Is it a sign of the economical times that most of the plays you see nowadays have economical one-word titles? Remember plays like “Oh Dad Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung Him in the Closet and We’re Feeling So Sad”? “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?” Now we have “Art”, and “Proof”, and “Doubt”, and “Race” and driving up Eight Avenue in NY today I saw two new billboards for “Trust” and “Wings”. Is it me or are we running out of words? Or has the MTV generation rendered us as a society incapable of absorbing anything that long? Why try to explain to a potential date what “Angels in America: Millenium Approaches” is about when you can say “Let’s see ‘Shoes”!” “What’s it about?” “It’s about ‘shoes’!”
Are these plays, as good as they might be, the results of a challenge? Pick a word, any word, out of the dictionary and write a play about it. It’s as good an approach as any. I belonged to a workshop where someone got the idea to stimulate playwrights by choosing a “Word of the Week”. You had to write 3-5 pages using or about that word. Consequently, I stopped writing plays and starting writing 3-5 page skits. I wrote a few and then I stopped writing altogether. I couldn’t think beyond five pages. No idea I got seemed worth any more time than that. So I am in awe when Mamet and Kopet and Stoppard and the rest of the current greats of the dramatic world can slam out 90 minutes by riffing on a word.
And speaking of 90 minutes, what happened to the two act play, let alone the three act play with two intermissions? I think I know. Writers are afraid that, if they let people out of their seats at intermission, they will not return for act two, leaving the TV and film stars who have been hired because of the name recognition for NY tourists with no one to play to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Re: Intermission gives the audience a chance to leave
ReplyDeleteI won't say I have never gone to a play because of who was in it, but it wasn't the only reason. Right now I'm wanting to see Driving Miss Daisy (or Driving Me Crazy, as my husband calls it) with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave...oh how I'd love to see that, but it's a familiar play with familiar actors: a no-brainer.
Now in the spring of 2009, my husband and I saw The Philanthropist, starring Matthew Broderick and Steven Webber; familiar actors, totally unfamiliar play. It came as part of a season package for the Roundabout along with Waiting for Godot and Bye, Bye Birdie. Quite a mixed bag. Anyway, The Philanthropist was unfamiliar territory for me, and I'm not even sure I can tell you what it was about except that it was not about a guy who likes to give away money to charity. When intermission came, about 25% of the audience left, probably because they were confounded. I was worried my husband was really not enjoying it, but he voted to stick it out because there would be a post-show chat with the actors afterwards whereby we might finally know what the play was about. He was right, the Chat Back helped, though Matthew Broderick was dissapointingly absent. I'm sure Waiting for Godot had some walk outs too, people too confused about a play in which almost nothing happens, but I was riveted because somehow I 'got' it, having studied it in college.
I've only had regret when I've left a show (twice in my life), never when I've wanted to but stayed.
Dear Audience: please don't give in to an urge to leave in the middle of a show. You'll only have grumbling disappointment to share with your friends, instead of exercising your mind and enjoying hours of deep discussion afterwards if you stay.