Sunday, November 06, 2011
A Playwright’s Playwright
Gwydion Suilebhan: I have been thinking about Ashbery and Bishop ever since I saw a production of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest at Forum Theatre not long ago. (I have intentionally delayed this blog post so that it appeared after the run of the play was over; I’m not a reviewer, nor do I want to be — I am simply a playwright thinking about his craft.) I have been an admirer of Churchill’s work for some time, ever since my first reading of Top Girls, and I was thrilled to be able to see more of it in person. I’m also a great admirer of Forum, which is one of the most ambitious companies in the DC area. No challenge is too great for them, and they swing for the fences every time.After the show, however, I found myself thinking: this is a playwright’s play. She’s using structure to reflect the psychology of revolution. The first act’s snippets of story are reflective of the way narrative is thwarted in a tyrannical state; the second act’s outpouring of story is the revolution itself, narratives released from their chains; and the third act is what happens after the revolution, when the long-repressed narratives begin to conflict and twist and reveal both their fault lines and their secrets. How clever of her, I decided… perhaps a bit too clever.
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4 comments:
I agree with this author. As theatre artist/workers we have a greater understanding of the work and structure of the art. That certainly does not make us smarter than the non-theatre worker. We simply have a deeper understanding of the work. Just as an architect would have a deeper understanding of a building. I still see the building and think it is beautiful, but the architect can tell me why.
I worry that as theatre "makers" we are 'trying' to alienate the audience. But yet we talk constantly about getting people to come back to theatre. They might certainly come back if we gave them something to enjoy. Are we doing that? Or is it all self-indulgence?
I don't know that "trying to alienate the audience" and "self-indulgence" are what we're doing. Well, some of us. Like you alluded to above, Taylor, as the artists, we should endeavor where it is possible to enlighten and show off those easter eggs to the audience so that they may further understand and appreciate the work on a level beyond visceral reaction or enjoyment/repulsion. Where I get worried is the other side of the spectrum, where we self-indulge in the expose of the theatrical form as just another way to get that visceral reaction. Take Brecht's philosophies here - because the alienation from the storyline forces the analysis of the form on the audience, it turns some audience members off or it makes them fans of the style, rather than having a significant effect on the story or its messages. From the author's description of Mad Forest, the structure being a plot device (really more of an Easter Egg than a total self-indulgence) lets the audience appreciate the story (a very intellectually stimulating one), but allow for that moment of discovery and deeper understanding.
The author poses some important questions about the intended audience of our work on stage. Do we do theater for us or do we do it for our audiences? Does it matter? Can it be both? I think that often, we get caught up in our own cleverness without stopping to think how it will play to the audience. Will they even notice? Sometimes I think that we do too much "theater for theaters sake". Of course some of this is important for pushing the art form forward, but how can we engage in such an interactive art without someone to interact with. We constantly state that theater is different from film because there is a connection between the live performers and the live audience. If we are only doing theater for ourselves, how is it any different than doing a play in an empty room?
I was very happy to see mention of Forum Theatre in this blog post. I was in undergrad with the founders and am good friends with Artistic Director and "Mad Forest" director Michael Dove. They do challenging work with very limited budgets and space, but always to outstanding reviews. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the production there, as I was very interested to compare their more minimal approach to the play with a larger big budget version. I believe there is an interesting question about accessibility in that. Do we sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot by throwing a bunch of money and tricks, video and elaborate scene changes into an already complex work? Is there a line between too much and too little? I think it's tempting to throw too many ideas at something just because we can. It can be quite fun for we theatre artists, and often enlightening, but do we do it at the expense of the text and the audience?
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