RSC chief calls for big plays

From Dalya Alberge in The Times:

The head of the Royal Shakespeare Company gave warning that contemporary theatre would not thrive unless it addressed the most challenging political and social issues of the day, with “big plays in big spaces”.

Michael Boyd, the artistic director, said: “We have come to rely on the hard-hitting play in smaller spaces. There is a danger with contemporary theatre, as with contemporary music, of a defeatist return into ‘boutique art’, what I call ‘studio-itis’.”

Five new plays – by Anthony Neilson, Marina Carr, Leo Butler, Roy Williams and Adriano Shaplin – will be premiered next season, on themes from religion to the war in Iraq.