Matt Trueman | Stage | theguardian.com: "A lot of theatre is quite boring," says Sean Holmes, fully aware this is not the sort of statement made by artistic directors of major subsidised theatres. These days, however, the Lyric Hammersmith boss – part moroseness, part mischief – is happy to lob a few home-truth hand grenades.
4 comments:
I found the statement, "Change the structures and you shift the possibilities" eye-opening. Often times if you really want to try something new you have to change the way in which you work from the ground up. I find the concept of secret shows very exciting but also a little intimidating. The audience will have to trust that the evening their buying will be enjoyable without knowing anything about the content of the performance. They essentially are buying into the organization and it's new philosophy rather than a certain playwright or text. I am very interested to see what happens with the project.
In class this morning, I was involved in a discussion about the School of Drama's mission statement. It aims to produce artists that "indelibly impact how people view the world at large." While a lofty goal, it is extremely similar to what the experimental company the article describes is trying to do. Theatre is not just to entertain. It is to enlighten, to educate, to transform.
The quote that Michael pointed out is a concept that I have always used when working on particularly challenging projects or tasks. "Changing the structure" can be something as simple as approaching a problem in a different frame of mind or a solution as complex as reorganizing the standardized way something is done. Hopefully, this reorganization leads tot he most beneficial outcome.
Like Michael and Dan, the phrase "Change the structures and you shift the possibilities" struck me. While I feel like I may have applied that concept here and there in some design projects, I've never consciously thought about it in that way. This is a great project, the kind of innovation and risk-taking that theater needs; it's interesting to see that this season isn't put on by a small independent underground theater, but by a major theater.
What surprised me most about the article was the actors saying that this show made them feel like artists, when acting is usually seen as a craft. Now this must be a British way of thinking because I don't think I've ever heard of actors being differentiated from artists here in the US. It shows that no matter how similar we imagine the US and the UK to be, there still are some major cultural differences. Seeing acting as an art or a craft isn't just a disparity in terminology, but a difference at the core of the way the discipline is considered, taught and performed.
The way they describe what they are doing seems frightening it is like they are blasting away the structure of theatre which we have always know. They are taking the traditionally pure and solid script, a thing that is seen as never to be deviated from, with the exception of time and place and other smaller aspects, and questioning them. That is typically the way in which new types of theatre evolve and form however, it also begs the question if it is theatre any longer or merely a performance? I would love a change to observe, not just the show, but the process as well (I think I might be dramatizing it in my head a lot more than it actually is) Maybe we can collaborate on a deeper level if we stop assuming things like acting and design and directing, and keep scripts fluid.
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