A list of great plays:
Medea, Euripides [Six Broadway productions, 1920 – 2003]
Oedipus, Sophocles [Eight Broadway productions, 1907 – 1984]
Hamlet, Shakespeare [Sixty-seven Broadway productions, 1761 - 1995]
King Lear, [Eighteen Broadway productions, 1754 – 2004]
Tartuffe, Moliere [Five Broadway productions, 1965 – 2003; 36 productions of Moliere plays, 1879 - 2003]
Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueno 1636), Calderon [One Broadway Production, 1953; a notable production at BAM a few years back]
What modern plays rest comfortably on the shelf beside any of these masterpieces? A Streetcar Named Desire? Death of a Salesman? Our Town?
Hamlet is funny. Marrying your mother is funny. Life is a Dream has some good stuff in it. Not straight out funny, but fun. Lear, Gloucester, Edgar, Goneril, Regan - these are funny people. Cordelia and the Fool: not funny. You know how when someone you know really well, say, your mother, gets so over the top mad you start laughing? That's Media. She's actually pretty funny. Tartuffe, being a comedy, is supposed to be funny and it is. But it is remarkable for how narrowly it avoides being tragedy.
Media, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, Segismundo - these are smart, strong, opinionated, grappling-with-the-Gods-type people, the kind you invite to cocktails.
Our Town aint my kinda town. I admire the craftsmanship, but it doesn't resonate with me. A Streetcar Named Desire is a masterclass in story structure, and Stella, Stanley, Blanch and the rest are expertly drawn characters, but these days, Streetcar is competing against reality TV. It's easier to stay home and watch Honey Boo Boo or the Kardashians. For most people, made up characters can't hold a candle to real characters.
Buried Child. Jesus. Imagine sharing a bottle of sour mash with Tilden.
The truly great tragedies cut it so close to comedy it isn't funny.
Visa versa for comedies.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
The Great Plays
Whatever the period, Western Civilization's greatest plays have the following in common:
Serious themes
Simple sets
Great costumes
Heightened language
Complicated plots
Death (Drama) or Marriage (Comedy)
Popular appeal
Profit
The great plays have survived the test of time. They survive because they are loved. Hamlet has endured not because it is true, but because it's true and entertaining.
Greatness requires both.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A Brief History of Theatre
Western Civilization has enjoyed three (maybe four) major dramatic periods.
Greek - 78 years, 484 - 406BC
Aeschylus 525 - 456 BC, Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Oresteia
Sophocles 495 - 405 BC, Oedipus, Antigone, Electra
Euripides 480 - 406 BC, Hippolytus, The Bacchae, Medea
Aristophanes 448 - 385 BC, The Wasps, The Frogs, Lysistrata
Elizabethan - 40 years, 1587 - 1625
Marlowe 1564-1593, Tamburlaine 1587
Kyd 1558-1589, Spanish Tragedy 1589
Shakespeare 1564-1616, HV 1589 - HVIII 1612-13
Fletcher 1584-1625, Rule and Have a Wife 1624
French - 40 years, 1637 - 1677
Corneille 1606-1684 - Le Cid 1637, Polyeucte 1642
Moliere 1622-1673 - Precious Maidens Ridicules 1659, Imaginary Invalid 1673
Racine 1639-1699 - Andormaque 1667, Phedre 1677
The Golden Age of Spanish Theatre probably belongs in here somewhere, and someday I’ll get around to it, but right now I know almost nothing about it save Calderon's Life is a Dream.
The Age of Social Drama began in 1877, with Ibsen's Pillars of Society, and remains the standard.
The Age of Social Drama – 101 years, 1877 - present
Ibsen- Pillars of Society 1877
Arthur Miller - All My Sons 1947, Death of a Salesman 1949
Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire 1947
Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? 1962
Angels in America - 1990
Social Drama has produced good, possibly great dramatic plays, but none qualifies as a masterpiece on par with Oedipus or Hamlet. The past century enjoyed a golden age of comedy, but my focus is on drama, and the drama of the past 100 or so years pales in comparison to the major dramatic periods of the past.
