KansasCity.com: Let’s call it in-and-out theater. As the Unicorn Theatre and Kansas City Actors Theatre prepare to open their co-production of “God of Carnage,” we see that Yasmina Reza’s caustic comedy is part of an undeniable trend. Look around and you might conclude that we’re in the golden age of one-act plays. “God of Carnage” is expected to run about 80 minutes or less without an intermission. John Logan’s “Red,” which opened the Unicorn’s season, ran 90 minutes straight through.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
On stage, playing it short, as in ‘God of Carnage,’ is a virtue
KansasCity.com: Let’s call it in-and-out theater. As the Unicorn Theatre and Kansas City Actors Theatre prepare to open their co-production of “God of Carnage,” we see that Yasmina Reza’s caustic comedy is part of an undeniable trend. Look around and you might conclude that we’re in the golden age of one-act plays. “God of Carnage” is expected to run about 80 minutes or less without an intermission. John Logan’s “Red,” which opened the Unicorn’s season, ran 90 minutes straight through.
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3 comments:
I'm of two minds here - one, I'm concerned about the tradition of the two-act structure and the inevitable situation of a playwright being forced to squash a story down to 90min for the sake of the audience rather than for the sake of the story, but two, the intermission lets the audience take time to (get a drink at the bar and) process what they've seen, taking them out of the story and potentially killing the tension in the story at that moment. On the management/producer's end One acts are seen as trendy and have the potential to draw a larger crowd (shorter runs are more palatable to a general audience), but lose the potential revenue out of souvenir and bar/concessions sales at intermission. Anyone else have thoughts on practical or aesthetic implications of one-acts?
Of course there is the concern that short plays are becoming more popular simply because the attention span of our audiences is getting shorter. To this I say, "so what?" Either we shouldn't let trends like this affect what we do as artists or we should embrace it and use it as an impetus to create shorter, more compact pieces. I would argue that it is more difficult to create a short play that is crafted well than a longer one, possibly padded out with repetition and unneeded dialogue. Of course, as Brian points out there are also monetary implications on both sides for producers. More people will potentially be interested, but you lose the opportunity to sell things at an intermission. On the flip side, will people be willing to pay standard ticket prices for "less play". Personally, I think the resurgence of the structure of one-acts is a good thing and opens many doors for producers, directors, and playwrights.
I feel like one-acts plays pose as the "hipster" works of art in theater. They started as an independent thing, and now the one-act concept is spreading as a break from traditional plays that include an intermission. However, that's not to say that it makes the message of a one-act any less powerful. In fact, depending on the show, the story may only really need 90 consecutive minutes to get a point across and have an impact on an audience. I do disagree with the notion of having theater companies performing one-acts just for the sake of putting on a more time-efficient piece behind the excuse of "people's attention spans are getting shorter." If people have enough desire to sit through a piece of theater, time shouldn't matter.
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