May 29, 2013

Fascinating meeting with SS. Part of it was a lesson–one which Blake would have appreciated–about mystery. SSS is hugely more direct, his ideas imbued with more coherence and principle, than I imagined when I was simply guessing what was on his mind. I think he felt the same about me, for he dreaded a meeting with me, assuming I was temperamental and guarded and resistant to suggestion. These qualities practically lead the parade of things I am NOT (well, I’m a little guarded), though he was not the first person to think so. I have the reputation of being scary n the theater, though not once have I thrown a public temper tantrum or even questioned direction from a director; never have I asserted, or believed, that my work was inerrant or above criticism and revision. We partially discussed a play which I sent to him unedited and unrevised, to prove the point that I could toss off a work better than their usual fare. This point was NOT proven. I had interpreted caution as antipathy; simply to have come out and asked would have been the nearer way.  SS takes as his models Moliere and Shakespeare. Though I never thought about it in that way, I suppose I take as my models Shakespeare and Peter Schaffer, though the second of those may change tomorrow. ANYWAY, a useful discussion, and one which made me consider that I have never systematically expressed my convictions about the theater, even to myself. Perhaps I am a little guarded. Well, toward the amending of this:

                                                         ***

I desire a theater of elevated language, which catches the audience in a reality above, or at least outside of, their everyday existence. I believe this is necessary to awaken the mind to new adventures and the spirit to new perceptions. I have no use for theater which does not challenge. I have no use for theater that sounds the same every night, which is strictly under control, which expresses the playwright’s convictions or opinions rather than immortalizing his revelations.

I resist the label “poetic” theater only because it is too easy to assume that the poetry of a book or a reading is the same that works on stage, and that is not the case. The poetry of theater has a completely different rhythm and velocity. It is so hard to learn that most playwrights will not try, and rather mock those who do, as people do when others carry on a task which they have given up. Shakespeare is my obvious model.

Let us remember that Shakespeare was a popular entertainer, and remains so today. Not one Broadway headliner of today will outlast his own lifetime, I suspect, more than a generation, because we have forgotten, or been strenuously taught to forget, that lasting entertainment value is based on truth. With the example of the contemporary stage, one notes that truth and endurance are never companions to pandering.

I have no (or rather, little) patience with theater that does not change and elevate. I want actors who can deliver elevated speech in the most down-home and realistic manner possible, to underline the fact that revelation is the common property of all people at all times. I give the same advice to actors doing Shakespeare– when the language is wrought, the delivery must be plain, recognizable, without frills, as the austere setting of a priceless gem. The meaning of the words is all. I believe that audiences crave what I have just described without knowing it, because producers are so squeamish ( and superstitious) about what will “sell” that it is seldom properly sold. Even when it is staged it is wreathed with apologies, so people don’t assume the producers didn’t know better than to present such a high falutin’ piece of work. Most modern producers will do time in Purgatory for arrogantly underestimating the desire and hunger of their audience. I believe that Pericles would sell, if performed right, in a barn to an audience of farmers, for all souls hunger for paradise, and will follow whatever trail of crumbs might lead to it.

Sophistication is the enemy of the theater, for sophistication judges without experiencing. “Sophistication” in art is a tragedy and a delusion.

I take it as a deliberate quest to encourage the audience’s attention span and intensity of concentration, to vilify art which panders to diminished attention span or impatience with concentration. No one is bored in the theater unless someone is working too hard to ensure they are titillated every second.

The beauty of the play should catch the heart. We must prepare for some flops and disappointments at the outset, for people have been trained (partially by the theater industry) to equate beauty with elitism. If given their heads, an audience (though not necessarily producers or directors) will prefer good theater, the theater I have just described. Broadway juggernauts make money because they are expensive. We are telling the audience what the sophisticate would prefer by charging them astronomical prices. Nobody would see the recent crop of Broadway spectaculars if they hadn’t been expensive. This is not to encourage raising prices on holy theater; it is to say that judging worth on the basis of profit margin is–today–wholly specious, because the books are cooked, the data skewed. It is a set-up. Quality is objective. Sale-ability is completely unknowable and unpredictable, unless you manipulate wildly and wickedly.

I want what the people want: to be changed by beauty and truth. And if you’re scoffing right now, or smiling indulgently, know that you’ve bought into a deep evil.