Presently, we are in a theatrical dark age, by no means the first. The theatre has gone dark if not dead for long periods throughout history. One thing is certain: the most influential and dominant theatrical form of the past one hundred and twenty-eight years, Social Drama, worn out due to over use and abuse, intellectually and financially bankrupt, bored, boring and decrepit, is in a big sleep. The theatrical cycles we’ve seen since the ‘70s indicate a rudderless showboat:
Dramas – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Glengarry Glen Ross, “Master Harold” …and the boys
Musicals – A Chorus Line, Chicago, Sweeny Todd
Musical spectacles – Les Miz, Cats, Starlight Express, Phantom
Musical revivals – A Chorus Line (Sept. 2006), Chicago, Sweeny Todd
Jukebox musicals –All Shook Up, Good Vibrations, Movin’ Out, Lennon [And many, many more]
Dramatic revivals – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Glengarry Glen Ross, “Master Harold” …and the boys [To name a few. There have been over sixty dramatic revivals on Broadway since 1990]
Movies as musicals – Urban Cowboy, King of Hearts, My Favorite Year, Sunset Boulevard, The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, The Color Purple, Two Rotten Scoundrels, Monty Python [To name a very few]
Occasionally, panning for gems pays off – August Wilson’s great cycle comes to mind. And there are others – we all have our personal favorites. But I’m hard pressed to name one that has had the popular impact of, say, Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Sadly, we do not live in a time when theatre is a vital form. Film, TV, pop music, games, the internet – these are vital. The fact that theatre now turns to Hollywood for its ideas says it all. Tragically, we do not live in an age that can accommodate tragedy. Tragedies are the product of optimistic societies; optimism can cope with tragedy. Pessimistic societies require comedies; when you think you're living a tragedy, a little laughter goes a long way.
What the hell happened? Where did the theatre go wrong?
We theatre folk are always blabbing on about how, when it achieves its potential, nothing holds a candle to the impact of live theatre. Why then must we subsidize our audience? Why do so few commercial theatrical ventures fail to recoup their investment? Why get ideas from Hollywood? Simple - the theatre is not living up to its potential.
To ruin an art form all you have to do is give it a grant.
The theatre went horribly wrong in the ‘60s, when, instead of competing with film and TV for audience share, it turned non-profit and began subsidizing a new, smaller, but better audience - an audience of intellectuals, almost exclusively white, who like to consume stories that reflect the homogenized, suburban mall quality of their lives.
Great stories are made to be told to the largest, most diverse audience possible. They are forged in the furnace of competition. They give their audience what it wants. That’s why most of the great storytellers of our time work in film and TV. Great artists are drawn to the most vital forms available.
Something must be going right, right? Well, yes. The top and bottom of the theatre are alive and well. At the top, Cirque du Soliel produces shows costing hundreds of millions of dollars that earn billions; at the bottom, Greater Tuna has been running continuously since 1982, with seventeen productions in North America last year. Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding, Late Night Catechism and others with one or two in the cast, no set and good New York reviews thrive. The only person thriving in the middle is my personal hero, Tyler Perry, who writes for a tight knit, theatre-starved community, sells out almost every show and has earned more than $60 million since 1998 producing plays. Think about it. A writer-performer who found a niche, built a community, sells out, makes a huge profit and has never been reviewed in the New York Times. Put another way, Mr. Perry is earning millions while Broadway is losing millions. Mr. Perry's theatre has all of the hallmarks of a vital theatre - it is popular and, within his community, vital. Most importantly, it pays its way and then some.
I believe that the theatre can once again be a vital form, that what is broken is its business model, and that once you know what’s broken you can set out to fix it. Looking at Tyler Perry's success is a good place to start.
Greek - 78 years, 484 - 406BC
Aeschylus 525 - 456 BC, Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Oresteia
Sophocles 495 - 405 BC, Oedipus, Antigone, Electra
Euripides 480 - 406 BC, Hippolytus, The Bacchae, Medea
Aristophanes 448 - 385 BC, The Wasps, The Frogs, Lysistrata
Elizabethan - 40 years, 1587 - 1625
Marlowe 1564-1593, Tamburlaine 1587
Kyd 1558-1589, Spanish Tragedy 1589
Shakespeare 1564-1616, HV 1589 - HVIII 1612-13
Fletcher 1584-1625, Rule and Have a Wife 1624
French - 40 years, 1637 - 1677
Corneille 1606-1684 - Le Cid 1637, Polyeucte 1642
Moliere 1622-1673 - Precious Maidens Ridicules 1659, Imaginary Invalid 1673
Racine 1639-1699 - Andormaque 1667, Phedre 1677
The Golden Age of Spanish Theatre probably belongs in here somewhere, and someday I’ll get around to it, but right now I know almost nothing about it save Calderon's Life is a Dream.
The Age of Social Drama began in 1877, with Ibsen's Pillars of Society, and remains the standard.
