Theatre criticism is as wanting for depth as artists are for disclosure
A guest blog by Chris Torma
Is it possible that this week’s courageous production of Edward Albee’s play, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, could be the most important piece of theatre presented for Missoula audiences during this ’08-‘09 season? Certainly Yes.
Among other things, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? questions our culture’s morality in a spirit similar to that which Albee described in response to criticism of another of his works, The American Dream (1960). “This play is an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation, and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen.”
Can this week’s production of the work of a three-time Drama Desk Award Winner, three-time Tony Award Winner, and three-time Pulitzer Prize Winner, artfully staged and performed as a contemporary adaptation of the style of emotionally elevated Greek tragedy to which Albee’s storytelling pays homage, hope to achieve its rightful plane of significance if the culture of critics in our community limits its scope of this acclaimed dramatic work to its gossamer veil of “taboo themes” and most easily noticeable plot devices? Certainly No.
As Neil LaBute asserts in his play, The Shape of Things, there has got to be a line between creating art and just needing attention. Missoula audiences are wont to agree with him. So, news articles that do not actually educate audiences, other than to leave them with the impression that they might be uncomfortable after an evening of theatre, can lead many to be understandably resistant to take part in the event.
I believe that the level of thoughtful commitment that I witness being given to this production and many others of late, by its professional and/or scholarly participants, warrants an equal deepening of critical perspective regarding these works from our journalistic society.
Granted, it is extremely difficult for many a theatre artist to articulate his or her process and its magnitude until involvement in the production of a work such as The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? has ended, because the vicissitude inherent to realism lends itself to the sense of uncertainty that is central to the experience of participating in live theatre. This self-defeating habit of guarded secrecy is something that I have lately been challenging my friends and colleagues in the theatre, as well as myself, to break. For it is unreasonable to insist on a greater and more vital degree of thoughtful criticism from our community unless we are willing and intrepid to put forward to its journalists news of our creative ideas and speak with candor about the authenticity of the work that we are doing from moment to moment.
I am encouraged to have noticed a boon of insightful analysis published in the Independent and the Missoulian in the past few years. Joe Nickell is spot-on when he mentions at nickellbag.com that he “gets thanks from [theatre artists] for marking the legitimacy of their efforts with [his] thoughts,” and the emergence of Erika Fredrickson’s deeply reflective interest in the timely relevance of theatre is an emboldening inspiration to the dynamism that exists at the core of every creative artist.
This local advancement in criticism must be sustained. It is a vital facet and steward of the continual professional development and social consequence of Missoula’s theatre artists.
Is it possible that this week’s courageous production of Edward Albee’s play, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, could be the most important piece of theatre presented for Missoula audiences during this ’08-‘09 season? Certainly Yes.
Among other things, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? questions our culture’s morality in a spirit similar to that which Albee described in response to criticism of another of his works, The American Dream (1960). “This play is an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation, and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen.”
Can this week’s production of the work of a three-time Drama Desk Award Winner, three-time Tony Award Winner, and three-time Pulitzer Prize Winner, artfully staged and performed as a contemporary adaptation of the style of emotionally elevated Greek tragedy to which Albee’s storytelling pays homage, hope to achieve its rightful plane of significance if the culture of critics in our community limits its scope of this acclaimed dramatic work to its gossamer veil of “taboo themes” and most easily noticeable plot devices? Certainly No.
As Neil LaBute asserts in his play, The Shape of Things, there has got to be a line between creating art and just needing attention. Missoula audiences are wont to agree with him. So, news articles that do not actually educate audiences, other than to leave them with the impression that they might be uncomfortable after an evening of theatre, can lead many to be understandably resistant to take part in the event.
I believe that the level of thoughtful commitment that I witness being given to this production and many others of late, by its professional and/or scholarly participants, warrants an equal deepening of critical perspective regarding these works from our journalistic society.
Granted, it is extremely difficult for many a theatre artist to articulate his or her process and its magnitude until involvement in the production of a work such as The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? has ended, because the vicissitude inherent to realism lends itself to the sense of uncertainty that is central to the experience of participating in live theatre. This self-defeating habit of guarded secrecy is something that I have lately been challenging my friends and colleagues in the theatre, as well as myself, to break. For it is unreasonable to insist on a greater and more vital degree of thoughtful criticism from our community unless we are willing and intrepid to put forward to its journalists news of our creative ideas and speak with candor about the authenticity of the work that we are doing from moment to moment.
I am encouraged to have noticed a boon of insightful analysis published in the Independent and the Missoulian in the past few years. Joe Nickell is spot-on when he mentions at nickellbag.com that he “gets thanks from [theatre artists] for marking the legitimacy of their efforts with [his] thoughts,” and the emergence of Erika Fredrickson’s deeply reflective interest in the timely relevance of theatre is an emboldening inspiration to the dynamism that exists at the core of every creative artist.
This local advancement in criticism must be sustained. It is a vital facet and steward of the continual professional development and social consequence of Missoula’s theatre artists.
by Chris Torma
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