John Whiting (1917-1963)
Unlike a recent commenter on this blog, I still believe in the necessity for the purpose-built structure for theatre, the stage; I even believe in the ability of the single-set, small-cast play to provide a powerful theatrical experience. I don’t even rule out realism as a vehicle for this experience. To close the week, a few thoughts from British dramatist John Whiting, which have some applicability to the themes of the past few days. These can be found in a collection of Whiting’s writings on theatre, At Ease in a Bright Red Tie (Oberon Books, 1999), in some selections from Whiting’s notebook of 1960:
There is a lot of talk nowadays about new stages; the things on which plays are performed. And every time, whether the platform concerned is set in an arena, or is a forestage, a space stage (whatever that may be), or a guess at an Elizabethan stage, a word always crops up. The word is “intimacy.” This, I take it, means a close emotional and intellectual contact between actor and spectator. It is always thought to be a good thing. Is it?
I suppose it is part of the times. We huddle together in life, and seem to think that we shall understand better if we lie in each other’s laps. So it is natural to believe that an actor will communicate more if we can stretch out and touch him.
But, my God, there is power in the remote, isolated figure neither giving nor asking for understanding or love. Isn’t it, perhaps, the power of the theatre, to which a return must be made sooner or later? I may be wrong. We shall have to wait and see.
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The purpose of art is to raise doubt: the purpose of entertainment is to reassure.
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The play can be a remarkably pure form. I find it strange that so many playwrights now introduce song and dance. Or is it the directors? Historical precedence is often invoked. Am I the only person who reaches for his hat when the actors begin to chant and hop?
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Fallacy: that any art is infinitely communicable to an unlimited number of people.
Hi George: I just read your commentator, and thought that Joshua wasn’t so much speaking against the structure/architecture (rock’n'roll uses stages just as much as theatre) so much as the hidebound institutions that seem to go with the theatres, certainly from your descriptions of what is happening in US theatre. I love stages: I even harbour a fondness for the curtain (which I’ve seen used in fabulous ways in contemporary theatre). But surely if theatre institutions are resistant to interesting work, in favour of commercial imperatives, the only choice is to find alternative ways of making it, to find those audiences outside the institutions? If not necessarily without the stage itself. Or did I misunderstand?
I would hope that this was not the only choice, not least because things like alternative spaces or rock clubs aren’t associated with theatre and drama to most minds, not to many people who don’t go to the theatre. Not to mention that not every play or drama would work well in such spaces. I love not only stages, but theatre buildings: the hum of the lobby, the technical resources available.
Interestingly, the artistic directors of the theatres themselves described in the report don’t necessarily want to be hidebound, but feel constrained (rightly or wrongly) by a variety of factors, not the least of which are their boards (which the report discusses at some length, though I didn’t have the time or space to do so here) and funding difficulties largely beyond their control. I am willing to believe that many are making good-faith efforts and would not want to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. The fact is that the work now being produced in these alternative spaces, to become accessible to a broader audience and provide the dramatist with at least the possibility of greater economic and critical support, needs the mid-level presentation facilities that these institutional theatres provide.
Hi George – boards, funding and whatnot are what I meant by the institution rather than the architecture… If their very nature militates against the theatre, then you’re faced with a Gordian knot. Institutional theatres can only flourish as centres of non-commercial work if both the funding and will are present: almost everywhere, this can only occur when there is state funding. State funding internationally is under pressure, and in some cases disappearing: and what you’re left with in its absence is a commercial model to support the institutions. From what you say, that is more or less the norm in the US. I thought it interesting that your correspondent said that there were audiences out there, If that’s the case, maybe that’s not so bad: maybe in fact you have to go outside that institutional space to find those broader audiences. And people always have always made their own theatres when they needed to (La Catoucherie, La Mama, etc). Making virtue out of necessity, I guess.