The Age of Social Drama – 101 years, 1877 - present
Ibsen- Pillars of Society 1877
Arthur Miller - All My Sons 1947, Death of a Salesman 1949
Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire 1947
Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? 1962
Angels in America - 1990
Social Drama has produced good, possibly great dramatic plays, but none qualifies as a masterpiece on par with Oedipus or Hamlet. The past century enjoyed a golden age of comedy, but my focus is on drama, and the drama of the past 100 or so years pales in comparison to the major dramatic periods of the past.
Presently, we are in a theatrical dark age, by no means the first. The theatre has gone dark if not dead for long periods throughout history. One thing is certain: the most influential and dominant theatrical form of the past one hundred and twenty-eight years, Social Drama, worn out due to over use and abuse, intellectually and financially bankrupt, bored, boring and decrepit, is in a big sleep. The theatrical cycles we’ve seen since the ‘70s indicate a rudderless showboat:
Dramas – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Glengarry Glen Ross, “Master Harold” …and the boys
Musicals – A Chorus Line, Chicago, Sweeny Todd
Musical spectacles – Les Miz, Cats, Starlight Express, Phantom
Musical revivals – A Chorus Line (Sept. 2006), Chicago, Sweeny Todd
Jukebox musicals –All Shook Up, Good Vibrations, Movin’ Out, Lennon [And many, many more]
Dramatic revivals – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Glengarry Glen Ross, “Master Harold” …and the boys [To name a few. There have been over sixty dramatic revivals on Broadway since 1990]
Movies as musicals – Urban Cowboy, King of Hearts, My Favorite Year, Sunset Boulevard, The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, The Color Purple, Two Rotten Scoundrels, Monty Python [To name a very few]
Occasionally, panning for gems pays off – August Wilson’s great cycle comes to mind. And there are others – we all have our personal favorites. But I’m hard pressed to name one that has had the popular impact of, say, Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Sadly, we do not live in a time when theatre is a vital form. Film, TV, pop music, games, the internet – these are vital. The fact that theatre now turns to Hollywood for its ideas says it all. Tragically, we do not live in an age that can accommodate tragedy. Tragedies are the product of optimistic societies; optimism can cope with tragedy. Pessimistic societies require comedies; when you think you're living a tragedy, a little laughter goes a long way.
What the hell happened? Where did the theatre go wrong?
We theatre folk are always blabbing on about how, when it achieves its potential, nothing holds a candle to the impact of live theatre. Why then must we subsidize our audience? Why do so few commercial theatrical ventures fail to recoup their investment? Why get ideas from Hollywood? Simple - the theatre is not living up to its potential.
To ruin an art form all you have to do is give it a grant.
The theatre went horribly wrong in the ‘60s, when, instead of competing with film and TV for audience share, it turned non-profit and began subsidizing a new, smaller, but better audience - an audience of intellectuals, almost exclusively white, who like to consume stories that reflect the homogenized, suburban mall quality of their lives.
Great stories are made to be told to the largest, most diverse audience possible. They are forged in the furnace of competition. They give their audience what it wants. That’s why most of the great storytellers of our time work in film and TV. Great artists are drawn to the most vital forms available.
Something must be going right, right? Well, yes. The top and bottom of the theatre are alive and well. At the top, Cirque du Soliel produces shows costing hundreds of millions of dollars that earn billions; at the bottom, Greater Tuna has been running continuously since 1982, with seventeen productions in North America last year. Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding, Late Night Catechism and others with one or two in the cast, no set and good New York reviews thrive. The only person thriving in the middle is my personal hero, Tyler Perry, who writes for a tight knit, theatre-starved community, sells out almost every show and has earned more than $60 million since 1998 producing plays. Think about it. A writer-performer who found a niche, built a community, sells out, makes a huge profit and has never been reviewed in the New York Times. Put another way, Mr. Perry is earning millions while Broadway is losing millions. Mr. Perry's theatre has all of the hallmarks of a vital theatre - it is popular and, within his community, vital. Most importantly, it pays its way and then some.
I believe that the theatre can once again be a vital form, that what is broken is its business model, and that once you know what’s broken you can set out to fix it. Looking at Tyler Perry's success is a good place to start.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Walter Kerr (Cont.)
We have inherited not the drama of action, of character, of kinetic intimacy with the human condition, but the drama of ideas.
