So Much for the Granta
Dan picked up this post from Ed.
The question of whether Osborne is a seminal figure or not has me wondering whether theatre is still something of a troubled medium. I’ve remarked upon this before, but, here in San Francisco, I find it particularly disheartening to see a lot of theatre people catering to audiences, resorting to staged adaptations of films (Evil Dead Live) and even television (the Dark Room’s Twilight Zone productions) to get young people into the seats.
What this suggests to me is that something which confronts will be either viewed as bad performance art (and let’s face it: much of it is) or it will be ignored by audiences looking for some comfort zone: essentially, a reproduction of something that can be seen on their televisions at home. Because of this, I wonder if an Albee or an Osborne is even possible outside of New York. Then again, perhaps not. When the top Broadway draws are The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Spamalot, what hope is there for the next wave of brash young playwrights who hope to present original material?
I really can’t agree with this. As someone who regularly attends theater in the San Francisco Bay Area, this just doesn’t equate with what I actually experience.
First off, there’s the relatively well-endowed, stately theaters like the Berkeley Rep and the ACT. These are the ones who are beneficiaries of the major charities (like The Evelyn and Walter J. Haas Jr Fund — basically all the names you hear read off in between segments on NPR). However, despite their rather substantial institutional support and position at more or less the top of the Bay Area theater food chain, these places put on some very interesting performances.
At the Berkeley Rep, I recently saw a one-woman show that contained nine separate Iraqi characters. There was also this play by Culture Clash. I even saw one-man monologues by the likes of Josh Kornbluth, definitely not your standard dull theater personage. I’ve seen plays based on the notebooks of Lenardo Da Vinci (acrobatic and non-narrative), plays based on a postmodern combination of German fables.
And that’s just the Berkeley Rep. At the ACT I’ve seen other experimental one-person performances. I’ve seen Stoppard. Mamet. Frayn. William Saroyan’s The Time Of Your Life (definitely not your typical theater). Last season I saw a balletic, non-spoken adaptation of Gogol’s short story "The Overcoat." The ACT does Ibsen.
All that, and we’re just talking the Bay Area’s two richest, best-known theaters. Look around, however, and you find a ton more theater virtually everywhere. There’s the Shotgun Players, definitely not your typical theater group, Impact Theater, the SF Playhouse. The California Shakespeare Festival, doing some of the most interesting interpretations of Shakespeare around. Over 300 in all. I’ve attended performances by many of them, and I guarantee they’re doing theater, not some TV-ripoff. Entertaining, challengning theater that makes me want to stay in my seat, not run into the street.
It’s just not true that theater in the Bay Area is some derivitave of TV and film. It’s just not true that there isn’t a ton of challenging, interesting theater available in the Bay Area. Occasionally there’s a guaranteed crowd-pleaser like Urinetown, but far more often, there’s interesting, edgy, entertaining, valid stuff.
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Is it possible Scott, that there’s room here in your post for both ideas?
I didn’t read Ed’s full post, but from what you enter here I see two comments:
“… something which confronts will … be ignored byaudiences looking for some comfort zone” and
“a lot of theatre people catering to audiences.”
In your response, while pointing out all of the fantastic theatre avaialble in the Bay Area, you toss off the following three comments after refering to an individual exciting artist or production company:
“defintely not your standard dull theatre personage”;
“(definitely not your typical theatre)”; and
“…definitely not your typical theatre group, …”
It seems that you are agreeing with Ed that a lot of theatre, or at least that’s what I consider typical to be, the normal or the mean, is of the non-exciting nature that you’ve been able to discover.
Dan,
Perhaps I phrased things poorly above. I definitely did not mean that most of the theater I’ve found is non-exciting. Quite the opposite.
What I meant to say was that I found a lot of very exciting theater and very little non-exciting theater. What I meant by “not your typical theater” is that it is innovative, challengning, and entertianing. In other words, anything but a derivative of TV/film; exciting stuff that has kept me coming back to theater for several years.
Actually Scott, the thought did occur to me that you were pointing out that the majority of what you were seeing in the Bay Area was not what “one” would consider “typical theatre.”
Though, I must admit, and maybe it’s from coming through the Ann Arbor area, that I consider folks like Stoppard and Mamet typical theatre. Or at least something that isn’t far from the mainstream.
enjoy,
First off, it may be a personal idiosynchrancy of mine, but any post which doesn’t refer to “theatre” (as opposed to the more pedestrian spelling “theater”) is inherently suspect. :)
As was evidenced by the examples cited in my original post, I was talking specifically about young innovators who operate in slapdash venues — i.e., those who perform at the Dark Room, the Exit, the Shotwell and the like. Perhaps such rough-and-tumble art might be too much for someone who doesn’t exactly hit the Mission or the Tenderloin on a regular basis (where most of these theatres are located). But I truthfully subscribe more to Dan’s post that there’s room for both ideas here. It seems that we are agreeing that there is a lot of non-exciting theatre.
