Sunday, February 07, 2010
Diane Paulus’s Balancing Act at American Repertory Theater
NYTimes.com: "AS a theater director, Diane Paulus is a proud populist. What does that mean exactly? For Ms. Paulus it involves creating shows that appeal to the mainstream as well as theater snobs, and blurring the line between viewers and actors, which is why so many of her productions rely on an interactive relationship with the audience. Like the come-one-come-all dance party onstage at the end of her Broadway revival of “Hair.” Or the invitation to boogie on go-go boxes at her Shakespeare-meets-Studio-54 fantasia, “The Donkey Show.” Or a new musical about the Red Sox that is intended to draw on the enthusiasm of Boston fans."
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2 comments:
The discussion about whether theater is an art or entertainment continues. Of course, the difference is not as black and white as it may seem. ART is currently walking a fine line between the two where art is entertainment. The problem that the theater is trying to solve is that their work was becoming too intellectual and they were loosing audience revenue. The theater switched tracks and hired Diane Paulus to bring life back into the company. The board members are right to be concerned that maybe the work should be more "artsy" and experimental. However, that is not to say that all of the work that the theater does needs to be stuffy avant guarde theater for the elite. Somewhere in between there is a happy medium.
It is rather interesting to hear about this "controversy", because as I've been following the A.R.T.'s season this year, I've thought it's some of the most intriguing and avant-garde work they've done. Theatre as art or entertainment certainly plays a role, but it also may be a changing audience that's making the board nervous. A.R.T. is renowned for high-art, intellectual productions that appeals to the educated elite, and I don't mean to say that Diane Paulus' productions do not have those elements, but interactivity and site-specific theatre tend to draw younger audiences that are fascinated by the project's accessibility on a personal level. It's rather timely that In the Heights is in town, because when I saw that show in Chicago, it outraged older audience members but enraptured the younger. I think Diane Paulus has the right idea in mind by mellowing the extremely avant-garde for next season (as noted at the end), but it will be a great loss if the current season's ingenuity is tossed aside.
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