Theatre as lay TV

[rmcl...@forest.drew.edu]

How did theatre get to be so much like TV?

Look to the Soviets, for a start ("Uh-oh! She's blaming
the Communists!")

They seized upon the "new style in town", that is, Realism,
as being the one kind of Art that anyone and everyone could
understand. No prior education was neccessary. It was
accessible, whether one was a worker or a member of some
elite.

They enforced this preference rather strenuously. The
director, Meyerhold, was put to death (despite the efforts
of Stanlislavky to save him) for daring to experiment with
other forms.

Socialist realism became the principal game in town for many,
many years.

In the West, it wasn't a matter of life and death to choose
Realism. Ironically, with the freedom to choose virtually any
style and form we like, we produced more and more Realist plays,
Realist acting, Realist directing. Even Eugene O'Neill went
from very diversified styles (Hairy Ape; Emperor Jones) to
family drama (tho., no question, he did it better than most)

The reason? It's accessible. No prior education necessary.

Doesn't mean it's bad; it's still, often brilliant (current
NY production of A Doll House, for example.) But it's certainly
not challenging for the audience. And that's how a lot of
audiences like it and a lot of producers like it that their
audiences like it and so don't try to give them something
different. Same goes for many not-for-profit producing directors
who, in the face of draconian federal budget cuts, find themselves
playing safer than ever.

When theater is safe, it becomes TV.

--Rosemary McLaughlin

[Janez vencelj]

rmcl...@forest.drew.edu wrote in article
<1997Apr22.142043.160396@forest>...

> How did theatre get to be so much like TV?

> When theater is safe, it becomes TV.
>
> --Rosemary McLaughlin

I must srongly agree with you. I'm from Slovenia, ex-socialist country,
where we had socrealism only in the begining of 50's, but afterward we had
modern and also strong theatre. Most of our culture wes strongly
subventioned by state and ussually without censorship (especially in the
theatre, where only one performance wes prohibited in 40 yrs of socialist
goverment). Culture and particulary the theatre was one of the strongest
causes for the fall of regime, because it was so liberal and influential as
well.
But what happen after 1990? The ideological system broke apart and
hasmarket economy become the main tendency- new capitalsm has begun. That
has brought many changes in some social structures such as medical care,
retirement fond, unemployment help and culture as well.
I just a few years (with one exception of Tomaz Pandur, which wasn't a real
exception) many theatres has commercialized. Become easy to understand,
without ambitions. Any attempt of breaking this situation was "punished".
For example: Primoz Bebler, art director of SLG Theatre (3th theatre in
Slovenia) tried to make repertoar more opened, with different aesthetics.
He has made an extremly good season (Shaffer's The Gift of the Gorgon, wich
was played as Brecht theatre, H.Muller's Quartett and Medea directet by
Eduard Miler, Janusz Kica made Excelent Shakespeare -The taming of the
shrew). But he has to leave theatre due to opinion that he is creating to
comlicated theatre (not just aestetically but also to hard to organize, too
much to work and so one)The most succesful performance of this year was a
easy comedy, which was made without big effort, and was popular because of
the author (Partljic - like Slovene Ray Cooney).
What I'm trying to say is that easy - realism is suitable both to public
and actors. Cheap fun without big effort. Unfotunatelly.

I know I sound confused, but i hope you'll know what is my problem - i
worked in SLG theatre. please Write me.