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Mercy Killing
Peter Marks, the Washington Post’s theatre critic, reported Tuesday that Arena Stage postponed its world premiere production of Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas. This postponement follows on the heels of Arena’s earlier postponement of The Women of Brewster Place which was announced in May.
Marks observed that:
“It is not unusual for a theater to postpone or scratch a production, particularly one as technically challenging as a musical. Other Washington theaters have had to shuffle their seasons after concluding that a show wasn't ready or viable. But the postponing in succession of two original musicals -- shows, in this case, announced with some fanfare as creative anchors of the season -- is a much rarer occurrence.�
While Marks may be correct, he ignores a more salient point; it is every bit as rare for a theatre to undertake the premiere of two musicals in one season. Having worked with the principals involved in the decision-making when I worked at Arena Stage, I know that the postponements were made for all the right reasons. Molly Smith and Stephen Richard do not decide whimsically in matters that appear to ding Arena Stage’s credibility. I know them well enough to know that they both were far more disappointed than was Mr. Marks. These are serious people and Peter Marks treats them as if they weren’t.
Maybe Marks has a point. Maybe Arena is ambitious. If -- as is implied in his story -- Arena Stage is struggling to chew what they bite off, is that such a bad thing? I don’t think so. The occasional failure or over-reach signals that an organization is -- at the very least -- trying to do something. It’s not sitting back on its haunches recycling a string of old chestnuts for an audience that vigorously complains about being offered leftovers. And if you don’t think Washingtonian audiences evince a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?� attitude, then it’s obvious you’ve never spent any time listening to them. They’re a tough crowd.
The most important work in which any arts organization can engage is putting new work on the stage. It’s also gut-wrenchingly difficult because everybody who takes this challenge on knows that the odds are against them. Most new works never get a second production. They’re killed in their infancy and everybody participates in the murder: audiences, artists, other theatres’ producers, and critics like Peter Marks who love to play both sides of the street. They’re critical when a theatre isn’t generative, but they’re just as critical, if not more so, when a new work finally opens.
When I read Marks’ reviews, rarely do I read about a newborn play’s potential for becoming something greater. It’s pretty obvious that Peter Marks’ mother never read Hans Christian Anderson to him. When he looks at an ugly duckling, I don’t think he considers whether or not there’s a swan coming with maturity.
In Marks’ defense, he’s a critic writing for a perfectionist newspaper in a perfectionist town: Washington. When it comes to theatre here, good isn’t good enough. And it never will be.
So, if you want to understand why playwrights like Paula Vogel freeze in the play-development process and demand more time, it’s because they know that their new work - something that they give themselves to with an ironic admixture of love, fear, revulsion, struggle, self-doubt, and despair - is likely to be subjected to yet again another mercy-killing at the hands of more conspirators than they can count. They imagine, that maybe with a little more time, they can get the work to its perfect incarnation. The sad thing is that the odds never change, no matter how much time they take.
In my experience - and I spent 20 years working as a professional artist on stage - it is almost impossible to get a new work (play, opera, musical, sonata, or folk ballad) where it needs to go without putting it on stage and working before a live audience. Without that process, all you can do is imagine how it might work. It is impossible to know.
I remember when I produced the commission and world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Litany at the 1994 Oregon Bach Festival, that Arvo rewrote whole sections of the piece a couple of days before the premiere. He was - even at the very end of his own process, dissatisfied with how the tympani part worked. Manfred Eicher, the genius who runs ECM and who, at that time guarded Pärt’s welfare with great vigilance, told me that the commission would never have been accepted were we not in a small, out-of-the-way burg like Eugene, Oregon. They wouldn’t put a new work up in front of critics who write for papers like the Washington Post.
So, Mr. Marks, if you want to know why works get postponed - especially when you think it is so unusual, take a look in the mirror and you’ll find one of the many reasons.
Thank God there are theatre pros who are willing to take chances on giving us something new. Or we’d all be subjected to endless resuscitations of Oklahoma or My Fair Lady. Speaking personally, I would prefer fewer "canon-balls" in my life as an audience member.
Posted on July 28, 2006 10:38 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Great post as always.
Had some comments and thoughts on the subject, but my post started to be just as long as yours. So, in the interest of saving some space, they are posted on my blog at http://quodliphonik.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/some-thoughts-on-critics/.
Looking forward to the next post!