opened Julius Caesar, a handful of critics decried its inauthenticity. One made a derisory allusion to Samuel Johnson: ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.’

In that moment, Kate Pakenham found the determination to make change. She set us off on a journey that created the Trilogy, took the company into prisons, schools, to New York, raised a theatre in King’s Cross and made tickets free to 25-year-olds and under. The Trilogy has dared us all to change. And her championing of these incredible artists has made me (and I hope others) feel the promise in that song.

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