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  • 6 hours ago
Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste discuss the changing culture of UK theatre, as they prepare to take Arthur Miller's 1946 play All My Sons to the National Theatre Live.The play, which has been on at London's Wyndham's Theatre since November, focuses on Joe Keller (Bryan Cranston), a self-made businessman who has a secret from the war.
Transcript
00:00Well, I think it's changed when I was born and raised.
00:05Compared to the United States, where I was born and raised,
00:08it is an extracurricular activity.
00:11If you want to do that on your free time,
00:13by all means, go ahead and do it.
00:15But this feels like it's part of the culture.
00:18You were raised with it, right?
00:20You were.
00:20I think it's changed.
00:22When I was growing up here, there was Greater London Arts,
00:25who gave money to a lot of theatre companies and stuff like that.
00:31That was the ILEA, which gave money to schools,
00:35so that they could take busloads of kids to go and see theatre and dance,
00:41theatre and stuff.
00:41But all that's been shrunk.
00:44So there's not that infrastructure anymore to introduce kids to theatre,
00:53and make it part of the culture.
00:54Well, that's true.
00:56I think that's true all around.
00:59Unfortunately, our politicians, the first thing they'll cut
01:02when they want to save money is the arts.
01:05Thinking that the arts can't be as important as mathematics.
01:11And it's like, are you kidding?
01:13But I've begged to differ.
01:14I think that through the arts with politics,
01:18we would shift politics with the arts.
01:21You had plays that were speaking about the political situations going on in the world.
01:28And I think that they understand the power of that.
01:31And they're afraid of that?
01:32And they're afraid of that.
01:33And so that's why they cut the arts programs?
01:36Partially.
01:36Stop it.
01:37You're just...
01:38I'm not doing this with them.
01:39You can see what you are going on.
01:39Level that.
01:39And I think, I think, that they're going on.
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