For purposes of illustration, I guess we can safely reduce these to three: the problem play, the thesis play and the propaganda play. Pg 51
You can always clarify a thesis by over-simplifying what is human. But the moment you begin to give humanity its due you are bound to destroy the patness of your proposition. Pg 56
What is intrinsically wrong with the thesis play is that it puts the drawing board before the drama. It begins at the wrong end of the creative scale. It begins with a firm, fast premise, achieved in the intellectual solitude of the study, and thereafter proceeds to make all life dance to a quite debatable tune. Pg 66
Though the terms "theme" and "thesis" are now used interchangeably, there is an enormous difference between them. In the one, the playwright - uncommitted to any a-priori view - is forced to go out and observe; he must look to life for his materials. He may know, in general, that he wishes to write about jealousy; but he must first see what jealousy looks like.
In the other, the dramatic mansion is prefabricated. The playwright comes equipped with an agreeable syllogism, complete in all its parts. He clothes his major premise, and his minor premise, in a semblance of human flesh; but they are only premises after all, pointing to a planned conclusion. What we callt he drama of ideas is just that: a drama in which the people are digits, adding up to the correct ideological sum. Pg 67
So far as I know no genuine masterpiece has ever been rejected by the common audience before which it was first performed. (I'm skipping some politically rigged opening-night demonstrations here; in spite of extraordinary pressures, good plays have always been quickly recognized.)
Pg 71
What history suggests to us is that the audience can rise to any heights of which the playwright is capable, that it can go anywhere he can take it. The working phrase here, thought is "take it." Pg 72
It is never enough to say "I have written honestly, by my own lights." It is necessary to say "I have written accurately, by everyone's lights." Pg 73
The audience does not reject an unpleasant truth because it seems unpleasant, but because it seems untrue. Pg 74
The larger the event, the more likely are we to lose hold of it in life; and the more necessary does it become for the theatre to seize and to shape it for us. If the greatest plays of the past are plays in which characters tear out their own or one another's eyes, in which characters kill or are killed, in which sons turn violently upon their mothers or husbands upon their wives, it is not because audiences once asked for cheap stimuli but because audiences did ask to havie their experience, their clear knowledge of life, enlarged. Pg 93
The dramatist is, if he but knew it, a fortunate man. The audience tells him very clearly what it expects of him. If he pays some sort of attention to his audience, he is likely to become quite popular.
In the contemporary theatre we are extremely honest about trivia, and extremely indifferent to any activity more pronounced than the rustling of a leaf, a dress, or a newspaper over coffee. Indeed we are hostile to the idea of activity. Pg 94 [A theatre that limits the possibilities to four actors on one set is hostile to activity - Tracy Letts' Killer Joe (more than four actors but the one set), the Angels in America propoganda plays, and a smattering of early Sam Shepard plays, among a very few others, being anemic exceptions.]
The bustling, complicated, and sometimes absurd plotting of the past does not seem ever to have inhibited character. It would almost seem that there is some correlation between the range of a play's activity and the size of its characterization. Pg 120
It does require the genius of a Sophocles to make so staggering an array of improbable situations at all tenable. But what part have the situations played in drawing out the genius of Sophocles? Pg 122
The screen makes its principal images by picturing them. The stage makes its principal images by speaking them. Each has an alternate method - the stage may have visual appeal, the screen a measure of literacy; but the alternate method is a subordinate method and the health of either medium will depend on its keeping its proportions in order. Pg 211
Kenneth Tynan...points out that even Moliere, nurtured on prose, turned to verse for his best work.
...We cannot escape the fact that Moliere, turning to verse, did then write his best plays. The fact is that every major serious play - and the lion's share of the comedies - that we cling to out of the past are verse plays. Three hundred years of prose have done well enough by the novel, beautifully by history and biography; they have left the theatre grunting like an underprivileged child.
Verse is simply more pliable than prose, and for a form as swift and compact as the theatre extreme pliability is wanted. Pg 212
We often think of verse as a rather roundabout way of saying something. It isn't. It is the fastest way of saying something provided that the thing to be said is difficult to say, provided that it is not a plain and literal statement of fact. Pg 214
I am further convinced that our commercial failure - our unpopularity - is directly due to our constricted aesthetic, to the very arbitrariness which which we have held to it, insisted on it. The audience has not deserted us because we were too good for it, but because we were not good enough. Pg 235 ["In the 2002-03 season, only one commercially produced play, "Life x 3," broke even, its producers say; last season, only two even came close - "Golda's Balcony," which will close a lengthy run at the Helen Hayes Theater next month, and "I Am My Own Wife," which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play and according to its producers still didn't earn its money back. productions - inexpensive, one-person shows where costs were kept to a minimum - will have to rely on national tours before their investors see any profit. - NYT December 7, 2004]
That's it. A few thoughts:
The theatre's masterpieces were created in competitive, for-profit environments.
