Sunday, November 22, 2009
How I fluffed my exit lines
The Guardian: "In the middle decades of the 20th century, when theatre was testing the limits of taste, an off-stage sound-effect was regularly heard in the auditorium: the rat-a-tat of seat-backs clacking as scandalised theatregoers walked out. Because of a liberalisation of opinion – or, possibly, softer chair coverings – this noise has become a much less common occurrence."
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8 comments:
This is a very interesting change from something that was before to something that is now the tradition. Where leaving was once the way of showing objection against a play, today many modern audiences lack an easy way to show their feelings. The vocal outraged patrons may complain to the theatre, or write a negative letter to the editor. But leaving the theatre is clearly something that is not widely used in todays audiences, which shows an interesting shift.
Although I admittedly share the author's moral outrage, I'm not quite sure the article itself is in the right. We talked extensively about theater critics in Foundations; while not a review, the piece is concentrated on the author's experience instead of being concentrated on the play itself. It's really quite boring to read about what other people think, just as it's boring to sit in a play and have it tell you what you should be feeling.
Admittedly, when male writers put words in the mouths of their female characters it gets my feminist blood a boilin'. But as one of the commenters points out, there is no such outrage in the converse; this is another dual standard of sexism. Female writers get male characters wrong all the time and no one much cares.
Then there is the question of whether the outrage the author felt was intentional. Is the playwright legitimately trying to make people uncomfortable with this? If so, he succeeded in his goal. I'm not quite sure what the point of such would be because my moral arguments are going around in circles, but even so...
The other thing that's interesting about this article is the discussion of the culture of theater goers - how the walk-out has become less common. Is that a product of less influential, more commercialized theater? Or is it something else entirely. I know I've been to productions I've wanted to walk out of for sheer boredom, but didn't because my tickets were $50. $50 for two hours of entertainment is a lot of money to waste.
I agree with cmalloy that reading about the author's experience does get boring. It was interesting at the start, about the moral outrage, but once it got passed that it I lost some interest. The author's focus changes from this terrible play to why people walk out. While leaving at intermission is a thing to talk about, and happens fairly often, I have never left at intermission. It seems very rude to the performers and a waste of my money. I love to stay and see how the story ends.
I am also in agreement that the writer of this article spent far too much time on his opinion- not even of the entire play, but one specific piece- and we as readers didn't really learn anything about 'Our Class,' except that it contains a moment that is controversial. Writing an article about the history of theater protesting is fine, and if this were an anecdote to that story, it would be understandable, but at the beginning of the article this anecdote makes us believe that we are about to read about 'Our Class,' and then switches to an entirely different, less interesting topic.
The very end of the article raises a very good point, people have become almost too respectful and polite. There are times when just getting up and leaving, is really the right thing to do. Not everything it good, and definately not everything is worthy of the audience grinning and bearing it right to the end. The idea that people will continue to endure something then find unpleasant or offensive is probably even more insulting to some people then a person just leaving. After all, when you find something on TV that you don't like, you just change the channel.
This speech makes me angry as well, but that might be okay. It's hard to make a judgment when I haven't seen the entire performance, but just because a line is offensive or shocking does not mean that somebody is in the wrong. Plays are supposed to stir our emotions; it is perfectly acceptable for those emotions to sometimes be outrage or offense.
The whole time I was reading this all I could think about was Doc's lecture on how to properly critique a show. This article broke the number one rule, by drastically including himself in the article. I don't really care that you were offended by the line, no body does. He did make an interesting point when stating that it was a male playwright commenting on the interior dialogue of a female. He should have expanded on information like this, instead of going on and on about his opinion. I don't disagree with his moral outrage but he shouldn't have focused so much on his opinion.
I think that if an audience is upset or moved in any way, the show had been at least to some extent, successful. Theatre is supposed to make the audience feel something, and if that feeling is supposed to be anger,,, then it did it's job.
On the other hand, this article did exactly what a critic is not supposed to do... comment on how it affected them PERSONALLY. As Doc would say, WHO CARES! The fact that the critic spoke about how how he was affected totally discounted the validity of the actual point made.
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