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NT Associates

by Heather Neill

Walls have been coming down around the Director's office at the National Theatre, “because”, says Nicholas Hytner, “I remember that when I was an associate director here all the good stuff happened in corridors”. That was in Richard Eyre's time. Several little offices have gone. Instead, the structure Hytner has introduced, philosophical as well as architectural, allows for informal meetings and positively solicits ideas, not just from those who have been invited to be “associates” but from elsewhere too. The sixteen names which make up the semi-official associates group were announced when he was appointed, along with a salaried associate director, Howard Davies, who was joined a few months ago by Tom Morris, Artistic Director of that innovative powerhouse, Battersea Arts Centre.

What appears to be a pyramid structure – Hytner at the apex with two associate directors below him and a larger group representing a variety of creative disciplines – is far from rigid, however. “There are directors and writers who are not associates who could pick up the phone and say, 'I've something for you'. There are plenty of people not on the list who, I hope, regard the National as one of their homes”, says Hytner. And there are others regularly involved in long-term planning, such as Executive Director Nick Starr and the literary department led by Jack Bradley. Nevertheless, the sixteen are there for a reason. “They should not be seen as The Group”, says Hytner, “but as an indication of all the professions that go to make up the over-arching profession of the theatre. And the list will grow; there should be a choreographer for instance”. For the moment, the sixteen come from an A-list of people at the top of their careers, many of whom have worked with Hytner, all of whom he admires. There are five actors: Alex Jennings, Adrian Lester, Helen Mirren, Simon Russell-Beale and Zoe Wanamaker; four directors: Declan Donnellan, Edward Hall, Phyllida Lloyd and Katie Mitchell; two playwrights: Patrick Marber and Mark Ravenhill; two designers: Alison Chitty and Bob Crowley; a composer, Jonathan Dove; a lighting designer, Mark Henderson; and a producer, Michael Morris.

They all try to meet for dinner two or three times a year, “to chew over what's going on”, but some, particularly the directors, have become regulars at the fortnightly script meetings, while informal consultations go on whenever the need arises. “For instance”, says Nick Hytner, “it became clear that we would need to spend extra money on a lighting rig for the first Travelex £10 season. It had to light four shows, and so numbers of expensive moving lights were required. Mark Henderson is on the end of a phone, so I was able to talk this through with him, to ask him about the implications of not spending that money, for example”. There are planning and progress meetings every week and monthly music theatre meetings which may or may not be attended by some of the associates. Regular discussions with Lucy Davies, head of the National Theatre Studio, which is an experimental place for the development of ideas and scripts, help to ensure a continuity between a concept and its realisation and the constant introduction of fresh thinking. Given the flexibility and openness of the planning process, Hytner would like the associates not to be seen as exclusive; much as he values their contributions, he regards their appointment as more of “a signal that ideas are welcome”.

Howard Davies and Tom Morris are in a different category. Nicholas Hytner has definite style and taste and, ultimately, the repertoire is the one he wants, but, he says, “I talk through everything with them. When you are putting on sixteen to eighteen shows a year, you want as many as possible in this corner to whom you can say: 'Is this a good idea?' They are key”, (although he immediately extends this by saying that “Katie [Mitchell] is pretty key too, when she's around”). They have careers outside the National – Morris as a producer, Davies as (in Morris' words ) “a Rolls Royce director”, but when they are in, they share an office. They are contracted to the NT two-and-a-half days a week, but may spend some of that time reading scripts at home or catching up on the work of other companies.

Howard Davies was previously an associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, under whom he established the Warehouse (now the Donmar). Among his many award-winning previous productions were The Iceman Cometh (for the Almeida) and All My Sons in 2000 at the National. When Nicholas Hytner invited him on board, he asked him which plays he would like to direct. Davies said, “Mourning Becomes Electra, Cyrano de Bergerac and The House of Bernarda Alba” to which Hytner replied, “I'll have all those”. Both his associate directors testify to Hytner's decisiveness. Davies adds that he “has an unerring gift for what is provocative and interesting. When people suggest something more conformist, safer, the first person to resist that is going to be Nick Hytner”. Davies' first two suggested plays have now been presented and the Lorca is at the planning stage. He admits, nevertheless, to suffering from a kind of artistic schizophrenia: “It is odd to be a director and say 'I'd love to do this' and see if it fits, as opposed to being an associate who says 'What do we need for the season?' Finding myself filling a slot, being obliged to direct, rather than having a passion for a particular play, is uncomfortable”.

Tom Morris, who oversaw the first version of Jerry Springer – the Opera at BAC, has a specific task, in Hytner's words, “to identify, develop, nurture the non-literary stuff none of us knows how to do. But that is very much not his only remit: he's here to think of plays too”. Morris says that he agrees with Nicholas Hytner's succinct assertion that the National Theatre must at all times “interrogate the meaning of the words 'national' and 'theatre'” and to this end he helps the
NT to be “more systematic about how it discovers what is happening in theatre practice elsewhere”.

Tom Morris has the advantage of a fresh eye on proceedings. “It's intriguing to see how the creative culture of a building sits and evolves, how the place seeks to facilitate and support its artists. And I think the National has things to learn here; there is still a slight tendency to isolation between projects.There are exciting possibilities for the National in how it develops a creative community and how that community talks to itself”.

The National Theatre is an enormous enterprise. Morris says he is fascinated by it, never having worked anywhere so complicated administratively before: “The nearest I've got to anywhere like it was going into hospital”. Nevertheless, with so many talents and such contrasting characters contributing to the successful running of the place, Nicholas Hytner can say: “Nobody is defending their patch at the moment. It will be great if that can continue”.

Both Howard Davies and Tom Morris have had overall responsibility for running a theatre. But, as Morris puts it, “It's a fantastic liberty not to have that responsibility”. Planning goes ahead with ideas sketched in up to March 2005. “But”, warns Davies, “you need to be able to keep yourself nervously open to possibilities. One needs to be able to react to what's going on in the world around us”. And to keep an eye on those definitions: “national” and “theatre”.

© Heather Neill, June 2004

Heather Neill is a freelance writer