Our commercial theatre can't even break even. No non-profit theatre survives on ticket sales alone. A begging-based industry has no choice but to suck up to the hand that feeds it. The only theatre audience out there getting exactly what it wants are the wealthy few who keep the theatre afloat, and what they want are good seats, public thanks and a guarantee that their money is buying them the best the theatre has to offer. That means a rave NYT review or a dead playwright. I love dead playwrights; I love living playwrights more. The NYT critics can't be taken seriously when they have never reviewed America's most successful playwright, Tyler Perry. NY theatre, a theatre of revivals, musical reviews and film on stage, is not vital, profitable or, for the most part, good. What passes for criticism these days is even worse. Walter Kerr was a great critic. Frank Rich was a critic, but only just. Ben Brantley and the current stable at the NYT are reviewers, consumer guides, and even then of little value. Yet, all the motivation a regional theatre patron needs to put pen to check is a good NYT review or the promise of one. (The NYT is also blatently Oxfordian, the Intelligent Design of liturature.)
New York's commercial theatre is becoming a marketing vehicle for the film industry.
A large number of NY commercial producers are hobbyist who started out with more money than they can lose on a lifetime of betting on theatre.
Film, TV, music, online gaming and other forms of entertainment are not responsible for the theatre's sad state of affairs; their success is not the cause of the theatre's failures. Businesses win market share by delivering what consumers determine is the most desirable product. It does not necessarily follow that consumers choose the best product. Products win market share for a multitude of reasons, among them cost - PCs are cheaper than Macs, and easy access - a free mp3 download is cheaper and easier to get than a CD. For the most part the theatre isn't even in the game. The majority of theatres take as a given that popularity and profit are beyond scope.
The one notable exception is Cirque du Soleil, shows designed to run forever in purpose-built, multi-million dollar facilities that seat thousands.
What does a popular, profitable theatre look like? How does it work?
The business model is over 400 years old.
For purposes of illustration, I guess we can safely reduce these to three: the problem play, the thesis play and the propaganda play. Pg 51
You can always clarify a thesis by over-simplifying what is human. But the moment you begin to give humanity its due you are bound to destroy the patness of your proposition. Pg 56
What is intrinsically wrong with the thesis play is that it puts the drawing board before the drama. It begins at the wrong end of the creative scale. It begins with a firm, fast premise, achieved in the intellectual solitude of the study, and thereafter proceeds to make all life dance to a quite debatable tune. Pg 66
Though the terms "theme" and "thesis" are now used interchangeably, there is an enormous difference between them. In the one, the playwright - uncommitted to any a-priori view - is forced to go out and observe; he must look to life for his materials. He may know, in general, that he wishes to write about jealousy; but he must first see what jealousy looks like.
In the other, the dramatic mansion is prefabricated. The playwright comes equipped with an agreeable syllogism, complete in all its parts. He clothes his major premise, and his minor premise, in a semblance of human flesh; but they are only premises after all, pointing to a planned conclusion. What we callt he drama of ideas is just that: a drama in which the people are digits, adding up to the correct ideological sum. Pg 67
So far as I know no genuine masterpiece has ever been rejected by the common audience before which it was first performed. (I'm skipping some politically rigged opening-night demonstrations here; in spite of extraordinary pressures, good plays have always been quickly recognized.)
Pg 71
What history suggests to us is that the audience can rise to any heights of which the playwright is capable, that it can go anywhere he can take it. The working phrase here, thought is "take it." Pg 72
It is never enough to say "I have written honestly, by my own lights." It is necessary to say "I have written accurately, by everyone's lights." Pg 73
The audience does not reject an unpleasant truth because it seems unpleasant, but because it seems untrue. Pg 74
The larger the event, the more likely are we to lose hold of it in life; and the more necessary does it become for the theatre to seize and to shape it for us. If the greatest plays of the past are plays in which characters tear out their own or one another's eyes, in which characters kill or are killed, in which sons turn violently upon their mothers or husbands upon their wives, it is not because audiences once asked for cheap stimuli but because audiences did ask to havie their experience, their clear knowledge of life, enlarged. Pg 93
The dramatist is, if he but knew it, a fortunate man. The audience tells him very clearly what it expects of him. If he pays some sort of attention to his audience, he is likely to become quite popular.
