Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
Monday, 29 October 2007
Free this Thursday, 1 November, at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, UBU -- European Stages editor Chantal Boiron and Act French editor Philippa Wehle will trade observations on the theatre capitals of Paris and New York and the health of the drama in both of those cities. Joining them will be Edward Baron Turk of MIT and Robert Lyons, artistic director of the Soho Think Tank. A good opportunity to catch up on developments on both sides of the Atlantic; the discussion will take place at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, at 6:30 p.m. More information at the MESTC Web site here.
Posted at 4.12 pm in /Miscellaneous
Permanent link to this story
Monday, 29 October 2007
Playwright Jeffrey Jones posted on his blog on 22 October an essay he wrote for the October 2005 issue of American Theatre, "Thinking about Writing about Thinking about New Plays" (thanks to David Cote for the link). Jones writes about the audience reception of new, "difficult" work, even when the critical atmosphere for it is better than it could be.
Jones makes several points worth considering, especially the role that both criticism and the presenting venues play in providing a context for work that might be considered avant-garde, experimental or otherwise "difficult." Both theatres and critics seem more interested in producing pullquotes for advertising than anything else. But in contemporary theatre, even the "top-drawer, high-powered, literate criticism -- which doesn't mean they can't be fun and snarky and even perhaps a little heavy-going from time to time" that Jones praises is considered irrelevant; the aesthetic experience, goes the common wisdom, should stand entirely on its own. And there is something to this. But Jones is right in that somehow providing context for this new work, be it in newspaper columns, expanded programs or the blogosphere, is a means of advocating for the acceptance of this new work that extends beyond the superficial, facile responses that seem to be the common coin of theatre criticism in mass-market publications.
European stages are much better at this; I remember, particularly, a program for a Heiner Müller production, perfect-bound, that contained the text of the play, several essays and other material related to the production that the dramaturg had collected -- it ran to about 300 pages. But this was a state-subsidised theatre. And most of the museum catalogs that Jones mentions are published in association with major art publishing houses (primarily Abrams). At the current production of Philoktetes at the Soho Rep, the text of the play itself is available in the lobby for a cost of $5.00, which is a step in the right direction. (I also remember when playtexts used to be commonly available in the lobby of the Public Theater in the 1970s; after seeing A Prayer for My Daughter and Curse of the Starving Class, I purchased both on my way out of the theatre.)
Jones' suggestions could of course double back to bite him right in the contextualisation -- there is a profound anti-intellectualism infesting attitudes towards art and theatre, as well as the nation generally -- and Jones himself confesses that the perceived need for this contextual information might lead to charges of elitism:
Theatre is so afraid of seeming "elitist" that it often pretends to be dumber than it really is, then tries to mend the damage by claiming that somehow, within its precincts, the "challenging" will be made "accessible." Which is nothing but a fiddle, which an audience will recognize as a fiddle, thereby leaving all parties to the transaction feeling sheepish.
Is there really any reason not to appeal to intelligence -- or at least, to the level of intelligence which is assumed, say, by the New Yorker or the New York Times Book Review? Is anyone likely to be offput by a presumption of intelligence? Is it possible that major American cities do not host even a few thousand people who would want to see new, strange, unusual plays -- people who might find the very invitation bracing -- as long as it came with the assurance that they would also be provided with the terms and concepts that would allow them to follow such current explorations at the forefront of theatre?
Well, I don't know; intelligence presumes disciplined thinking about art and aesthetics, and there seems to be little taste for that these days. And though there is need for it, it's no real replacement for the individual's experience of the aesthetic epiphany that would lead to studying, and seeing, more difficult work, as Howard Barker describes in his first prologue to The Bite of the Night:
They brought a woman from the street
And made her sit in the stalls
By threats
By bribes
By flattery
Obliging her to share a little of her life with actorsBut I don't understand art
Sit still, they said
But I don't want to see sad things
Sit still, they said
And she listened to everything
Understanding some things
But not others
Laughing rarely, and always without knowing why
Sometimes suffering disgust
Sometimes thoroughly amazed
And in the light again, saidIf that's art I think it is hard work
It was beyond me
So much beyond my actual lifeBut something troubled her
Something gnawed her peace
And she came a second time, armoured with friendsSit still, she said
And again, she listened to everything
This time understanding
different things
This time untroubled that some things
Could not be understood
Laughing rarely but now without shame
Sometimes suffering disgust
Sometimes thoroughly amazed
And in the light again saidThis is art, it is hard work
And one friend said, too hard for me
And the other said, if you will
I will come again
Because I found it hard I felt honoured
The solution may lie somewhere between Jones and Barker, and Barker's ultimate faith in the individual audience member provides something of a conflict with that idea of "smart fun" that Jones mentions, especially when it comes to a genre as difficult and challenging as tragedy, which eschews the common idea of amusement or "fun." But that means the dramatist, too, needs to do the hard thinking about art and aesthetics before she puts her pen to paper. And there's precious little of that, these days.
Posted at 9.35 am in /Miscellaneous
Permanent link to this story
