Good News X2

(1) Ted Stevens lost, showing that even in Alaska, being convicted of seven felonies can get in the way of your electoral chances.

(2) Karl Miller is blogging again, this time about a subject near and dear to my heart: the shallowness of Martin McDonagh and our shared suspicion that "some critics and thinkers are working overtime to justify their own violent laughter".

Comments

[malachy Walsh]

You really hate McDonagh that much?

I have to say, I really love the part of Karl's post about the white linen skirt. Guess Martin isn't the kind of "theatre as usual" that they were expecting.

As to the rest, Karl is working pretty hard to hate the work he's apparently doing. Maybe even overtime.

[Karl Miller]

Mac,

I'm definitely working overtime trying to understand different reactions to McDonagh, but I don't hate my work. I just don't think it's especially deep work at the moment. My post is more about that volume of analysis I mentioned, not the comedy itself.

Who doesn't love a good bloody farce? Well, some elder subscribers who attend the show are only there because they've already paid to see "Les Mis" and "Ace!" and they have no idea what they're in for. But I can't blame them for checking out. They don't deserve a refund, but they don't deserve condescension, either. This ain't exactly Claudius caught in the Mousetrap.

A lot of the critics and thinkers in the book I mention try to place McDonagh in the "in-yer-face" school of contemporary drama (a group that proudly confounds "theatre as usual") ... but to my knowledge, few people have walked out of Sarah Kane's "Blasted" at Soho Rep, despite the fact that her play contains a faster (and more gruesome) acceleration of violence than anything Marty has dreamt up to date. And without a single joke at that! Signature Theatre did Kane's "Crave" a couple seasons ago, so they're not exactly pandering to the middle, Mac.

I don't know. Maybe I just missed the whole point of "Inishmore." I didn't get to see the Broadway production. That's what I'm trying to figure out as I read more about earlier productions and sift through memories of my own. I spent a lot of time trying to do my actor homework and get in the mind of Padraic, only to find there wasn't much of a mind or soul to get inside. I think the play is better served by an instinct for bathos. Which is why it puzzles me to read so much faulty psychoanalysis about Inishmore.

I don't mean to condescend to McDonagh because I have a deep love/weakness for farce and my friends tease me about it all the time. But for that reason, I find his "pacifist rage" to be a total crock (it's the sort of phrase Padraic would utter without irony). Inishmore is a shallow grave for shallow characters and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't try to exhume any meaning or moral.

Besides, farce doesn't need any higher justification -- it's good enough to sit and watch our crazy excesses tumble out in the dark. It's extra fun to get to enact this excess every night, too. But when people start adding high-minded rationalizations for this, or try to imbue this story with an aura of bravery or courage, I get nauseous.

It's a different nausea than the one felt by the woman with the white linen outfit. Both are justified, I think.

[malachy Walsh]

Mac?

[Karl Miller]

I really should stop pinot-posting (It's like drunk-dialing, only more public and less embarrassing) ... I'm sorry, Malachy

[isaac]

Malachy,

I don't hate McDonagh. He doesn't totally do it for me and I think he's shallow. I wish more people would cop to the shallowness part of it, which I think Karl does in his post. It's the finding depth where it doesn't exist in order to justify a bloody good time that I have a problem with.

[malachy walsh]

I -

I think some of his work has more to it. And, to me, some of his work is Greek in scope.

But there's also more depth to found in particular moments of certain plays. Since I've trotted out my little BEAUTY QUEEN story more than once on your blog, I won't do it again, but that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

That sudden moment when a mass of people are all viscerally linked to the action on stage which is then played with by the actors on the stage, well, it's just not the kind of theatre experience that's furnished much these days. And it's not shallow, to me, anyway. I remember it quite vividly.

Karl... pinot-posting? Mmm, sounds dangerous. Hope you're not Syrah-ing anytime soon. Anyway, thanks.

[Aaron Leichter]

Shouldn't that be "Syrah-nading"?

[malachy walsh]

Aaron... no doubt.

Never was good with the pun.