From Brian Logan’s blog at the Guardian, April 3, 2007, with thanks (as always) to ArtsJournal.com for the feed
"I find the obsession with dead writers really alarming,” says playwright Anthony Neilson. Logan argues directors are to blame, preferring classics demonstrating their interpretative genius. Neilson says critics don't understand young writers; love that there’re four versions of Seagull “because they've seen the other fucking 50 that have been done."
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8 comments:
I share this because not only do I just find it interesting to think about, but Portland, in contrast, seems to be in pretty good shape. In a do-it-yourself way, we really are an incubator of new work. I believe last season, I talled about 30% original work, locally created.
And speaking of which, did anyone go to the Humana Festival this year? Portland has enjoyed some connections there, as well (Act a Lady, for example) ... Any reports?
The relevant fact is not that they're dead, but that they're good. There's a reason the works last and are redone . . . and it's not just that many of their works have a reasonably ready-made audience. It's hard to write a play, period, never mind a good one, and then sell it to an audience cold.
for me, the goodness of these classics is not the relevant factor. there are plenty of contemporary plays/playwrights that/who are also good.
i do think, as Neilson says, an artist's desire to do their take on ______ (fill-in-classic-name here), combined with the name-recognizing audience and their ability & desire to evaluate such a "take" are quite relevant.
The idea that there are no more good - or great - playwrights seems unlikely.
When you look at other areas of human activity - sports, medicine, engineering, technology - many of the best who have ever lived are living now.
It seems a little weird that playwriting or the arts would be an exception to that trend.
No doubt there have been many great artists throughout the ages. There are many around today.
This syndrome represents a failure of the audience and theatre. People want to be told what's good, what's known. Theatres juggle the unknown vs. a sure thing with a financial gun to the head.
Many established theatres in the US (this is not true in other countries) have become museums, storefronts of an ossified class system that insulates its members from the real world.
We merrily watch The Cherry Orchard one more time while elsewhere the bombs whizz. Wheeee. Is this a scene from a futuristic satire? No, it's our life. We are being shielded from reality in the name of appreciating great art. Fine line here between outward exploration and inward escapism.
Has high end theatre-going simply become another consumer gew gaw people hanker after, like Godiva chocolates? Name brand buzz of attending a show at the RSC?
It's ironic that Shakespeare reigns as the god supreme of known quantity theatre, because he's often hard to understand or know.
I would be willing to bet that if you interviewed audiences you would find that many people - maybe not a majority, but enough to make it notable - do not understand a lot of what they see in a Shakespeare play.
So what does this say about a cultural activity where a vast amount of the available resources and talent available go to reproducing shows that have already been seen many times before and that are only partially understood by an audience that attends more out of duty or social habit than a desire to see?
How many millennia can that go on for? When will it be like watching a play in ancient Greek where no one has a clue what is happening?
Even if something is good, even if it's the best ever, at some point endless repetition of it ceases to bring the insight we seek and instead becomes a blinder between us and the real world, which does exist.
Followspot, I worked on Naomi Iizuka's "Strike-Slip" in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum's New Works Festival back in 2005. "Strike-Slip" premiered this year at the Humana Festival which is excellent for Naomi because it's an amazing play, hopefully now more people will have the chance to see it.
When I was living in Portland, one thing that l always enjoyed was the large amount of locally created theatre that was taking place. Portland has some seriously creative artists living there and it definitely shows in the work they create.
Isn't "starving" the definition of an artist? I suppose an alternative definition of an artist might be "dead."
It is ridiculous to think that one must starve for art. Just because it is a stereotype, doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it. Break the cycle.
David, the original blog writer said that he finds it alarming that people produce the works of dead authors. That's the relevant fact of his opinion.
But, the thing I find funny here is that people have different thresholds for things that alarm them.
The blogger is alarmed by people producing the works of dead authors.
For me, I'm not alarmed until people try to have sex with dead authors. Maybe I just have a high threshold before something alarms me.
Why would I give a shit what people produce.
As for the "why", I'll read the directors comments if I need the answer to that.
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