In the contemporary theatre we are extremely honest about trivia, and extremely indifferent to any activity more pronounced than the rustling of a leaf, a dress, or a newspaper over coffee. Indeed we are hostile to the idea of activity. Pg 94 [A theatre that limits the possibilities to four actors on one set is hostile to activity - Tracy Letts' Killer Joe (more than four actors but the one set), the Angels in America propoganda plays, and a smattering of early Sam Shepard plays, among a very few others, being anemic exceptions.]
The bustling, complicated, and sometimes absurd plotting of the past does not seem ever to have inhibited character. It would almost seem that there is some correlation between the range of a play's activity and the size of its characterization. Pg 120
It does require the genius of a Sophocles to make so staggering an array of improbable situations at all tenable. But what part have the situations played in drawing out the genius of Sophocles? Pg 122
The screen makes its principal images by picturing them. The stage makes its principal images by speaking them. Each has an alternate method - the stage may have visual appeal, the screen a measure of literacy; but the alternate method is a subordinate method and the health of either medium will depend on its keeping its proportions in order. Pg 211
Kenneth Tynan...points out that even Moliere, nurtured on prose, turned to verse for his best work.
...We cannot escape the fact that Moliere, turning to verse, did then write his best plays. The fact is that every major serious play - and the lion's share of the comedies - that we cling to out of the past are verse plays. Three hundred years of prose have done well enough by the novel, beautifully by history and biography; they have left the theatre grunting like an underprivileged child.
Verse is simply more pliable than prose, and for a form as swift and compact as the theatre extreme pliability is wanted. Pg 212
We often think of verse as a rather roundabout way of saying something. It isn't. It is the fastest way of saying something provided that the thing to be said is difficult to say, provided that it is not a plain and literal statement of fact. Pg 214
I am further convinced that our commercial failure - our unpopularity - is directly due to our constricted aesthetic, to the very arbitrariness which which we have held to it, insisted on it. The audience has not deserted us because we were too good for it, but because we were not good enough. Pg 235 ["In the 2002-03 season, only one commercially produced play, "Life x 3," broke even, its producers say; last season, only two even came close - "Golda's Balcony," which will close a lengthy run at the Helen Hayes Theater next month, and "I Am My Own Wife," which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play and according to its producers still didn't earn its money back. productions - inexpensive, one-person shows where costs were kept to a minimum - will have to rely on national tours before their investors see any profit. - NYT December 7, 2004]
That's it. A few thoughts:
The theatre's masterpieces were created in competitive, for-profit environments.
Our commercial theatre can't even break even. No non-profit theatre survives on ticket sales alone. A begging-based industry has no choice but to suck up to the hand that feeds it. The only theatre audience out there getting exactly what it wants are the wealthy few who keep the theatre afloat, and what they want are good seats, public thanks and a guarantee that their money is buying them the best the theatre has to offer. That means a rave NYT review or a dead playwright. I love dead playwrights; I love living playwrights more. The NYT critics can't be taken seriously when they have never reviewed America's most successful playwright, Tyler Perry. NY theatre, a theatre of revivals, musical reviews and film on stage, is not vital, profitable or, for the most part, good. What passes for criticism these days is even worse. Walter Kerr was a great critic. Frank Rich was a critic, but only just. Ben Brantley and the current stable at the NYT are reviewers, consumer guides, and even then of little value. Yet, all the motivation a regional theatre patron needs to put pen to check is a good NYT review or the promise of one. (The NYT is also blatently Oxfordian, the Intelligent Design of liturature.)
New York's commercial theatre is becoming a marketing vehicle for the film industry.
A large number of NY commercial producers are hobbyist who started out with more money than they can lose on a lifetime of betting on theatre.
Film, TV, music, online gaming and other forms of entertainment are not responsible for the theatre's sad state of affairs; their success is not the cause of the theatre's failures. Businesses win market share by delivering what consumers determine is the most desirable product. It does not necessarily follow that consumers choose the best product. Products win market share for a multitude of reasons, among them cost - PCs are cheaper than Macs, and easy access - a free mp3 download is cheaper and easier to get than a CD. For the most part the theatre isn't even in the game. The majority of theatres take as a given that popularity and profit are beyond scope.
The one notable exception is Cirque du Soleil, shows designed to run forever in purpose-built, multi-million dollar facilities that seat thousands.
What does a popular, profitable theatre look like? How does it work?
The business model is over 400 years old.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Walter Kerr: My Hero
How Not to Write a Play by Walter Kerr is among the best books ever written on playwrighting. It also happens to be a remarkable overview of theatre history. Kerr's grasp of theatre is comprehensive and in all of his books and reviews he holds theatre, an art form he clearly deeply loves, to the highest possible standard: not a contrived aesthetic unique to Kerr, but the theatre's own history, the moments when it achieved its greatest vitality and produced its masterpieces.
