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Description
In our three theatres on the South Bank in London, the National presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics, with seven or eight productions in repertory at any one time. It aims constantly to re-energise the great traditions of the British stage and to expand the horizons of audiences and artists alike. It aspires to reflect in its repertoire the diversity of our culture. At the Studio, the National offers a space for research and development for the NT's stages and the theatre as a whole. Through the NT Education department, tomorrow's audiences are addressed. Through an extensive programme of Platform performances, backstage tours, foyer music, exhibitions and free outdoor entertainment it recognises that the theatre doesn't begin and end with the rise and fall of the curtain. And by touring, the national shares its work with audiences in the UK and abroad.
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History
It is over four decades since the National Theatre Company under Laurence Olivier gave their first ever performance. Since the opening night of Hamlet starring Peter O'Toole on 22 October 1963 the National Theatre has produced over 600 plays. Starting in temporary premises at the Old Vic, with the promise of a new building, the company would not find a permanent home until the opening of Denys Lasdun's National Theatre building in 1976. In each of the years since, the National has staged over twenty new productions. There are over 1,000 performances every year, given by a company of 150 actors to over 600,000 people.
The initial struggle to house the company is characteristic of the greater struggle that had persisted for over a century the struggle to establish a National Theatre. Richard Findlater's article The Winding Road to King's Reach describes the changing fortunes of the movement for a National Theatre, from the initial proposal by the London publisher Effingham Wilson to the opening of the last of the three auditoriums, the Cottesloe Theatre, in the National's new building. The South Bank site is the subject of an historical survey in SE1 9PX. A look at the chronology of the National's history impresses on one the vicissitudes attendant on the life of the National Theatre: the great performances, the strikes, the financial exigencies, the awards, and the tours...
This chronology is set out in Stage by Stage. Throughout these various highs and lows the National has achieved its status as one of the greatest theatres in the world.
'...the National Theatre must be its own advertisement - must impose itself on public notice, not by posters or column advertisements in the newspapers, but by the very fact of its ample, dignified, and liberal existence. It must bulk large in the social and intellectual life of London...It must not even have the air of appealing to a specially literary and cultured class. It must be visibly and unmistakably a popular institution, making a large appeal to the whole community...It will be seen that the Theatre we propose would be a National Theatre in this sense, that it would be from the first conditionally and, in the event of success, would become absolutely the property of the nation.'
Preface (1904) to A National Theatre: Scheme and Estimates by William Archer and H. Granville Barker, London 1907.
It is the same inclusive vision of a theatre for the entire nation that informs the policy of the National Theatre today:
'It's a great time to be a national theatre, and to rise to the challenge of living up to our name. We want to tell the stories that chart the way the nation is changing. We want to bring front-line reports from new communities and generations, and we want to see the present redefined in the context of the past,'
Nicholas Hytner, Director of the National Theatre.
A permanent exhibition, Stage by Stage, on the history of the National is open to the public on the third floor of the National Theatre in the Olivier Circle Gallery.
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