Parabasis

UK Theatre Puts Submitted Scripts Online

Innovative approach from the Bush Theatre in the UK:

West London’s Bush Theatre has this week launched a pioneering social networking website which allows playwrights to post their work online for producers and directors to read and commission.

Bush Green currently features more than 170 plays and around 500 test users, but these numbers are expected to increase dramatically following the site going live early this week. Users of the site, who sign up for free, can preview the first 20% of a play for no charge, but will have to pay £2.58 to download the full work or £1.38 if it is a short play.

The playwrights will earn £1 from the £2.58, while £1 will go back into the upkeep of the site. The remainder is an administration fee paid to PayPal, which oversees the transaction. The initiative has been supported with a £60,000 grant from the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, although the Bush is currently looking for long-term sponsors for the site.

Interesting stuff. As always, RTWT here.

More On Strasberg

(updated below)

Chris Wilkinson at Guardian Online, in doing the weekly roundup of theatre blog conversation points to our conversation earlier about the Strasberg school. 

Well, it turns out David Strasberg, who is continuing the legacy of father Lee (despite not being an actor or having a theatre background at all) has a blog. And not only that, he has a post up on the blog where he discusses McNulty's article. I don't think the post does him, his father, or his "institute" any favors:

People like to talk about theories of acting. But we are not theoretical. My father said our work is not a theory because a theory is something which has not yet been proven. So far, no interview has ever been able to capture that element in our training. How do you explain or describe the change in your life when you gain knowledge of yourself? When you learn discipline? When you learn a new skill? These moments are not accomplished by sitting around talking. The sky does not open up, and the angels don’t sing (usually, at least).

I think Mr. Strasberg might want to invest in a spokesperson, because, to be blunt: this is how frauds talk. The above is pure snake-oil boilerplate: "Come invest a large amount of money and years of time in our program. Why? Well, we can't articulate why.  We can't articulate what works about our methods or how, you'll simply know when you get there. After four years. And tens of thousands of dollars."

Not only that, but neither David nor Lee Strasberg apparently understand what a theory is. A theory observes certain classes of phenomena and makes verifiable assertions about them.  Theories aren't what you call something before it's proven.  That's a hypothesis.  It would be flattering to the Method-- or any other kind of acting system-- to call it a theory ,because it would mean that you could empirically show that it'll make you a better actor. 

It only gets worse from there.  "The power of training as an actor – or as anything else for that matter – is the momentum of countless hours spent getting better. How do you capture the grandeur of THAT in a tape recorder?" Well, David, the way you capture the grandeur of that on a tape recorder is being able to articulately talk about the thing that it's your business to do-- train people in being better actors.  True, you cannot actually give Charles McNulty a first hand experience of suddenly doing something it takes years to accomplish, but you should be able to talk about it in a way that doesn't obviously reek of baloney to even casual observers.

Everyone who applies to your school at NYU has to be able to articulately talk about why they want to go there, you should probably be able to do the same.  And maybe a few graduates of your program should be able to on your behalf to. Maybe someone younger than, say, Al Pacino if you want to claim your program is still relevant.

UPDATE: Not to continue beating a dead horse here, but I'd also note that David Strasberg pooh-poohs the negative aspects of McNulty's article by writing "Of course as a journalist McNulty is interested in finding drama. News needs either “New” or “Conflict” so they have to search for one or the other to make the article interesting." That's ridiculous.  McNulty's article contains, amongst other things, negative assessments of the Strasbergian method from Ron Van Lieu, widely agreed upon as one of (if not the) best acting teacher for the stage in America. That's not just pointless conflict-drumming-up. If he wanted that, he would've gone to Mamet, who called the method a "cult" and basically worthless in his book "True And False". He didn't. he went to an actual authority on the subject, who commented about his concerns about the method. If Strasberg wants to explain why we shouldnt't listen to Van Lieu, or why he's wrong, that'd be one thing. But to dismiss all concerns by, essentially, attacking th media is ridiculous.

Ragtime Might Close January 3rd

So says Michael Reidel.  That'd be a shame.  I'll put this briefly... . if you want the big broadway experience in a way that won't make you feel like an asshole, get over and see Ragtime already, okay?

My Younger Brother is Awesome, Queer And A YA Librarian

Which is why you should read his take on Twilight.