As it so happens, being a playwright and a director myself and an off-and-on member of Theatre Bay Area, I have an intimate knowledge of the local theatre scene and count many within as my friends. As I observed in the thread over at Dan’s, I failed to account for such local innovators as Liebe Wietzel, whose “Luantique Fantastique” productions are particularly interesting shows. But I should also note that Jane Chen’s Chinese Clown Cabaret and the Oui Be Negros improv group are putting out solid shows, and if you haven’t seen the mugwumpin group (which I believe is still local), you’re truly missing out. They’ve put out some of the most inventive theatre around.
The Bay Area is certainly a hotbed of theatrical talent: people have ideas and ambition. Listen to Michael Rice’s excellent theatre podcast Cool as Hell Theatre and you’ll see much of it documented there.
This still does not take away from the basic premise — that venues far below ACT/CSF level must resort to pop cultural sources in order to attract audiences. Without naming anyone specific, this is precisely what a few artistic directors have told me. This is why, for example, the Twilight Zone series over at the Dark Room is now in its third year. Evil Dead Live was extended, extended and extended again because the demand was there.
But aside from these unfortunate economics, one of the reasons I’m complaining about non-exciting theatre is probably because, based on the cozy (but by no means unremarkable) venues you list above, I suspect that I take more chances in my theatregoing than you do.
Dan,
Agreed–Mamet and Stoppard are part of the mainstream these days. I tossed them in more to indicate that there’s a range of stuff going on–from established playwrights like Stoppard, to newer people like Kornbluth.
But still, I’d say that Stoppard and Mamet are far above derivative and that their stuff constitutes good theater that is wholly separate from TV/film knockoffs.
Ed,
I’ll try to ignore your personal insults and respond to the substance of your remarks.
You wrote that you’re “wondering whether theatre is still something of a troubled medium.” Later, you wrote that “When the top Broadway draws are The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Spamalot, what hope is there for the next wave of brash young playwrights who hope to present original material?”
These remarks make clear that you were not limiting yourself to smaller, indie venues in your original post.
Yes, some venues rely on pop cultural references for some of their programs. My point wasn’t that something like the “Twilight Zone” series at the Dark Room (which I’ve enjoyed performances at) doesn’t exist, but that there’s more than enough good stuff going on elsewhere that isn’t based on popular TV programs. You seem to agree with that.
My larger point was that I’ve seen the good stuff at theaters large and small, wealthy and not, which I think is a very healthy sign for Bay Area theater and theater in general.
Scott: The intention of my comment was not to insult, but to be playful (hence the smiley face and the parenthetical aside), although I certainly see how the last paragraph and a few other points could be misconstrued as insulting. In any event, I’m sorry that you felt insulted and apologize for any misunderstanding.
To clarify the larger point (and again it seems I was deficient in articulating), I was trying to insinuate that small-venue theatre programming was a microcosm of the Broadway trend for lavish movie-inspired productions. Both ends of the spectrum deal with this question of economics and must produce shows accordingly. This is not to suggest that good theatre isn’t being produced. People hardly go into theatre for the money. :)
Ed,
Thanks for the clarification and the apology.
Regarding the theater–I think we agree more than disagree on this.
Hi, my name is Robert Selander. I am the Co-President of The Primitive Screwheads Theatre Co. We are the company who produced Evil Dead: Live. I have performed many times at the Dark Room as well. I would like to input my perspective on this topic.
Shows like Evil Dead: Live -in my opinion- do not hurt San Francisco’s theatre economy in any way. I feel that, if anything, they help it grow and reach a broader base. I like to think of my shows as “theatre for people who hate theatre” When you walk into a Primitive Screwheads show, you don’t see the usual types you would at ACT. The people who come to my shows never go, or never have gone, or never would go to legitimate theatre production. They have no idea what great work is being produced outside of mainstream movies and television. What we are doing is helping people see that there are other venues for entertainment. Not just movies and TV. If a person sees one of our shows they are much more likely to see a show at Berkley Rep or ACT. They’ve seen their first live show outside of a rock concert, and now have been opened to more and better entertainment. They will go and see shows of other small theatre companies. They will stop watching TV, and they will see less movies.
Our shows help the theatre community revive its shrinking audience. We lure people who would never see a shakespearian play, or who would think that a Mamet is a small rodent out to see something better. We are not the enemy. We are not taking away from other companies. We are helping.