Drama

The critics problem

If you go to plays fairly often, its inevitable that you will occasionally walk in on something that is so bad you can hardly believe it. Usually, you walk straight out again and dismiss it from your mind. It has simply been a waste of time and money, there's nothing more to be said. But when the play attempted is 'one of the greats'—when the text is rich in dramatic possibilities and none of these are exploited, your reaction is going to be slightly more complex; As it happens, I did finally walk out of the Drama Society's production of Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'—but not before anger and disgust had succeeded irritation and boredom. I'm not going to talk about the production at all. Thankfully, its run has now finished and anyway there's nothing to say, its nothing more than insulting when the actors don't know their lines—so carry their texts on stage. What does concern me is my feeling, after such a production, that no theatre is better than bad theatre; the question, why bother? 'Waiting for Godot' was particularly incompetent, but the faults there demonstrated; are not isolated phenomena. They are characteristic, to a greater or lesser extent, of most of the theatre you see in this country. Probably the faults can be summarised here as a simple lack of elementary techniques.

Sometime, if you're working as a critic, you have to confront this question of what to do, how to react, when the badness confronts you. You have to ask yourself what the function of a critic is and how you can best exercise that function. They're not by any means new questions, which only means there are no answers apart from those that can be arrived at from a consideration of the immediate context of the things that are happening or not happening here, New Zealand, now, 1974.

First off, I don't think a reviewer ever persuades many people to go to a play they would not have otherwise seen. This can perhaps happen if there is a wide choice of things to sec and a large body of people accustomed to attending a variety of is pes of theatre. Audiences here are smaller, more habitual. Its possible to sec everything put on in Wellington without much demand on your time. Second, if you're writing for a paper like Salient, most of the time you don't even reach a large body of those who do go to the theatre. So 1 can't and don't feel that my immediate responsibility is to the public, whatever the public may be. If anyone reads this column, they'll be reading it because they're already involved in the theatre in some capacity—either they've seen the play or had something to do with putting it on or the theatre is one of their interests. In a review you give an opinion/response/judgement against which they measure their own. It would be foolish to think that by such means you can arrive at some decision as to the plays merit and meaning. That is not the point and should never be thought to be the point. Criticism is activity, is feedback, it must be open-ended.

From that it follows that the critic himself must be open to whatever a play is doing or trying to do. Ideally, you go along without any particular expectations. What you try to cultivate is a certain readiness for experience, a desire and an ability to participate in what happens (by which I do not mean you must be ready to shout, weep and dance about the theatre—there are many responses, appropriate to many situations. Leaping on to the stage may be one; silence is just as surely another.) Side by side with this readiness there must be somewhere an awareness of the possibilities inherent in the medium. I mean, you must have some idea of what the theatre could be, what it should be, perhaps what it must be. When you recognise that theatre is almost always going to be a disappointment, you must have recourse to the idea of an ideal theatre. Ideal in the sense that it answers ones highest conception of what is possible. The hardest thing is to maintain your belief that this can happen when faced with so much that is dull or merely proficient or just uncompetent. Peter Brook has this to say of the critic: 'If he spends most of his time grumbling, he is almost always right,' (in a Pelican Book, 'The Empty Space'. Many of the ideas I'm expressing here can be found in this book—and a great deal more as well). If you can imagine, however fitfully, how good it could be, your obvious duty is to do all you can to bring about the conditions in which the theatre can best work. Equally, you must try and identify what in any particular production, is working towards this end, and what is obstructing it. This necessarily involves a great deal of 'grumbling', a great deal of negative criticism. I would much rather be nice about the things I see. But it is too easy to end up protecting your own need for theatre by pretending there is something on the stage to hang onto. The only honesty is in saying yes to those things that will push the theatre in the direction it must go.

As to what I call the ideal theatre—what would it be like? Well, I have never seen it manifested, perhaps I never will. In some obscure way I would expect it to define itself through the act of theatre, of performance. I don't think it's my place to outline its characteristics. I'm not sure that I could; and anyway I don't see much use in talking of rigour and intensity and shared experience. Something of what I mean was there every time I saw Theatre Action play. Certainly, it cannot begin to exist without a working command of, a continual striving after, the techniques the theatre has as its disposal—in terms of writing, directing, design etc, as well as acting.

Just as crucial is the activity of the audience. Their responsibility is as great; they are as necessary a part of the theatre as those more obviously involved in production. In a way, everything I have said about the critic, the characteristics and abilities he must cultivate, apply to every member of an audience. While/me performance is on, while the theatre is happening, every person should be as attuned and responsible and as intelligent in his responses, as the critic must be. The only difference between them, is that the critic will be writing something down afterwards. That's all.

I suppose the effort involved, the effort necessary is stupendous, almost overwhelming. Peter Brook again: To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is no work any more.'