Years ago, Paul Stetler, Ron Owens, Jenny, me and who knows who else were in The Lion's Den on Aurora. This was Paul's big idea. In addition to swill, beer and filth, The Lion's Den serves as a book exchange of sorts, a "take a book/leave a book" library. Being relatively literate and amenable to anything free, I took a gander at the selection. Behind me I found How Not to Write a Play. I didn't know Kerr from Adam, but I'd been dabbling in playwrighting so I took it.
I still owe The Lion's Den a book.
That copy of How Not to Write a Play is next to me on my desk. Almost every page features a highlighted passage and many, several passages. Small yellow post it notes mark my favorites. Here they are, in order:
"Our own cycle is now seventy-five years old. It dates from the appearance, in 1877, of Ibsen's Pillars of Society." Pg 18. [Kerr wrote that in 1955. It's still true. Social Drama has enjoyed a 125-year run.
Don't believe me?
“And we—we have a long earnest day of work ahead of us; I most of all. But let it come; only keep close round me, you true, loyal women. I have learnt this, too, in these last few days; it is you women that are the pillars of society.”
“You have learnt a poor sort of wisdom, then brother-in-law. No, my friend. The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom—they are the pillars of society.”
-Ibsen, Pillars of Society, 1877
“There isn’t a man in medicine who hasn’t said what you’ve said and meant it for a minute—all of us, George. And you’re right. We are groping. We are guessing. But, at least our guesses today are closer than they were twenty years ago. And twenty years from now, they’ll be still closer… That’s what we’re here for. Mm… there’s so much to be done. And so little time in which to do it.”
- Kingsley, Men in White, 1933
“The fountain’s not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it’s a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”
- Kushner, Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika, 1994
Almost all Social Drama features some version of this sentiment.]
Kerr, continued:
"I don't think he will find it there, any more than he has found it in the antipopular theatre of the last sixty years or so. Minority theatres never have produced important work. Every great play we have ever been lucky enough to feast our eyes on has come out of a popular playhouse."
Pg 39. [Kerr is referring to Eric Bentley, a critic who championed what Kerr calls, "...a serious theatre that always meant to play to a limited audience, a theatre for the enlightened few." Sound familiar?]
"It is perfectly true, by the way, that a craftily popular theatre sometimes produces Bertha, the Sewing-Machine Girl and nothing more. It is also true that the same kind of theatre, consciously catering to the same kind of audience, has at other times produced Macbeth, Oedipus, and Tartuffe." Pg 40.
"The plays of Shakespeare came out of a theatre dedicated to the proposition that the illiterate was not only welcome but had to be wooed uninterruptedly throughout the performance, at whatever sacrifice in taste." Pg 41
"Because the conventions of Greek drama seem so remote to us now, we hazily imagine Greek performance to have been a sober and high-minded affair. Actually, the performance was garish, musicalized, and shatteringlhy robust; the audiencce was a noisy, basket-lunch crowd on a holiday, never above stoning a playwright whose work was not up to par." Pg 41
"No great play has ever come from what might be called a minority theatre. " Pg 41
"The contest between the majority-minority ideals existed in Shakespeare's time. John Lyly, for instance, was a man of undisputed talent. He preferred, however, not to soil himself in the public playhouse, choosing to write and stage his work in the purer air of the minority theatres of the court. While his lowbrow friends went on to greatness, Lyly shriveled into the literary-precious. By the time Lyly, aged about forty, wrote his last play, Shakespeare had completed Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice." Pg 42
"...these men found greatness because of their communion with the universal audience; the presence of the uncultivated mass in the theatre is an indispensable prerequisite for drama of genuine stature; greatness grows out of the very challenge." Pg 44
"A "great" theatre comes into existence by first attending to the most primitive passions of its most primitive patrons. By satisfying the race's admittedly childlike - thought not necessarily childish - yearning for violence, spectacle, and the broadest of broad comedy strokes, roots are sunk deep into the universal consciousness." Pg 44-45
"At worst, a popular theatre holds the fort; at best, it finds its way to Hamlet." Pg 46
I'm up to page 46 of 244. This is a book I love. I'll continue on soon. If you've read this far, you should read the whole book. Buy it now.
What is "great" theatre? Think about it. List 5 great plays. The 5 GREATEST plays of all time. The 5 plays that shaped Western Civilization; the 5 plays posterity can't live without. List them.
