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January 28, 2007
A companion noted that Number Three was yet another play this season with adult actors playing children (Mr. Marmalade, Jingle Spree). Eyebrow-raising number of December holiday offerings. Periodic waves of one-person shows. Dueling children’s theaters. What other trends have you observed this season, and what do you make of them?
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37 comments:
Here's one: I think there's less arm waving and flat-out yelling happening on stage, thank God. What I have thought of as "the Portland style" of (histrionic) acting seems to be morphing. There's been some screaming (I'm not saying where) but a lot less than in the past.... Maybe all those Meisner workshops are having an effect....
Here's another: much more pretentious bickering about what defines good, albeit subjective, art.
Cross-dressers and transsexuals have dominated the season, starting with this year's TBA and continuing with I Am My Own Wife, The Maids, Act a Lady, a Tuna Christmas, Sister's Christmas Catechism, etc., etc.
Another major theme is kids played by adults. Mr Marmelade, the Yellow Boat, and Number Three, to name a few.
Not to mention a whole lot of campy musicals.
Ben called them "campy", but I was thinking this was a great year for musicals in Portland...West Side Story and 42nd Street were both impressive as were many others...
This seems as good a place as any to note a couple blog statistics that indicate a continued trend toward greater traffic: the Followspot blog received its 80,000th visit this month, and currently averages about 200 or so hits per day. Number of shows reviewed: now pushing 300 and counting.
> Here's another: much more
> pretentious bickering about what
> defines good, albeit subjective,
> art.
And your point would be?
I'm not trying (just) to be facetious. "Pretentious" and "bickering" are better than no discussion of the subject at all.
Just because an issue is partly or largely subjective does not make it unworthy of discussion, however clumsy at times.
Despite the unfortunate demise of Stark Raving, there have still been a number of new plays premiered this season, with Milagro, Third Rail, Inside/Out, CoHo, and others stepping up to the plate, a strong slate at JAW/West, indie producers staging original one-person shows, and an invigorating smorgasboard at Portland Theatre Works. Here's hoping that PCS, ART, defunkt, Vertigo, and those many little companies that seem to appear and disappear like spring mushrooms will join the trend next season as well.
Defunkt is closing their season with a premiere of a new play by James Moore, so they are already part of that trend.
Cool! Excellent!
JAW is PCS (not to digress to the Missalliance thread, but any discussion of the value and quality of PCS that doesn't take into account how much this awesome festival has grown is missing the big picture here). And Act a Lady is on the season which came out of JAW.
ART has done original adaptations of plays the last two years.
defunkt, as mentioned above is doing a new play this year, and if my math is right, this is the third time for them.
Vertigo does new work projects virtually every year with the 24 hour plays and this years 1 page plays.
None of this mentions Sojourn, Third Floor, Super Ego (and for that matter all the original comedy stuff), Portland Theatre Works, Many Hats, etc.
Im not sure new work is a new trend here in Portland.
Well, that was stupid of me: of course JAW/West is PCS, as is Act a Lady (and The Thugs), and I regret the other oversights as wwell (though I did mention Portland Theatre Works). Having been around in the days when Stark Raving was practically the only house in town doing new work, the number of theatres staging premieres is heartening, even if an ongoing inclination more than a trend. Here's hoping it continues.
as far as new works, it's also worth mentioning the lovely folks at Hand2Mouth, Fever and Liminal, all of whom have done terrific new work in the past and (if i'm correct) appear to have new work coming out this year...
7500 versions of Romeo and Juliet.
And by gum, we'll KEEP doing it until we get it RIGHT!
Realistic sets. Even crammed into small spaces, like Shoebox. Sure they are expensive but well worth it.
Besides the dueling childrens' theaters and the Gresham Theatre Lab, who's doing R&J?
Not a trend, exactly, but an interesting discussion nonetheless:
Books now, play later
Intellectually demanding drama is one thing, but plays you can't appreciate without boning up on the background reading are rather missing the point.
by Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, January 29, 2007
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/01/book_now_to_enjoy_later.html
wlduvaHow about the critical trend of late in reviewing or blogging about newer works? Blaming the play/playwright when the 'Message' or 'Point' isn't dumped on them like a ton of bricks. Many newer plays refuse to shower the audience with an author's message or wrap it up in a tidy bow, and I'm finding the press stumped. Is this confusion, or fear that keeps them from doing a little critical investigating of their own?
