Cultural debate

Some playwrights mellow with age, but not David Hare. His sense of righteous indignation knows no bounds. According to press reports, the reason he decided to open his latest play on Broadway is that he still bears a grudge against Nicholas Hytner for refusing to schedule more performances of Stuff Happens at the National. Alas, The Vertical Hour got a fairly lukewarm review in the all-important New York Times, though it remains to be seen whether Hare will publicly attack the critic concerned, as he did when Frank Rich gave The Secret Rapture the thumbs-down in 1989.

Hare’s irascibility is on full display in Peter Hall’s revival of Amy’s View, a play that had its debut at the National in 1997. The target of his ire is a callow young critic named Dominic who achieves fame and fortune by attacking the theatre on an imaginary weekly television programme. He is contrasted, unfavourably, with Esme, an actress who refuses to abandon the stage, in spite of the fact that it has fallen out of fashion in this vulgar, media-saturated age. The connection between the two is that Dominic is married to Esme’s daughter, the Amy of the title.

To begin with, I had difficulty getting past the absurdly self-serving nature of this set-up. Hare, who clearly identifies with Esme, seems to be inviting audiences to applaud the heroism of playwrights like himself whose loyalty to their profession remains steadfast no matter how financially ruinous it becomes. Yet a moment’s reflection reveals that Hare’s career is far more lucrative than that of a mere critic. Panellists on Newsnight Review, which seems to be the programme Hare’s thinking of, are paid a grand total of £600 per appearance. Even if a critic appeared on it every week for five years, he still wouldn’t earn what Hare did for writing the screenplay to The Hours.