A Bridge Too Far

This Tommy Smith post on P73's blog on Blasted and why he doesn't like most theatre has some interesting points to make but, in service of being provocative, goes too far-- further, in fact, than I think Smith himself believes.  

First, to the part that I think has merit and is worth investigating further:

That [Blasted] has been sold out for nearly its whole run and been extended twice is a big Middle Finger to everyone who shies away from producing aggressive work that provokes an audience. The old adage of “our subscribers won’t like it” has been rendered false. We always knew it wasn’t true. From here on out I’m lumping people who profess this opinion with the people who said Obama couldn’t be president — the fear of success overwhelming the possibility of change. You know you’re wrong. Have courage. Do the plays you want. The audience will love you for it.

Agreed.  I have a post lurking around in my brain somewhere about how dedicated fan bases tend to make individual artists more adventurous but organizations more conservative, and this whole idea of "will the subscribers like it" feeds into that. Theatremakers should be doing work that excites them, that they believe in, that will provoke and at times disturb their audience, as well as thrill them.  Which gets me to what I find so wrong-headed about this post:

Not every play should be as aggressive as “Blasted”, that amazing play with an amazing production currently playing at Soho Rep. But we can do better. “Blasted” is perhaps the best example of why we go to theatre — and it is not to *enjoy* ourselves. This is a tradition that started with thousands of Greeks watching Oedipus gouge his eyes out. And the Greeks were like, “Now I’ve learned something about my attraction to my mother.” They were surely shocked, and they may have been outraged, but they were definitely stirred, definitely unable to go back to they way they thought previously, and that’s what theatre is for.

This point gets into an old bugabear of mine, the idea that the audience "enjoy"ing themselves is somehow wrong, as opposed to part of a successful artistic experience.  Not all plays are enjoyable. Certainly Blasted isn't, but it replaces that enjoyment with something else of equal or perhaps to some people greater value. But the idea that somehow enjoyment is bad or shallow is silly and antithetical to drama's history as an art form. I would accept that idea that enjoyment isn't the only or perhaps even the primary reason why we should do or see a work of theatre, but it's still part of it.  In other words, if the sentence were worded "it is not just to enjoy ourselves" I'd find it a lot more compelling.

To make the argument that enjoyment isn't at the heart of the theatrical experience, Smith invents a dramatic experience that most evidence suggests didn't exist.  The Greeks knew the endings of the plays they were going to see, they were entirely familiar (we believe, anyway) with the myths that were used as basis for the stories.  Furthermore, all violence in Greek theatre was kept off stage.  There was most likely little about the events of the play that would've seemed in any way shocking.  Oedipus is also structured like a thriller, it may in fact be the first one ever written. There's a mysterious plague sweeping the land. The people don't know its cause and are suffering. Something horrible has happened to create the plague... but what?  The people appeal to the King to find out and purge the corruption from the land. He embarks on a by-the-book detective's quest only to discover that at the end of the mystery (a mystery keep in mind that the audience already knows the answer to) it's all his fault and not only that he killed his father and has fathered children with his own mother. It's not a cautionary tale about familial relations with a shocker bloody ending, as Smith asserts.

I agree with Smtih's point that when enjoyment is the only thing going on in a play, and when it is not done well, the audience is probably going to leave not particularly affected by the proceedings, and reaching out and touching the audience (including by somewhat traumatic provocation when needed) should really be the reason we're doing this whole thing.  But I don't think that means that theatre that is concerned with enjoyment should be reduced to "another Ayckbourn comedy or measured play about Iraq".

I say this in part because Smtih himself has cocreated and directed Reggie Watts' latest show (Transition) which is a fucking brilliant example of audience and performer enjoyment done with great innovation, artistry and care.  Transition is essentially postmodern sketch comedy (I caught it in Portland) but reducing it to that denies how much fun it is, how many unexpected twists and turns it takes, and how many little thirty second gems there are in it.  One part of it after the curtain call that completes a joke started midway through the show had the audience literally on their feet laughing their asses off.  

The problem, in other words, is enjoyable theatre done badly in a way that doesn't distinguish it from the better offerings on TV and in films, not that theatre is enjoyable in the first place. And Smith- at least in his practical work as an artist- knows this. 

Later on, Smith says that there is not a single play of note written in English between 1800 and 1900 and dares to name one. Well, there's a number of them.  In fact, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, two of the more important post-Shakespeare English Language playwrights were writing during this period and produced amongst other things Arms and the Man and The Importance of Being Earnest. Even though I don't like every Shaw play in the world and actually prefer his 20th century work to his 19th century work, both certainly qualify as "of note".

Comments

[Seth Christenfeld]

"a big Middle Finger to everyone who shies away from producing aggressive work that provokes an audience."

In other words: to write something rough like Blasted and have it produced, all the playwright needs to do is die young.

[RLewis]

...die young, and don't let the play into the US for 5 years. the play sold out on suspenseful marketing buzz (including talented actors) before it ever opened, not because it was aggressive or provoking. Until the new Dot program, did Soho Rep even have a suscriber base?

[Aaron Riccio]

In response to Seth--Stephen Daldry commissioned and produced "Blasted" for the Royal Court back in 1995, so methinks that what one needs is not to die young, or even to write young, but a producer who is willing to, as Isaac and Tommy Smith point out, stand behind that middle finger until the audiences reach out and embrace it.

As for the entertainment factor, I suspect that varies from person to person. I'm in the camp that does NOT like merely to be entertained--I want to feel something real, something that justifies going to a live production instead of turning in and tuning out at home. The movies I enjoy, (like Quantum of Solace, which Smith references), DO more than entertain--at the least, they excite, which is a vicarious thrill. Can one simply entertain? Sure. But I didn't like Reggie Watts's "Disinformation" because it only made me--occasionally--laugh. I already get that one-dimensionality from the daily slog at work.

[Seth Christenfeld]

Aaron--I'm well aware of Blasted's history. I probably should have qualified my initial comment with the phrase "in the US."

The UK seems to be somewhat more welcoming of younger, rougher playwrights--recently the girl who wrote That Face, and stretching back as far as Shelagh Delaney, Joe Orton, and John Osborne (if not earlier), all of whom were young, mean, and produced in major venues.