ABSTRACT
After just over four decades of existence, the central issue facing the RSC was, as ever, artistic but, as ever, it had an organisational dimension. Peter Hall had created a company for artistic reasons; Trevor Nunn had refined it for artistic reasons; and for artistic reasons Adrian Noble had fractured what was left of it. His departure raised many questions beyond the immediate one of survival and at their core was the issue of company: could – or should – the RSC still enjoy the word ‘company’ in its title and is this significant? Does the relationship between size and identity ineluctably disbar the RSC from any meaningful use of the word? And if so, at what point does such a disjuncture occur? Most importantly, what does ‘company’ mean at the beginning of the twenty-first century when the economic basis required to support the RSC has turned it into a corporation?
