Word: sir
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...probably blunted us to its absence. And to a lot of other things. Most Americans have never heard of the National Endowment for the Arts, let alone its leaders; British newspaper readers and telly-watchers, though, know a lot about The Arts Council of Great Britain. Its secretary-general, Sir Roy Shaw, is one of the most powerful, most passionately scrutinized arts administrators in the world. Sir Roy, who will speak on "Politics and Policies in the Arts" tonight at the Kennedy School, wields a budget of 80 million pounds (roughly $145 million)--about 25 per cent more than...
Government subsidy of the arts began in Britain in 1945, when the post-war administration sought to boost the morale of a battle-scarred population during the difficult and painful work of reconstruction. "We have developed the public service in arts much more than you have," says Sir Roy, who has spent about 25 years of his life teaching adults and lecturing on adult education. The assumption is that art can tangibly improve the quality of a person's life--stimulating and sharpening his imagination, so, in the words of British playwright Arnold Wesker, he can make "imaginative leaps...
...Sir Roy has little patience with the conservative assertion that the arts budget takes money from the masses to fund an elitist, middle-class addiction. "All taxation takes money from a majority of people and distributes it to a minority," he says. "It's a thunderingly obvious point...The arts do reach only a minority of the population, particularly the serious arts which we fund, but I believe you can extend the reach beyond the middle-class to more ordinary people, blue collar workers, by education. What distinguishes the bourgeoisie is not a special gift from God but the fact...
SOME CHARGE THAT government subsidies encourage artists to forget the public--to become self-indulgent. But Sir Roy, who also faces calls for more participation in major funding decisions by the artists themselves, insists. "The Arts Council exists not for the artists but for the public, and to serve artists insofar as they serve the public...We have precise box office returns on every night of every show we support. We know whether it plays to full or quarter capacity and we take that into account. Not as the criterion but a criterion. You may have an experimental production which...
What the play owes to its two leading actors is incalculable. Rogers' Sir is a white-maned lion who roars formidably against his self-sought fate. He is a ham to his hocks, but he serves Shakespeare with feudal valor ("We've done it, Will, we've done it"). As for Courtenay's Norman, as his voice echoes sepulchers and his hands etch the air with images of touching vulnerability, he opens the book of acting to a previously uncut page. -By T.E. Kalem