A few days ago Matt Trueman’s “Can theatre be too clever for its own good?” appeared at the Guardian theatre blog. As usual, the headline doesn’t quite do the piece justice, but Matt discusses “how much theatre can expect of us, its audience” — a broad question, maybe too broad. Matt’s main point is the shared cultural presumptions of an audience and a theatremaker, but perhaps the issue goes deeper:

Ought it to presume nothing and explain everything? Should it treat us like idiots by playing to the lowest common denominator? Of course not. To insist on such mollycoddling would be to outlaw anything that does more than scratch the surface. However, theatre has a responsibility to be accessible. It is, after all, as much about the communication of ideas as it is about the ideas themselves.

In which case one must ask: what about difficult or surprising ideas, ideas that undermine what the audience member may or may not bring with them into the theatre in the first place, ideas that beggar easy communication? In this case, incomprehension may lead to new insights. If the theatre is merely charged with telling us what we already know, what place imagination?

What is accessible to Matt may not be accessible to me, and vice versa, and this is dependent not only on our cultural knowledge, our schooling or our individual philosophies, our preconceptions and prejudices, but on our openness to new theatrical experience — or music, or plastic art — as well. Asking artists to cater to both of us, as he points out, cripples the artist. But this is the fallacy in considering an audience as one large mass rather than a collection of individuals.

To answer the post’s question with a simple uncomplicated “yes” is to guarantee a simple uncomplicated theatre that tells audience members what they already know, and this is not what we ask of art. Howard Barker’s response in the poem below is “no” — and not a simple, uncomplicated no, and it has to do with more than mere cleverness. The poem is the first prologue to The Bite of the Night, and though I believe I’ve posted it before, it’s worth remembering:

They brought a woman from the street
And made her sit in the stalls
By threats
By bribes
By flattery
Obliging her to share a little of her life with actors

But I don’t understand art

Sit still, they said

But I don’t want to see sad things

Sit still, they said

And she listened to everything
Understanding some things
But not others
Laughing rarely, and always without knowing why
Sometimes suffering disgust
Sometimes thoroughly amazed
And in the light again said

If that’s art I think it is hard work
It was beyond me
So much of it beyond my actual life

But something troubled her
Something gnawed her peace
And she came a second time, armoured with friends

Sit still, she said

And again, she listened to everything
This time understanding different things
This time untroubled that some things
Could not be understood
Laughing rarely but now without shame
Sometimes suffering disgust
Sometimes thoroughly amazed
And in the light again said

That is art, it is hard work

And one friend said, too hard for me
And the other said if you will
I will come again

Because I found it hard I felt honoured