The work of the
critic, especially the theatre critic, is difficult. Critics can have
a great influence on the cultural makeup of a society, and as such
they become imbued with a certain power, not just over the audience,
but over creators of art as well. With this power, as the saying
goes, comes a responsibility to the public and to the arts. The
critic should be an expert, well-read and well-versed in their field,
and willing to put aside their own aesthetic preferences in favor of
giving objective and reasoned criticism of work.
A recent review of
a piece I directed has caught my eye, and I wish to address certain
points. I find reviews to be helpful and instructive, pointing a
finger at things that are working and things that aren’t. Examining
criticism in this manner is only helpful, however, when the criticism
comes from an objective, reasoned place. The review in question is,
in my opinion, heavily influenced by the critic’s own experience
and expectation rather than being rooted in a deep knowledge of the
theatre.
Everyone is
entitled to their opinion, of course.
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The
playwright “has produced his own play and this may have worked
against him, as he seems to have relied on the work being enough to
carry the full weight of the theatrical experience. It can’t.”
In this quote, I
believe the author of the review takes “the work” to mean “the
text.” In my estimation, the work of theatre is typically
not
the text.
The text
is merely a literary device through which specific words might be put
into the mouths of actors, if
they are necessary.
Theatre
intrinsically happens
at the interface between actor and audience. It
is unclear to me what the reviewer’s expectation of the
producer-playwright is, that he should be relying on a script to
“bear the weight” of a theatrical experience. It is also unclear
whether the reviewer is hinting at a specific theatrical experience
he was expecting. If he did enter with a certain expectation and
wasn’t prepared to have those expectations dashed, I would argue he
was unprepared for an evening of theatre.
If
the reviewer’s point is that the text of a play cannot “carry the
show,” then I would agree. The text of Romeo and Juliet
by itself is not theatre, and as such it cannot be called upon to
support an entire production. (Who
hasn’t been subjected to
poorly executed Shakespeare?)
-
The
director “seems not to have imagined
any style to the production or even taken the simplest steps to
establish the reality of its dramatic arena.”
The assumption
seems to be that the director has tried to present reality. Reality
is not nor can be the goal of theatre. All theatre is on some level
absurd by the nature of being an unreality—a lie, essentially, of
unreal (though perhaps realistic) people acting in an unreal (though,
again, realistic) time—unfolding before a real audience in a real
time. If one is looking for reality portrayed realistically, one need
not look further than film or television; theatre, in this case, is
not the answer.
Perhaps the
reviewer is unfamiliar with the sort of minimalist performance
indicative of the intimate theatre; perhaps he is unfamiliar with
theories espoused by Artaud or Grotowski, or of the work done by
Robert Wilson or Ivo van Hove. This is not to say that the director
has attempted to replicate a style; rather, he has used elements of
various techniques in order to tell a story which, it seems, moves a
number of spectators to strong emotion. This was the intent of the
staging, to lay bare the emotional framework which supports a path to
enlightenment through meditation, fasting, and mindfulness.
All of these
concepts are limited by the strictures of the Hollywood Fringe
Festival and the venue, the nature of which means that the most ideal
lighting, sound, scenic, and costume elements may not be achievable.
This should not deter the theatre artist from presenting their work
in a fringe festival; remember, all one needs to present theatre is
an actor and a spectator.
-
“We
didn’t need to see the back walls of the theater or the chalk
drawings on the walls ([the director’s] sole effort at creating a
reality.) The entire play could have used dim and isolated lighting
to convey a cave’s interior. This would have allowed for a variety
of wonderful theatrics to effect the demons come to torment
Anthony.”
Certainly, if the
reviewer would like to design and stage the show, he is most welcome,
should the playwright be willing to release the rights.
Why do chalk
drawings indicate the “sole effort at creating a reality”? Do not
human beings in a space
already convey a reality? If the
reviewer were looking for other “real” things to latch onto, what
about the costuming? the blankets and other props? It seems arbitrary
to pin one’s acceptance of a reality on one particular element of
design, when the reality, as it were, of sitting in a theatre is its
own experience.
-
“There
wasn’t even an attempt to show the interior light of the cave
dimming when the huge stone used to block its entrance was rolled
into place.”
Having few
resources in the lighting department, perhaps the shift between
daylight streaming in and the tomb being sealed was not extreme
enough for this reviewer; however, the light did shift, even if it
was not perceived.
The point worth
making, though, is that there needn’t be an attempt to show this
light shift. The light dimming in the tomb is unnecessary to telling
the story. Half of the review in question is given to the description
of a cave and how the work failed to portray this cave adequately for
the reviewer. Certainly, if this had been a play
about a cave,
more attention might have been paid to it; however, this was a play
about meditation and enlightenment. Perhaps a different play might
have fed into the reviewer’s longing to return to the caves of his
youth, seeing the wonder and magic of those caves and how their
influence affected his life. This was not that play.
-
“Even
simple means were not employed, such as having [the actor] in the
darkness change his costume to more ragged states to denote the
passage of time.”
If this were a
realistically-staged play, perhaps an element of costume change would
have been considered. Given the time constraints of the Fringe and
the fact that the creative team chose a more impressionistic staging,
these changes in appearance were considered superfluous. They hoped
instead that the audience would assume the passage of time had taken
place, and this hope has been mostly realized, based on discussions
with various audience members.
-
“The
director and playwright, it seems, just didn’t take this
production very seriously. So why should an audience.”
It is unfortunate
the reviewer has decided that the director and playwright would not
take their production seriously on the basis that he did not agree
with their artistic choices. The evidence would appear to the
contrary, given the great expense (thousands of dollars) the
playwright has put into the show, not to mention the hours and days
spent writing, editing, and assembling the show. The director, too,
has given his time to the piece, working through a variety of
artistic concepts, eliciting performances from the actors, and so on.
If the production team did not take their work seriously, would there
be any production at all?
The question of why
an
audience should take a work seriously is a good one, and
one which the reviewer should endeavor to answer himself in his
critical work. Perhaps the reviewer has chosen a snarky way in which
to indicate that an audience should
not
take this specific work seriously, based solely on his own definition
of what a theatrical experience is, giving no example rooted in the
grand tradition or theories of theatre. To do so is to be
disingenuous to an audience looking for an expert opinion.
What
theatre criticism should accomplish is entirely educational in
nature. The theatre critic speaks first to the public in order to
enlighten the lay person about particular details of the art with
which they may be unfamiliar. Then the theatre critic speaks to the
artists in parsing the techniques involved in the creation of their
art; what works and what doesn’t. Finally, the theatre critic is
uniquely poised to offer their discernment of the meaning and purpose
of a piece, the effect the
theatrical experience has on its audience. In this way, the theatre
critic is positioned as the expert, using their power to influence
culture in what we all hope is a positive way. To do this
effectively, and for the sake of society, the critic needs to gain
the trust of everyone involved, both in the creative community as
well as the general, art-consuming public. Only in this way will the
art continue to grow and
thrive.
The
Tomb by Ed Sharrow premiered as part of the
Hollywood Fringe Festival on June 4, 11, 15, 17, and 19, 2017.
“Recalling Anthony the Great in ‘The Tomb’” was
written by Ernest Kearney and published June 13,
2017, on theTVolution.com. It may be accessed here:
https://thetvolution.com/2017/06/recalling-anthony-the-great-in-the-tomb/.
