It was only a few weeks ago that I was reading the then Secretary of State’s warm recommendation of the McMaster Review. Sir Brian called for a bonfire of the target culture, that excellence, innovation and peer review should be the hallmarks of an artistic Renaissance.
The Centre for Performance Research straddles borders. That in itself makes it a troublesome creature to the audit culture.
Production, presentation, teaching, publishing, a touch of cultural criticism, merge and meet- there is nothing quite like CPR in Britain. It may be an organisational hybrid but the proven truth is that where borders merge innovation flourishes.
Without the blurring of borders, with the assent of their funding bodies, the Enigma Code would be unbroken, Sir John Sulston would not have unravelled the Genome Sequence and Theatre de la Complicite would not have not have won Best Play Award of the year last Sunday. That life-enhancing production “A Disappearing Number” did not even have a playwright to its name.
I have not understood everything CPR has done. I have not always agreed but that is not the point. I have never doubted the passion. If a playwright- director of Greg Cullen’s stature states he is for them then I am with him and for them.
Creative endeavour, in whatever field, will always outpace the resources available. That is how it is in a vibrant civil society. Wales aspires to a different kind of governance; in the week that “The Wedding Singer” opens at the Millennium Centre a statement from Cardiff is due for what greater artistic good, for audiences and practitioners alike, this particular light in Aberystwyth is to be extinguished.
Adam Somerset
Theatre-Wales Writer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment