Should Different Theatres Have Distinct Artistic Identities?

Matt Trueman: “There have been times, over the last decade, where London’s major theatres have felt rather interchangeable. Plenty of shows could have been scooped up from one programme and set down in another without seeming at all out of place. … Artistic identity, like any identity, isn’t a concrete thing. It’s amorphous and indistinct; fluid, not fixed … a complex amalgamation of a number of things – history, aesthetics, even audience. It’s more easily intuited than definitely expressed. It can be changed and betrayed, diminished and lost.”