London Cancellation of Play About Abuse of Power Draws Criticism

LONDON — The decision by the Royal Court Theater here to pull a production of the play “Rita, Sue and Bob Too” over allegations of sexual harassment by its co-director, Max Stafford-Clark, has drawn criticism.

The play, by Andrea Dunbar, follows the story of two teenage girls involved in a sexual relationship with a married man and is on tour in the U.K. It was set for a short run at the Royal Court in January.

In a joint statement with the play’s production company, Out of Joint, the theater said its staging felt “highly conflictual.”

The statement cited the departure of Stafford-Clark from Out of Joint as one of the reasons for canceling the production. In October, The Guardian reported that the prominent British director was forced to step down from the company he founded because a female staff member made a formal complaint in July alleging he made lewd comments to her.

“The departure of Max Stafford-Clark from Out of Joint and the recent allegations in the media have coincided with the Royal Court’s response to the spotlight on our industry and the rigorous interrogation of our own practices,” the statement said.

The move has prompted debate over the role of the theater in such matters.

“This is a complex issue that raises the question of whether the behavior of an artist affects how their work is understood,” said Robert Sharp of the nonprofit writers association English PEN. “It is a shame that director Kate Wasserberg and the cast have been denied the chance to work at one of the U.K.'s most influential theaters.”

The Royal Court’s artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, has been a key figure in pushing for British theater to address allegations of sexual misconduct in its ranks. In November, in response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations, she released a code of behavior for the theater industry.

The code was the result of a day of action held at the Royal Court in October, in which 150 testimonies of experiences of abuse and harassment in the theater industry were read out.

The Royal Court’s statement regarding “Rita, Sue and Bob Too” said, “On our stage we recently heard 150 stories of sexual harassment and abuse and therefore the staging of this work, with its themes of grooming and abuses of power on young women, on that same stage now feels highly conflictual.”

Canceling the theater’s staging of the play in part because it deals with topics of abuse of power has also been criticized.

“Viewing these two young women as victims of sexual abuse does a great disservice to the agency of the principal characters and to the wit, warmth, and charm of this classic ‘80s drama,” said Manick Govinda, head of artists’ advisory services at Artsadmin, an organization that supports artists. “The theater’s decision is chilling.”

Dunbar’s “Rita, Sue and Bob Too” was first staged at the Royal Court Theater in 1982, when Stafford-Clark was its artistic director. Writing in The Guardian, the author David Barnett said: “Andrea Dunbar refused to be silenced in her lifetime by men, she stood up and told it like it was. But now the theater where she got her first break is doing the silencing.”

Dunbar, who died when she was 29 of a brain hemorrhage after collapsing in a pub in 1990, dealt in semi-autobiographical themes of poverty and life in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.

Sharp of English PEN added: “Andrea Dunbar’s play remains highly relevant, and British theater companies should be addressing the issues of grooming, exploitation and consent that the play explores.”