Theatre Red

Recently a friend told me if you want to change the world you need to do something more immediate than theatre.

On one level, I have no argument with this. Direct political action and social service are indisputably more important than art. Don’t write a play about the homeless. Volunteer for a soup kitchen.

But on another level, I think my friend’s well meaning comment is only half the truth.

Firstly, our values need to come from somewhere. I believe one place they spring is from our stories.

I believe we should produce theatre that shares beautiful and empowering ways of looking at the world. As I’ve said elsewhere, we need to make theatre that reminds the miserable of happiness and the happy of misery.

We should aim to produce theatre that adds something useful to the cultural toolbox. (Of course, this can be done in many ways besides theatre. Perhaps to have the biggest cultural impact you should create an internet meme.)

Even by doing nothing we have an impact

Perhaps this is an overly sophisticated view. Perhaps we are noble savages, born perfect and corrupted by society. In which case, theatre (and all art) is at best an unpleasant noise, and at worse an inducement to evil.

Which leads me to my second objection to my friend’s well meant comment.

I think everything we do changes the world. Or perpetuates it. The world is made by us. Or, at least, an enormous part of it – the human part. (And increasingly large parts of the non-human world, too. There’s an old joke: everyone complains about the weather, but no-one does anything about it. Human-made climate change has stripped the giggle out of that one.)

Our choices matter. We should choose to be – and to encourage – curiosity and joy, compassion and tolerance. And we should do it in the way we talk, how we vote, in what we choose to eat, how we spend our money, and in the making of our art.

Veronica Kaye

Recently some of my theatre-making friends have been complaining about the standard of reviewing in this city. Not that they’ve been marching in the street about it. And I doubt they’ve sent off any terse emails. They’ve just been grumbling over their post-show drinks.

They’re not complaining that the reviews are unfavourable. They’re complaining that they’re badly written.

What makes a good review?*

Now, that’s a good question. Who gets to determine that?

Now, where are those pigeons?

It’s commonly said, that in their judgement of productions, reviewers can be neither right nor wrong. It’s accepted that their evaluations are subjective.

Clearly, this ‘problem’ also faces anyone attempting to define what a good review should be.

And let me go further. If I was to go to a play determined that it should fit certain parameters or structures I’d be missing the whole point of the creative endeavour. And that, I believe, is also true of writing about theatre.

Theatre is magic making, life giving, world creating. An insistence that reviews be a certain thing is a refusal to play. Don’t be the shy kid who won’t join in.

Veronica Kaye

*I guess they could start by being literate. Though I’m not sure who gets to determine that either.

Hey writer, who is the best person to produce your play? You.

Sure, if Andrew Upton calls, let it go to message bank, and get back to him at your convenience.

Or if some 22 year old with more enthusiasm than ability wants to stage your play in a car park in Fairfield, go for it. (It’s difficult to see you as serious writer if you won’t help mount a production of your play that could be truly awful.)

So why are you the best producer? Because you care. Because you want it to happen. Because you wrote the play to be seen.

I’m not dismissing the people with real skills and experience in the field of producing. If they want to do it, you’d be a fool to stop them. But while you are waiting for that stampede of interest…..

The relative exclusion of the writer from the process is a historical accident. Sophocles was there. Shakespeare was there. Moliere was there. The current division of labour is very bourgeois, and has gone hand in hand with an obsession with status. (Writing that is worthwhile challenges established values, so a writer seeking status is as absurd as a spy wanting recognition.)

But what about the money? I hope you make an absolute heap. And then distribute it to the people who need it. But the obsession to get paid for your work is another bourgeois cultural phenomenon. As is calling it ‘work’. We all need to eat, but if you value your voice only for the cash you can make out of it you’ve allowed it to be reduced to just another commodity. Would government funding or private sponsorship have made the Sermon on the Mount better?

‘But if it was any good wouldn’t someone pay me for it?’ That attitude is loud and clear in our society, and perfectly designed to silence dissent.

Why did you write the play in the first place? If you wrote it in the hope of gaining fame or wealth it’s probably not worth being produced. Our society has heard quite enough of that voice.

But if you wrote it in order to share a vision of life, don’t stop now.

If you wrote it to remind the miserable of happiness, or the happy of misery, don’t stop now.

Veronica Kaye