Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008
But not for long, if the grosses and the response of the vox populi critics are any indication:
Caryl Churchill's 1982 Top Girls had its Broadway premiere last week, and New York Times critic Ben Brantley gave the play a thumbs up. But apparently the "pre-opening buzz ... was mixed." ... The Times sent some poor staffer with a tape recorder to the Biltmore Theatre to get on-the-spot reactions from audience members who left after – and during – the performance. The recordings were duly posted to the Times' web site; the six responses were decidedly mixed. A few loved the play, a few hated it, and a few were puzzled. So it goes.
What this might or might not mean for the future of
non-
UPDATE: On a somewhat related note, Terry Teachout of
the Wall Street Journal considered this year's somewhat uninspiring
Tony contenders a few days ago, and noted the narrow
Broadway-
Would that the Tony Awards would tear down the wall that separates Broadway from Off Broadway! Alas, that will never happen, because the awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing in collaboration with the Broadway League, a trade association whose members are in the business of persuading the public that Broadway is the be-
all and end- all of American theater. The truth, of course, is that the real artistic action is to be found Off Broadway and in America's regional theaters. One of the finest of the latter, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, is receiving this year's Regional Theatre Tony Award, the sole occasion on which the Tony nominators deign to acknowledge what everybody who cares about theater already knows, which is that Broadway today is less a center of serious artistic endeavor than a theme park for well- heeled tourists.
Read Terry's full post here.
Posted at 10.40 am in /Guardian
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Thursday, 01 May 2008
At the Guardian (UK) today, I write about a recent study of arts presenters' impacts on the audiences they serve. I conclude:
Neither a work of art nor a marketing study exists in a vacuum, of course. While the authors believe that the study's impact scores "should not be used as a means of evaluating or comparing artists or the worthiness of their performances," Wolf and Novak hope that the information "might be used by presenters in understanding the consequences of their programming choices and reaching higher levels of effectiveness in their work." It's naive, though, to think that ultimately programmers and curators, in a time of shrinking support for the arts, may not accept and reject work for their seasons based upon the narrow "impact constructs" that WolfBrown defines.
Well, that's one of my conclusions, anyway. Read the whole thing here.
Posted at 11.36 am in /Guardian
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008
In the Guardian (UK) today, I write about the parallels between Dieter Dorn's production of Tristan und Isolde at the Met and one of the most influential dramatists of the 20th century:
On the face of it, there couldn't be two more different theatre artists than Richard Wagner and Samuel Beckett. Beckett himself cared very little for Wagner. But Dieter Dorn's production of Tristan und Isolde, recently restaged at New York's Metropolitan Opera, suggests there may be more to the comparison than meets the eye.
The entire entry is available here.
Posted at 8.17 am in /Guardian
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Wednesday, 09 January 2008
Recommended Reading: Battling Bond
Alison reads Edward Bond's interview at the Guardian (UK) today, and her interest is piqued by a little terminological problem:
Bond was speaking of a production of his play The Woman, which he directed at the National: "I went back to see it after it had been playing for a week and the actors were doing it as if it were Tom Stoppard. They were doing 'theatre.' But drama is not 'theatre.'" You could almost hear his disgust.
It seems that Bond has a very specialised definition of "theatre," one that comprehends the entire art form as, heaven forbid, a kind of meta-Tom Stoppard play. But his comment gave me pause, because this distinction between "drama" and "theatre" is one I've heard many times before, and almost always from writers.
Some distinctions are useless and some useful; in terms of art and criticism, precision counts. News reports that point to "a dramatic rescue attempt" or "a tragic death" or a politician striking a "theatrical pose" use the words "drama" and "tragedy" and "theatre" in a rather looser manner than theatre critics or practitioners might.
Even then, there's more to it than meets the eye, as Alison's post and its associated comments indicate. My own view is there as well.
Posted at 12.58 pm in /Guardian
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Monday, 17 December 2007
Why don't we have a national theatre in the US? First, we don't need one; second, we shouldn't have one. The reasons why are in my latest Guardian (UK) post, "Why America has no national theatre."
Posted at 10.31 am in /Guardian
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