Thursday, September 20, 2012
My Dramaturgical Secrets
2AMt: I have a secret; I’ve started to doubt that dramaturgy is a job.
I hadn’t heard of dramaturgy until I held the title. I was instructed to help with research but I offered much more to the room. And in my first production as a “dramaturg” I could see in conversations with the director, actors, playwright and designers that I had a place in that room. I also could see that though I can write a program note, design a informative display for the audience and do research, that is no where near the full thrust of the job I was doing. I knew that my work directly had an impact on the success of the production and I saw my desire for a life as an artist surrounded by artists was coming true.
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7 comments:
Let me be the first say that dramaturges are an essential part of the process. Sure you may not SEE what they do, but I guarantee that that their work is evident in many aspects of the production. Perhaps it is an element of design or an authentic accessory to a costume or the way in which a director treats a certain aspect of the show. Sure the show COULD go on without them and maybe not many people would notice BUT it makes the director and the assistant director’s job easier and it enhances many aspects of the process. It takes a special person with unique set of skills to perform all these responsibilities. Hear, hear for dramaturges.
I never knew what a dramaturg was until I came to CMU. I had never dealt with them in my undergrad career, and have never worked with any in the professional world. I agree with what Dale says, that not a lot of people will see what they do, but I do believe they can be a big part of the process. I do believe that a director can easily do their own research, but it must be easier on the director before and during the process to have someone around who's job it is to research things about the show enabling the director and assistant director to focus more on their concept and designs before rehearsals and more on the actors and the execution during rehearsals and tech. While the show can go up without a dramaturg, if you have the resource available, why not use it?
I am with Jess on this one. I'd never really heard of a dramaturg until I came to CMU. As someone who does tech work, I understand where the frustration of being a dramaturg comes into play. You do so much work, and no one notices until the last night when nothing appears to have gone terribly wrong and they say "oh... uh... thanks...". Even though I'm not a dramaturg I was offended by that tweet imbedded in the article, if only because the roles that exist in theatre exist for a reason. I once worked on a show where the director was so fascinated with the historical and cultural aspect of the show material.... that the assistant director (and I) had to come up with basically the entire show. If there had been a dramaturg to help out, the director could have fully done her job instead of being consumed with trying to make it accurate.
It's true that very few people know what a dramaturg is and it is not particularly surprising that "Guy Sanville" tweeted something like that because I think that many people think of dramaturgy in that way. I don't think that after reading this article I understand any more about what a dramaturg does, and I don't understand why being "just a researcher" is a bad, insulting, or minimal job on a production. Of course they are more because they also have a voice within the creative team, but I don't think that the tangible tasks a dramaturg does should be minimized, even though there is much more to their job than research.
Ah, dramaturgs - the proverbial butt of any School of Drama joke. I don't understand the practice of hiring one person to be fill the role of dramaturg, not because I think that the dramaturgical role is unimportant, but because I believe that everyone involved in the creative aspects of the production (and maybe the technical side as well) should be acting as a dramaturg. Designers, directors, and actors should all be doing all sorts of research - historical, philosophical, artistic - really anything that could be of use. Everyone should be helping to facilitate the production and push each other (as artists) to their artistic limits.
Having a specific person whose sole purpose it is to fill the dramaturgical role is a real luxury - which is why dramaturgs are often not taken entirely seriously. That being said, some theatres are big enough or do complicated enough productions to necessitate a specific dramaturg. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a good example of that. (And yes, I just name-dropped OSF again.)
I completely agree with Pia that members of an artistic team should all be using their dramaturgical skills to help inform their own work and that, as such, it is not a necessity but a luxury to have a full-time dramaturg on a production. In my time here at CMU thus far I have seen the ways that a dramaturg can be useful on a production, but I haven't necessarily seen them doing things that another member of the artistic team couldn't do. I do think that a collaborative dramaturg is a great thing to have, though, as long as they are welcomed as a part of the artistic team and are really allowed to flourish in their position as a person who can shed light on the play's content or on the creative process and can help use that to shape ideas or decisions with the creative team. I completely understand this author's dilemma with being called a "dramaturg", because a good dramaturg does more than use basic dramaturgy skills. I think what the "dramaturg" should actually be called varies widely with different types of productions- and also with different people who fill the position and how they can/are asked to contribute to the process. A dramaturg on a new work or devised piece produced by a small company may have a very different role in the creative process than a dramaturg on a history play presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Kudos to this writer for explaining her frustrations and fighting to get the word out there about the importance of the work of "dramaturgs".
Hey Pia, until 1850 there was no director. Until the late 19th century there was no discrete role of a scenic or a lighting designer. People said the same things about them - why would we pay someone special to paint sets when we can just buy generic sets from landscape painters? Guess what? The only person who is indispensable is the actor. ALL of us are luxury artists. Theatre itself is a luxury, isn't it? Hard to think of life without it, but that's a very small minority of us. Don't you think it's better to pull together and support one another than to point out that someone on your team is standing in the same quicksand that you are? Just curious. -Doc from afar
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