Curious-
Blue Monkey, NWCT, Gresham Lab, and there was another one recently advertising auditions on pdxbackstage.
Plus PCS just did "West Side Story..."
Really?? This season seemed exceptionally lean on really excellent or noteworthy musical offerings; with the exception of West Side Story, 42nd Street, Ragtime and Where's Charley?
"How about the critical trend of late in reviewing or blogging about newer works? Blaming the play/playwright when the 'Message' or 'Point' isn't dumped on them like a ton of bricks."
I don't think can be considered a trend...it's a long-term problem when presenting challenging new works. Sometimes new plays have problems, they're seldom perfect out the gate (if any script if ever perfect). But scripts sometimes get slammed if they don't fit the "well-made play" mold, and that's unfortunate because it inhibits experimentation.
It's not so much the desire for the "well-made" play mode as it is a desire not to have our time wasted wih a regurgitation of old ideas that have no fresh perspective, too much glut of information and not enough story, a muddled, indecipherable text of inside jokes and code language (a metaphor is only a metaphor if it can be related), parodies of already cliched parodies, or a self-congratulatory text that only serves as a cathartic experience for the playwright and not a full journey for the audience. If the playwright is not posing any new questions or offering new insight into something to leave the audience to ponder, then why waste the audience's time and money? I said it before but it's worth repeating - With so few dollars coming into theatre today, we have a responsibility to the audience to atleast make it really mean something to them beyond the surface. Cheap entertainment is abound in our American culture. People have many options, and if they happen to choose theatre as their option for the night, let's really give them something to chew on since we have their valuable time and often underestimated attention. We do perform FOR the audience, right? And they are not passive voyeurs. They are active participants in a dialogue that will hopefully continue for years to come.
With that, I feel we cannot do this just to entertain anymore, not for as much as we have invested in this and as much as the audience expects from our genre of art versus a much cheaper, more accessible form of entertainment. But a playwright is really welcome to write anything she or he wants and have it live as a text on page. It really can stop there and be appreciated as an isolated point of view on paper to be purchased by a reader who has gotten through the first twenty pages before one heads to the cash register. However, it is the ultimate responsbility of the producer of theatre to determine what is vital to a people. We cannot solely blame the playwright for creating a work that fails to offer the audience a widely-appealing journey with which they can make deep personal connections and ask themselves questions about their choices and their behaviors (love and appreciate the Greeks).
And by widely appealing, I do not mean it has to be facile, tight, narrative, clean and direct-ending texts like the well-made play. Accessible just means it can reach every single audience member on a personal level in SOME way by the last line of the play. And if the text does not do it, then the producer has the responsibility not to do that text, or make it happen without words. Nevertheless, make it mean something that is widely accessible to the perspectives of the many unique individuals that make up a theatre audience. If you are making theatre with only you, your peers, or the five people in the audience that will get it or care to get it, then you already know why your audience is not growing over time.
you repeat yourself. it is tedious. stop hitting us with the same old speech. you're not saying anything we haven't already heard.
I think we all, ideally, want to produce, write, and work on original, insightful work that entertains as well as thoughtfully explores the human condition in a way that touches the heart as well as the head. It's not as easy to write stuff like that as it is to wish for it.
Sometimes plays have to go through awkward phases in front of audiences in order to grow, and it gets very confusing to sort out what's working and what isn't, particularly when audiences are diverse and seek differing kinds of theatre experiences. Offering specific suggestions as a work's strength or weakness tends to be more helpful to making good plays than lining playwrights up against the metaphorical wall and machine-gunning them in name of saving theatre. ("We had to destroy the theatre in order to save it.")
My humble suggestion is to try writing a play and then get back to us as to how you did thinking up original ideas, putting those into a novel storyline, and lacing it together with sparkling dialog that continually moves the action forward to an unexpected and resonant conclusion.
Good luck.
I just want to add that the time-wasting offenders listed in I-bet-you-know-who-this-is-without-me-saying-my-name!'s post are just as likely to appear in previously produced and/or published work. Just because it's not new work doesn't mean it's free from time-wasting.
Anonymous 11:29 - I repeat because it bears repeating. Things we have to continuously ask ourselves.
Anonymous 11:46 - I've tried writing plays several times and failed miserably. Honestly, it's too difficult for me, far too difficult. I do not envy playwrights, nor do I underestimate their incredibly difficult responsibility. I admire them more than you may know. But I wouldn't ask a playwright to become a professional actor to understand how difficult it is to bring a role to life with only words. It's inherent, and I wouldn't fault a playwright for offering me criticism on how I can become a better conduit of their words. It's the collaborative process. It's how it works.