If you want to read ahead, get a copy of What is a Masterpiece? by historian Kenneth Clark.
Years ago, Paul Stetler, Ron Owens, Jenny, me and who knows who else were in The Lion's Den on Aurora. This was Paul's big idea. In addition to swill, beer and filth, The Lion's Den serves as a book exchange of sorts, a "take a book/leave a book" library. Being relatively literate and amenable to anything free, I took a gander at the selection. Behind me I found How Not to Write a Play. I didn't know Kerr from Adam, but I'd been dabbling in playwrighting so I took it.
I still owe The Lion's Den a book.
That copy of How Not to Write a Play is next to me on my desk. Almost every page features a highlighted passage and many, several passages. Small yellow post it notes mark my favorites. Here they are, in order:
"Our own cycle is now seventy-five years old. It dates from the appearance, in 1877, of Ibsen's Pillars of Society." Pg 18. [Kerr wrote that in 1955. It's still true. Social Drama has enjoyed a 125-year run.
Don't believe me?
“And we—we have a long earnest day of work ahead of us; I most of all. But let it come; only keep close round me, you true, loyal women. I have learnt this, too, in these last few days; it is you women that are the pillars of society.”
“You have learnt a poor sort of wisdom, then brother-in-law. No, my friend. The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom—they are the pillars of society.”
-Ibsen, Pillars of Society, 1877
“There isn’t a man in medicine who hasn’t said what you’ve said and meant it for a minute—all of us, George. And you’re right. We are groping. We are guessing. But, at least our guesses today are closer than they were twenty years ago. And twenty years from now, they’ll be still closer… That’s what we’re here for. Mm… there’s so much to be done. And so little time in which to do it.”
- Kingsley, Men in White, 1933
“The fountain’s not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it’s a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”
- Kushner, Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika, 1994
Almost all Social Drama features some version of this sentiment.]
Kerr, continued:
"I don't think he will find it there, any more than he has found it in the antipopular theatre of the last sixty years or so. Minority theatres never have produced important work. Every great play we have ever been lucky enough to feast our eyes on has come out of a popular playhouse."
Pg 39. [Kerr is referring to Eric Bentley, a critic who championed what Kerr calls, "...a serious theatre that always meant to play to a limited audience, a theatre for the enlightened few." Sound familiar?]
"It is perfectly true, by the way, that a craftily popular theatre sometimes produces Bertha, the Sewing-Machine Girl and nothing more. It is also true that the same kind of theatre, consciously catering to the same kind of audience, has at other times produced Macbeth, Oedipus, and Tartuffe." Pg 40.
"The plays of Shakespeare came out of a theatre dedicated to the proposition that the illiterate was not only welcome but had to be wooed uninterruptedly throughout the performance, at whatever sacrifice in taste." Pg 41
"Because the conventions of Greek drama seem so remote to us now, we hazily imagine Greek performance to have been a sober and high-minded affair. Actually, the performance was garish, musicalized, and shatteringlhy robust; the audiencce was a noisy, basket-lunch crowd on a holiday, never above stoning a playwright whose work was not up to par." Pg 41
"No great play has ever come from what might be called a minority theatre. " Pg 41
"The contest between the majority-minority ideals existed in Shakespeare's time. John Lyly, for instance, was a man of undisputed talent. He preferred, however, not to soil himself in the public playhouse, choosing to write and stage his work in the purer air of the minority theatres of the court. While his lowbrow friends went on to greatness, Lyly shriveled into the literary-precious. By the time Lyly, aged about forty, wrote his last play, Shakespeare had completed Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice." Pg 42
"...these men found greatness because of their communion with the universal audience; the presence of the uncultivated mass in the theatre is an indispensable prerequisite for drama of genuine stature; greatness grows out of the very challenge." Pg 44
"A "great" theatre comes into existence by first attending to the most primitive passions of its most primitive patrons. By satisfying the race's admittedly childlike - thought not necessarily childish - yearning for violence, spectacle, and the broadest of broad comedy strokes, roots are sunk deep into the universal consciousness." Pg 44-45
"At worst, a popular theatre holds the fort; at best, it finds its way to Hamlet." Pg 46
I'm up to page 46 of 244. This is a book I love. I'll continue on soon. If you've read this far, you should read the whole book. Buy it now.
What is "great" theatre? Think about it. List 5 great plays. The 5 GREATEST plays of all time. The 5 plays that shaped Western Civilization; the 5 plays posterity can't live without. List them.
If you want to read ahead, get a copy of What is a Masterpiece? by historian Kenneth Clark.
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