A lesson from the boards
A hit comedy on London’s West End called La Bête, pitched as a contest between populist and elitist culture, is also about the problem of innovation within organisations. Continue reading
Set in 1650 in France, the plot concerns a street clown thrust upon the Court-appointed playwright by an autocratic princess. Her reason: the playwright’s troupe is growing stale. In the clown’s performances in the public square, and the non-sensical accounts he gives of their dramatic meaning, the princess thinks herself “dazzled” by the clown’s “dramatic innovations.” Her troupe needs some of that fresh creativity. So when the playwright implores: “What’s needed to improve the situation?”, she sharply replies: “New blood to stimulate the circulation.” For the princess, the answer is simple: make the two men – each the other’s opposite – work as “a team”. “Tonight you’ve met your spiritual brother,” she reassures her playwright. “This man has gifts that will inspire you!” Not so, the playwright insists, staking his future on his adamant refusal to work with the buffoon.
The princess has played a “wild card” by embedding the clown in a professional team, in order to stimulate new ideas. At the play’s close, the princess retains her troupe with the clown she has chosen, but the playwright walks out. Bolting-on the joker simply won’t work. As a cautionary tale, La Bête provides no answer to the leader’s problem of how to stimulate innovation. Indeed it’s a big problem.
La Bête stars TV actors David Hyde Pierce (Niles on the long-running American sitcom Cheers) and British comedienne Joanna Lumley, best known as Patsy on the comic series Absolutely Fabulous, alongside the consummate English stage actor Mark Rylance. The production –now heading to Broadway — is sure to succeed with critics and audiences. Let’s hope plenty of business folk flock to see it.