I don't deny the importance of presenting an unfinished work for an audience to get feedback. I know from being an actor and director involved in new works that it is a process that takes many years. But it does beg to ask how much time and money we invest in making a work not ready for a wide audience available via a producing body trying to build an audience and reputation.
I think before they had to close, Stark Raving had an amazing idea and was about to take on an incredible and admirable responsibility. In changing their business model, they made it quite known that they were the testing ground, the definitive place for developing new work. The traditional model for which almost every company in this city proscribes sees its audience build from plays aleady fully developed and widely accessible. Maybe the answer is to change our model and give our audience full disclosure of our intentions. PCS certainly had it right with creating JAW/West. They said we're going to present work in our season ready for full audience but we are committed to developing new work via a separate project outside of our season of plays, and branded it thus.
I repeat because it bears repeating. Things we have to continuously ask ourselves.
So it's okay for you, but not theatre?
If it bears repeating, yes, and at the same time clarifies or offers additional perspective or any other insightful questions to add to the dialogue. But you know the difference when you're being beat over the head with a new green banana and when you're being beat over the head with an overripe banana. They're both bananas, but one will leave a mark and sting a little bit while the other will feel squishy and leave a mess. The overripe will probably splatter while the new one will still be in tact. This of course all depends on how hard you hit someone with the banana, which is a new idea altogether. But the trick is when to know when the banana is overripe.
Um...yeah.
Anyway, for some reason, sometimes you lose 'em when you're too subtle, and they get all bent out of shape. It's a mystery why *cough cough* but it's nothing new, here or elsewhere.
However, as has been noted, isn't it cool that we've had so many new plays to bitch about this season? Portland deserves a pat on the back for that alone.
(And, though it ought to go without saying, but the will is weak: sometimes a banana is just a banana.)
Touche. I acquiesce. AND YES, let's give a big hand to all these new plays being done. It feels like such a good time in this burgh for getting new ideas out there. Which is why I even say anything at all. Because at least it's out there and can be discussed. The dialogue going rather than leaving things unsaid. Good stuff happening, good stuff. But I have to say, I do love when a banana is put in the right recipe when I otherwise wouldn't eat a banana by itself unless I really needed the potassium.
Potassium? I left nursing school so I wouldn't have to think about things like potassium any more ... My current job is as a caregiver for a 90 year old woman. Consequently, I've been watching a lot of Matlock. The episode today featured a very amateur performance of community theatre. And it reminded me of some reasons both amateurs and professionals perform and attend theatre: to show support for your community, to make friends, to play make-believe in a socially-acceptable environment, to step away from the drudgery of every-day life, to just have a damn good ol' time. Today I've remembered how much joy theatre has brought to people of all ages. Just kind of a nice thought . . .
Plus, Andy Griffith is totally hot for an old guy!
Speaking of Andy Griffith, as the rebel actor-celebs of our generation have settled into the stable, steady income of a sitcom or dramatic TV series, I've thought back to the mistaken impression I got of certain actors who had made that move when or before I was a child -- Ernest Borgnine, whom I initially knew via "McHale's Navy," for instance. Only much later did I see his work in "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "From Here to Eternity" (although "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Wild Bunch" still lay in the future -- and at the age of 90 he's still doing new projects, so he's probably not the best example). But if any of you still picture Andy Griffith as no more than what he appeared on "Mayberry RFD," you should rent a fine little razor-sharp 1957 satire of the nature of celebrity itself called "A Face in the Crowd." Directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, whose names also should mean something to everyone here, it's an intense little tale -- Griffith's feature debut, in fact -- that may have taken so much out of him that he did almost nothing but comedies and sitcoms thereafter.
David check out Ethel Merman's auto/bio in which she sums up her marriage to Borgnine in one chapter (all blank pages)
Imagine what the neighbors experienced emiting from that house in terms of vocal histrionics
Budd Schulberg will forever be synonymous with his "fictional" Sammy Glick
Do I get a prize for knowing that??
Sure. But...Who the F#$@K do we send it to?
In other words, Schulberg's name may be forever synonymous, but will you be forever anonymous?
(I once appeared briefly onstage with Estelle Parsons, and achieved anonymous immortality in the Boston Globe for it. . . .)
Speaking of all the R&Js ... don't forget ORegon Shakespeare is doing their own this summer
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