Globe season Summer of Love. And Emma Rice is leaving 2018

That didn't work well for them last time.  That production was not well-loved.

Worth just pointing this sentence out and what people like Rice are really up against.

The audience at MND and Imogen were pretty much that audience and now they've been sent a very clear message.

If her work has received critical and box office acclaim I can't see why they wanted rid of her. Perhaps they had an increase in new audience members but a significant drop in members/ regulars and were worried about donations?

Although it feels somewhat mean-spirited to celebrate someone being out of a job, I'm utterly delighted! We've celebrated all afternoon! And now I hope Shakespeare's Globe returns to its original remit.

The argument that this is 'old white male vs kick-ass woman' does not address the mismatch of artistic vision. Personally, I couldn't care whether Rice is gender bended or sky-blue-pink. The issue of male/female approach is a non-starter for me. The Rice vision for the Globe was not in sympathy even with its basic architecture.

The argument that 'all the performances looked the same' at the Globe before Rice is, frankly, odd. I don't recall performances all looking the same at all. We attended for years, and we were always struck with how versatile was the stage. It was utterly eye-opening to me that a simple wooden space could become so adaptable and flexible.

The idea that plays at the Globe will 'go back to being dusty' is astonishing. When Shakespeare's Globe first opened, its vision was astoundingly adventurous and unique. It was a beacon of orginality. Where else was offering this approach the performance? Who else was offering actors the opportunity to create a production alongside the audience? I cannot recall another theatre being so bold in striking out into such a unique direction. The fact that the Globe's startling approach became so quickly naturalised into the theatrescape shows you how right the Globe originally got it.

The light and sound system was a disaster. Noise and trashy flash took precedence over the words spoken by the actors. I can't forgive that moment in Macbeth when Banquo couldn't be heard thanks to the screechy noises. Are people seriously defending the use of amplified sounds and disco lights at the Globe?

Rice is clearly a high-flying director with vision, and I feel annoyed to be positioned as someone who would also claim that she is not up to the job. She is clearly a capable director. Just Not At The Globe. Shakespeare's Globe has a unique space and invites a form of audience participation which makes sense of the scripts that are spoken in it. Rice simply failed to respect the scripts or treat them as if they mattered.

Oh gosh, the scripts! Well, perhaps here I'm going to have to swing punches. I believe, not in the purity of the scripts, but how they can guide an actor to an interpretation. I really have to question why we should dump those scripts without very good reason. I find it breathtakingly ignorant to treat the target market of theatre-goers as if they can't possibly follow Shakespeare, that the language is so much like 'medicine' that it must be expelled. Unforgiveable.

Finally, the Globe has an international reputation, and this has to be significant in bringing back an authentic vision. We've had people travel half-way round the world to be with us and we've taken them to Shakespeare's Globe - because they've heard that this is The Only Theatre in the World to see 'authentic' Shakespeare. Sure, you can dismiss them all as 'tourists', but remember that many of these visitors are your Shakespeare enthusiasts who would go to any and all versions of every play - but they will develop a loyalty to one place which they see as offering a unique experience. So why would they travel to the Globe to see Rice's Midsummer when they can see an interpretation done with more glitz, pizzazz, and glamour put on in Hong Kong?

Yes, the board does need to keep control of what happens next. Appointing someone who said they didn't much like Shakespeare was asking for trouble. I'm a little worried about what the board will do next after this wobble, so I hope someone with a clear head is helping make decisions.

Phew, I've got that lot off my chest. Thanks for reading, folks.

I've been pretty vocal here that I didn't like what Emma Rice was doing to the place and that her first season didn't appeal to me so I didn't go to anything for the first time in years. But ...

1. Fairly confident that any new AD of any theatre has outraged a vocal set of fans of the previous regime(s) with their first season - (eg Greg Doran, Vicky Featherstone, Josie Rourke, Michael Grandage, Kevin Spacey, Rufus Norris, I could go on!) - and faced calls for their sacking. But given the chance to bed in their new style things settle down. And maybe they lose some of the old audience, but they gain a new one.

2. I recognise that not everything has to appeal to me

Gosh. That really does seem mean-spirited.

Breathtakingly so in fact.

Calm down dear!

Why employ someone who openly admits that they don't love Shakespeare as much as a Globe Usherette? Why employ someone with 'radical' directing techniques ?

I don't her work but I dislike what is happening much more

Edit *like*

Yes, I really hope Grit never finds themselves out of work with an expected contract cut short. Yes Rice has a good reputation, and the industry largely seems on her side. But it's a bloody tough industry, and she clearly had been offered what looked like a secure job for some years, no matter what that is a personal and professional blow. Even if I hated her work, I would not wish that on anyone. 

I'm 100% fine with people wanting The Globe back to 'how it was' though I would argue, that no, it never was a single type of proudction so there's no actual definitive 'Globe Production' to go back to in that sense. Do I think the whole place did need a bit of a kick up the arse? personally yes, I do. Do I think the productions individually were awful before? Not at all, but personally I'm also open to change. 

(For anyone who watched The Good Wife I feel like in this thread I should constantly be stating 'In my opinion your honour') 

I hope Emma will soon find the job that suits well her appetites for radicalism and the one she and her employer will be comfortable with. But I too couldn't hold back my joy all day.. For me she was absolutely ruining the place.. Glad The Board realised that but a bit too late, init? Wondering the same thing as Someone in a tree (great name, btw) she surely expressed her ideas and vision before in a prosess of a new AD search..
They should appoint Jamie Parker - he was running for the job at the final stage. Would be a bold choice as well