Two Reasons To Love The British

(1) You can now watch both Spaced and Green Wing on Hulu.  The former is the co-creation of Simon Pegg and Jessican Stevenson and was directed by Edgar Wright. Pegg and Wright went on to make Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. So, yeah, not much else I should have to say there. Green Wing is one of the most delightfully odd television shows I've ever seen.  It's basically a forty-five minute long sit-com about horny doctors. There's not a *ton* of depth to the show, or the characters. But it is so bizarre, the characterizations are so extreme and its so structurally innovative that it takes a few episodes just to get used to the thing.  Once you do, you'll never stop laughing. It's also far dirtier than just about anything I've seen on television, and I include HBO in that assessment.  And Mark Heap (who is also in Spaced) gives a performance of such fusty intensity that it's *almost* terrifying. 

 (2) In Somerset, they've converted a red phone box into a lending library. Basically, you go to this phone booth, leave a book and take a new one.  My block has something like this. It's called "The Lamppost Outside of My Building Where Everyone Leaves Shit".

A Short Thought On Critics

It's probably not best for critics to review plays after getting sloshed for four hours at an awards show:

Wertenbaker believes that the actors were not given a fair crack of the whip because many of the critics had spent the day being liberally wined and dined at the Evening Standard theatre awards – a four-hour affair at the Royal Opera House that involved a champagne reception followed by lunch and as much wine as they wanted to drink. She said some critics had had the grace to say they would come on a different night, but most came after the lunch.

Wertenbaker told the Guardian: "I've had bad press nights and bad reviews but I've never had the sense that the critics were too tired to engage. It is a complicated play, it's difficult, you have to pay attention to it.

Oops?

Another Recommendation

This Friday night at BookCourt, Jonathan Lethem is hosting a marathon read of his new novel, Chronic City.  Basically, the way the marathon works is that at each of Lethem's NYC reading events, he's read a portion of the novel in chronological order.  This Friday, he's reading the rest of it. And there's a lot of book left.  So to help out, special guests will be on hand. Who are the special guests?  Why, National Theater Of The United States of America, of course!  Also on hand will be author Tom McCarthy, who wrote Remainder, one of the best (and strangest) books I read this year.

Obviously, if you haven't read Chronic City, you might not want to stop by for too long, as you may spoil the fun of the novel (and it's a great deal of fun to read).  But I'd still stop in if I were you. They'll be giving out prizes, and at midnight an Italian guitarist is coming to serenade the audience. It almost makes me want to cancel my trip to Arena! 

Premature Recommendation

I haven't seen it yet, but man am I dyin' to see THIS at Playwrights Horizons.  Why? Well, dear reader, because Daniel Aukin directed it. Daniel is a friend and gave me my first job in New York, so take this with whatever personal grain of salt you want to, but I think Daniel is an amazing director. Watching his plays is a master-class in effective directing.  He threads the needle between the "invisible hand" school and overt conceptualization beautifully, managing to make plays that always have an aesthetic without it being overbearing, and he seemlessly integrates acting style with the design components of his plays. Aukin's got serious game.  For those of you interested in the conversation about what a director does and how to spot their work in a production, go see his work.

Anything Is Possible

Matt Freeman has an interesting post up asking about arbitrary vs. intentional choices in theatre:

Is it possible that an arbitrary decision by the creative team and a decision with some complex thought behind it...can look exactly the same? And does it make a difference, really, to the audience member? Does how a decision is arrived at inform what we see?

Can we sense the arbitrary? Or do we just assume that everything we see onstage was put there with a rigorous sense of purpose?

It's an interesting series of questions question that provokes some interesting comments.  I suppose my answer to the penultimate question is "sort of". We can notice things that feel arbitrary, but we're not hounds snuffling out rabbits here, we can't ever really tell if we're on the right scent.  

What I've realized in thinking about Matt's question is that it really depends which department of a creative team you're talking about. Oddly enough, this realization came while reading the latest issue of Kevin Huizinga's GANGES, in which Glenn Ganges tries to go to sleep and his mind wanders all over his neighborhood and consciousness.  There was a point in it where I thought to myself "Anything could happen in the next panel,". Anything, that is, that can be drawn.  Huizinga is the artist as well as the writer. He has complete autonomy on Ganges. There are no collaborative cheques or balances. If he wanted Glenn to die halfway through the second page and make the issue suddenly about Wendy, he could. He's messed with this sort of stuff before-- Glenn has a kid in one book, and is childless in the next, the plots of most of Huizinga's Ganges material have little to do with each other etc. 

