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Anthony Clark |
Exit artistic director, berating a ‘claque’ of persistent critics
Hampstead Theatre bosses insist that he went of his own accord
IN the often catty world of theatre reviewing, waspish comments, sweeping judgments and lofty criticism are not uncommon.
Anthony Clark, the artistic director at the Hampstead Theatre, should know. He’s had to read a series of bitterly unkind verdicts about new plays staged at his playhouse.
“Hampstead Theatre’s unerring lack of talent for picking new plays continues with this turkey,” wrote Time Out’s Andrew Haydon after watching Berlin-Hanover Express earlier this year. Lyn Gardner, of the Guardian, meanwhile, said of The President’s Holiday: “Such is the tedium of [this] play that I longed to stage a coup of my own to oust those responsible for boring theatre audiences to death.” Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph is among a host of other press night regulars that have cut apart plays at Hampstead with acerbic reviews. His spiky line: “Another day, another dud at Hampstead Theatre” must have bruised egos.
But yesterday, as Mr Clark announced he is to quit at the end of the current 50th Anniversary season in January 2010, he finally rounded on the mealy-mouthed critics – with some criticisms of his own, intimating that they needed to stop and think a bit more before bashing away on their keyboards as soon as the curtain falls.
Speaking to the New Journal, he advised the theatre’s detractors to “try and understand what an artist is doing before [they] assess whether they have done it well or not” and suggested that the theatre’s pioneering work had been overlooked by a review scene too set in its ways.
He said: “We are a flagship new writing theatre. Anything new is quite often ahead of its time and full appreciation happens years after the event. There is nothing whereby a critic can measure their response.”
Although reviews had been varied – with generally positive feedback for the classic revivals – Mr Clark pointed to “a very small claque of critics” who seemed determined to slate his productions.
He said: “I don’t know whether it’s born out of the work or prejudice about the place. I have no idea. Sometimes what they say affects us and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Both Mr Clark and Hampstead Theatre officials insisted the decision to leave had been made solely by Mr Clark, who joined shortly after the theatre’s move into a new purpose-built premises in Eton Avenue.
Mr Clark said it had been “a tough decision after a tough, but extremely rewarding seven years” and that he was leaving to pursue his own projects as a director and writer.
Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair of the Board of Hampstead Theatre, praised Mr Clarke’s “passion and indestructible commitment to new writing”.
“Under his leadership Hampstead has won numerous new writing awards,” she added. |
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