The National Theatre has put on more than a thousand main stage productions in its lifetime, but less than one fifth of those directing these performances have been women, data originating from the company’s archive has revealed.
Originating from an FOI request, the data was developed from an extensive list of the National Theatre’s main stage productions and directors since the theatre’s inaugural production of Hamlet in 1963, directed by its first Artistic Director Laurence Olivier.
Although the data shows significant improvement of the gender balance in directors throughout every decade of the National Theatre’s history, it also points to shortcomings in its commitment to total parity, as enshrined in its diversity targets.
The Early Years
The late Joan Plowright, who passed away earlier this month, was the first woman to direct a production at the National Theatre, with her production of Maureen Duffy’s Rites in 1969.
Olivier was married to Plowright at the time, and had recommended her to succeed him as Artistic Director. However, according to journalist and critic Michael Billington, “the board would have none of it.”
This was seemingly not solely because of Plowright’s gender, but also her left-leaning politics.
Olivier’s eventual successor Peter Hall, oversaw minimal changes to the status quo in the balance of male and female directors, but did succeed in the herculean task of transferring the company from the Old Vic to its current home at the Southbank.
Under Hall, an actor working in the company named Julia Pascal pitched a production titled Men Seldom Make Passes, based on Dorothy Parker’s poems, to take place in the National Theatre’s foyer, in an effort to make use of underutilised company actors.
In 1977, Men Seldom Make Passes became a Platform Performance, that is, a short pre-main show production which was not included in the data provided.
It garnered significant publicity, because it was the first production directed by a woman to take place in the National Theatre’s new home.
Speaking to the Londoners, Pascal said: “It became very uncomfortable, because if I was the first, and it was then 1977, how could the National Theatre represent everybody? It became distressing.”
Pascal explained that she had devised a new program of productions, using members of the company, addressing the clear disparity. The idea was considered, but ultimately turned down.
Pascal surmised: “They just didn’t know what to do with me – I wasn’t an Oxford boy.”
Despite Di Trevis becoming the first woman to be appointed head of a company at the National Theatre in 1986, more than 95% of the directors on the mainstages during Hall’s tenure were male.
The data, as shown by Pascal’s production above, does not reflect the totality of work commissioned by the National Theatre, but it is an overall indication of the gender split of directors in its full-scale productions.
Throughout the years, progress was certainly slow to develop, but the percentage of women directing at the National Theatre more than tripled between 1980-1990 and 1990-2000.
Many women found fame directing in the 1990s, with Katie Mitchell, Fiona Laird and Phyllida Lloyd all producing consistent work for the National during that period.
Indeed, Katie Mitchell, who directed her first National Theatre production in 1994, with Rutherford and Son, is currently the female director with the most performances to her credit, but only the eighth in the overall tally.
Having directed 20 productions, Mitchell’s contribution forms just under 10% of all productions directed by women at the theatre to date.
Then and now
The story today is undoubtedly very different, and, over the last four years, the National Theatre have invited the same total of female and male directors to its stages.
Stories written and directed by global majority artists have also been more regularly produced at the National in recent years.
Pooja Ghai, the artistic director of the global majority theatre company Tamasha, directed Tanika Gupta’s play A Tupperware of Ashes on the National Theatre’s Dorfman stage in September.
Ghai transitioned from being an actor to a director in the early 2010s, at least partly due to the lack of diversity in roles available for women of South Asian heritage on the stage.
She said: “I have a different kind of agency directing. I can build a team of people that I want to work with. We can build a contract between us that is about the way we work. We’ll deal with all these systemic issues as we go.”
Ghai spoke positively about her experience directing at the National, mentioning the excellent support she received there, particularly from their New Work Department, and from the outgoing Artistic Director Rufus Norris.
Despite this, she believes theatre in the UK still needs to bring stories devised by women and the global majority to the fore, mentioning the lack of continued support these stories receive across theatres in the UK.
Ghai added: “I really understand how privileged I’ve been, but I shouldn’t be the exception at all.”
Norris, who assumed the role in 2015, has repeatedly heralded his commitment to diversity and equality, and has largely succeeded in making the National Theatre more representative.
He did face backlash against a male-dominated season in 2019, despite that being the only year to have seen more female directors than male directors, when 11 women directed stories on its stages.
However, this then plummeted in 2020, as the theatre grappled with the pandemic.
In their diversity statement, The National Theatre claim that their plans for 2020 and 2021 were disrupted by Covid-19, otherwise would have met their 50:50 diversity pledge across writers and directors.
But, what is perhaps more revealing, is that even in recent years the data shows women have been more likely to direct on the theatre’s smaller stages, the Lyttelton and particularly the Dorfman, rather than on its largest stage, the Olivier.
For comparison, the Dorfman (formally the Cottesloe) can seat up to 450, the Lyttelton up to 890, and the Olivier up to 1150, as explained on the National Theatre’s website.
The bigger picture
Rochelle Wilson, Carne Deputy Artistic Director at Theatre 503, a London based theatre that focuses on new writing, explained that many companies find women’s stories less marketable than traditionally male ones.
Wilson said: “I think you’re doing your audience a disservice when you decide that they can’t relate to it. Growing up, most – if not all – of the stories that I saw did not have a young black girl like me, but I was still able to pull something from the story. I was still able to find a message.
“If you are a very good building, and you’re as good as you say you are, you should be able to support someone through the journey of having their first show put on there. But the ceilings are everywhere.”
In 2020, writer and director Laura Turner started the female-led company Fury Theatre, citing the lack of opportunities to tell women’s stories as a factor in establishing her own company.
Turner explained: “I felt the drive to carve my own space within the industry, rather than operating within existing structures of power that are still very patriarchal.”
Although often able to secure studio commissions with female centred stories, Turner found that acquiring ones for main stages was far more difficult.
She said: “If you’re a director its always great to be making work, but not all commissions are equal, and not all stages are equal.
“But I’m optimistic because I know so many amazing female creatives and there’s something exciting in terms of the energy that is being directed towards female led companies at the moment.”
Last year, it was announced that Indhu Rubasingham will become the first female Artistic Director at the National Theatre, a historic move that will prove monumental in shaping the next ten years of British Theatre.
It is unlikely that the historic imbalance will ever be fully addressed, but there is no denying that Rubasingham’s appointment is a major development in the ongoing struggle for new voices to be represented on stage.
If there was one consensus these theatre makers can agree on, however, it is that the work to create diversity on the British stage is not yet finished.
A National Theatre spokesperson said: “Rufus set up the New Work Department at the start of his tenue which has led to a marked change in addressing the gender imbalance that arises as so many canonical texts are written by male writers.
“Last season (2023/2024), 53% of living writers staged at the National Theatre were women.
“Over Rufus’s tenure the number of women directors has increased significantly with 42% of shows during his time being directed by women.
“We set ourself ambitious public targets in 2016. Targets are one of a variety of tools we use to help turn the dial on the inherent imbalance in our industry. They are very helpful to remind us of how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go.”
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