Anything Huizinga wants to happen could, there are no rules other than the ones he creates, and he doesn't even have to follow those.  Some comics artists, in fact, pointedly don't follow the rules they set down for themselves.  Grant Morrison's Invisibles was completely illegible to me because of the lack of and perceivable rules. At any moment, any arbitrary thing could happen, and thus nothing that happened had any stakes and it was impossible for me to ever get my bearings in the series. (Other readers think The Invisibles is mind blowing, as my dad would say, "a difference of opinion is what makes horse racing").

Theatre is not comix, however.  Creators don't have sole control. First off, you can't do literally anything on stage. I mean, you could have someone come out and read a stage direction that a dragon comes in and eats everyone and expect the audience to use their imaginations, but I don't think that counts as actually doing it. There's this whole cheques and balances system that exists due to the nature of collaboration.  Some of this comes from positive social conventions about how collaboration is supposed to work, the need for mutual respect etc, some of this comes from implicit threats inherent in the process-- the writer can always pull the rights to the piece, the director can always walk off it, the actors can always not do as they're told once the play is in front of an audience and so on.

Anyway, the question of arbitrary choices changes depending on which part of the production team you're talking about.  An arbitrary-feeling choice in the text is very different from, say, there being a pointless dance interlude right before Hal says "I do. I will" in Henry IV, Part One, which is also different from an actor doing some pen-clicking schtick that may or may not relate to their character.

Some of what we do is art and some is craft, and quite a bit of the art part (at least on my end) is guided by instinct and taste.  That's the dirty truth of it.  To paraphrase DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect 5, "I only know one way to work a case, and that's through instinct and hard work". I'm not one of those directors who plots out the blocking in advance or who knows immediately upon stepping into the rehearsal room exactly what they want (nothing but love for those who do).  For me, the rehearsal process is really a process, and as much work as I've done leading up to first rehearsal, the first pass of blocking is largely instinctual.  When did the actor want to move?  Where is my attention flagging? What blocking image feels right? Etc. It's only after first run-through that the craft part, the "hard work" part kicks in, just like how in writing an essay the first draft is feeling one's way through the material, thinking aloud on the page and the second draft is when it gets its shape. 

The revision step is also where the choices that don't add anything, or don't work get taken out.  But the ones that remain have fairly instinctual/arbitrary reasons for being there in the first place. They might not have completely arbitrary reasons for staying in, but they're origination is as much instinct as anything else. 

When I hear the term "arbitrary" used, and when I use it myself, it's only ever meant as a negative criticism. It means a choice whose relationship to the moment/play/text/production cannot be fathomed and detracts from the overall experience of the show.  And i only ever use it to describe directorial choices.

In reality, though, there's a satisfying sweet spot between the rational and the inspired.  When art is too rational and over-crafted it begins to feel schematic and suffocating, but when it's completely based on what an artist wants to do, with no rules surrounding it, it's generally a bewildering experience. One of the first things I do in a rehearsal process is try to create some rules for myself so I don't go completely off the rails. Whenever I personally discuss "concept" (ugh that word should be stricken from the theatrical language) what I mean is the set of rules I'll be obeying to keep myself in check.  The audience's perception of these rules isn't really the point.  That volume of smoke, for example, is performed by a group of ghosts retelling their stories was far more important for me in thinking through design and blocking choices than it was for the audience in understanding Clay's text.  Similarly, with MilkMilkLemonade I didn't care that the audience understood the play to be a nightmare the main character was having after eating some bad chicken one night. I don't think I even told the actors that's how I thought of the play, but it helped me navigate my choices in it.  One run through, for example, Josh and I looked at each other afterwards and said "everyone is being too nice to Emory right now".  I was able to arrive at that because of the nightmare rules I had made up for myself. They didn't allow a version where people were overly nice to Emory, even if I could see how that version might work in a different production.

Quick Announcement

This weekend, Arena Stage and Georgetown University are holding a convening on Diversity in the American Theatre.  You can read all about it here. I, along with a few other bloggers, have been invited to attend and participate as well as "cover" the conference for this blog.  I suppose you could call this is a "blog junket", as the convening is picking up the tab for my travel and housing.  Matt Yglesias gets to go on blog junkets to Switzerland. I get to go on blog junkets to Georgetown.  I think maybe I should start just writing about politics...

Seriously though, I'm grateful to the folks at Arena for bringing me down, because otherwise I couldn't attend and, as Parabasis readers probably know by now, diversity in general and in the American Theatre in particular is a subject near and dear to my heart, and my day job revolves around issues of racial bias in American life, so this convening lies at an interesting intersection between my artistic life, this blog and my current employment.