Sunday, October 19, 2008
Theater of War
Newsweek.com: "'We are living in a time when new art works should shoot bullets,' wrote Clifford Odets. The most socially committed of the great American dramatists set a pattern for his successors to follow when he declared, in 1939, that he didn't want his plays to be just 'psychologically profound,' he also wanted them to be 'immediately and dynamically useful' in the fight for social justice. If political plays have this dual function, it means we shouldn't judge them on merely esthetic grounds (that is, whether they're good or bad), but also on how they change our impulses and perceptions—on what they do. This month, three of these public-minded productions have opened in New York. Each tries, in a markedly different way, to make us reconsider how we feel about America, Iraq and our Dubya-era leaders, such as they are."
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3 comments:
This is what is what I think is so great about art. It gives you a chance to cross lines into new studies and theories. It eclipses everything and involves all topics.
I love new plays that "shoot bullets", as this author has put it, but unfortunately I haven't been seeing it on Broadway. I see revivals that are deep and moving like All My Sons and A Man for All Seasons, but yet I don't think they are really hitting it. Sometimes I think we need something more than this to wake people up.
I think that in this time of war for our country and the world it is important to view war from a standpoint of the people through theatre. Representations of war put perspective onto the issues and thus educate the masses about the horrors and reality of war.
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