How Do We Get More Masterpieces?

Let us posit a few assumptions to what I am about to say.

The first assumption is the following: We can agree (roughly) on the existing cannon of Western Drama.  That canon would be, roughly, what gets taught in 100 and 200 level theatre courses, which has little variance, frankly, from school to school.  I will, in other words say, that we have some general idea of what plays fit the quality of masterpiece.

Now, let us go to a second assumption: We do not want the current roster of masterpieces to be frozen, we instead want to continue adding to it.

The question becomes... how do we get there? How do we create the plays that future generations will study, or rebel against, or carry the torch for?

I would suggest the answer is produce the ok-to-good plays by today's playwrights.

Over the past couple of years, I've met a lot of young-to-mid career writers. Basically, the young writers who don't self-produce get zero productions and the mid career writers I've met get surprisingly few productions. THey instead get a lot of readings, the occasional commission, a lot of things that fall apart at the last minute etc.  There's lots of talk about this in Outrageous Fortune, so I won't bother beating the point to death, but I'll just say there's a lot of effort that goes into doing lots of things that are supposed to start down the path to full production but never get there (and just to be generous, I'll count fully produced workshops like Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks as full productions, even though they only run a weekend). 

I was strolling through wikipedia today, and it's worth noting how many plays many beloved playwrights had written and produced before their masterpieces. Because we ignore the first half of the saying "took my whole life to be an overnight success," this gets obfuscated.  Yes, there are some Young Geniuses... but there are a lot of Old Masters. My favorite example of this being Tony Kushner, who people seem to think wrote Bright Room and then Angels but had, in fact, written (and produced) thirteen plays prior to writing Millennium Approaches. Sam Shepard had over a decade of film and theatre writing experience prior to Buried Child. Tennessee Williams wrote eight plays before Streetcar. Eugene O'Neill had been writing for twenty years before he wrote most of what is considered his major works (and don't get me started on Moliere or Shakespeare). 

Now obviously, this is hardly scientific... I'm just saying that perhaps in asking new plays to cross a Hurdle of Greatness before they can get produced, we create an environment in which writing an actual Great Play becomes nigh-impossible except for the Child Geniuses of the playwriting community.

Comments

[Theatreforte]

Ding ding ding. You get the prize, sir.

[Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist]

to date, I've had one production in London (which recently ended its 3 week run on October) and various stage readings so far, both in UK and US.

Iam SO tired of readings. when am I gonna get my play produced again? F--k it, I'm going to self produce my plays because no one else will!

[Ian Knox]

More masterpieces? Gah, my Artaud reflex kicked in when I read that.

While I heartily agree with your proposition to produce more plays that are less than perfect, I take some issue with that ultimate goal... or more specifically with whose ultimate goal it is.

On one hand you say that we need more masterpieces in the canon, but on the other hand you say that we shouldn't produce them (focusing instead on "ok-to-good plays by today's playwrights") in order to keep beginning and mid-career writers from calling it quits. So once this arbitrary "masterpiece" level is reached a play's producibility should depreciate? This seems somewhat at cross purposes doesn't it?

I feel that the goal of a theatre should not be to produce only great scripts, it should be to create great productions which can be done with any script that meets basic level of competency (h/t Scott Walters). It is the goal of the playwright (and only the playwright) to write great scripts.

Let the text book authors decide what's a "masterpiece" and what isn't-- it's a silly subjective term anyway that serves no real purpose except perhaps in what gets taught in thea101 classes.

[Dramadaily.wordpress.com]

Agreed, Isaac. There's entirely too much pressure on playwrights to write the next great play and directors to snatch it up. The exposure and dialogue potentially opened up by producing more plays seems like a surer way to foster more and better work.

I agree with Ian that "canon" is a "silly subjective term." While we may agree that a canon exists, I don't know that there is necessarily general consensus about "what plays fit the quality of masterpiece." Particularly when it comes to arguing for the inclusion, say, of more recent formally unconventional works into the canon.

Also, academics (who often double as text book editors) have done a lot to rethink the whole notion of canon, to correct for historical ignorance and oversight (exclusion based on class, race, sex, etc.), but I'm not sure just how much (or well) these changes have carried over into the daily lives of theatre makers, readers, and viewers. The 'new canon' wants to be fair(er), more democratic, but I don't think it's there yet.

[Ben Layne]

Isn't this essentially a variaiton on the old chestnut of "They say I need experience, but how can I get experience if nobody will hire me?"

It's a similar question to how we develop better actors, better directors, better designers, etc. We have to take greater risks in order to expect real progress.

[isaac]

Just to clarify: I'm not really a canonist, I'm trying to speak to/with the assumptions that undergird a more cannonist position than I myself hold. That's why i was trying to outline some assumptions at the top of the post.

[cgeye]

10,000 hours, boo.

And they can't be all spent in workshops where people who want the same thing as you do try not to tear you down, or give you bad criticism, but since you're all at the same level, no one knows what writing at that next level looks like from the inside?

What, me bitter? Nah.