What Is Theatre?

World Theatre Day  was on March 27. (See Stratford Festival message.) In fact, it was the 50^th World Theatre Day (although John Malkovich’s brief message at UNESCO was trifling compared with Jessica A. Kaahwa’s 2011 message, A Case for Theatre in Service of Humanity).

Wait a minute, World Theatre Day? No one could challenge the validity of World Water Day, because water is a precious resource we all need and which is in a state of crisis and neglect. Who needs theatre. Wait, that is a question, and not a rhetorical one.

Who needs theatre?

I’ve heard it argued that the invention of photography made the art of painting obsolete. “Adios, Picasso; no use for you!” And some would say movies have made theatre obsolete. “Look at the size of that screen! So much bigger than life!” That is what theatre has that movies never will: life.

What is theatre?

Theatre is not just entertainment. Theatre is communication. A movie doesn’t respond to you, but a stage presentation does. Theatre responds to an audience and develops according to that response, over the course of an evening and over the course of the show’s run, and throughout the lifetime of the theatre company. Theatre is immediate and theatre changes. Theatre is change. A movie can get remade, but it will never be a living thing; its changes are static. Change in theatre is organic and interactive.

What I just saw.

I don’t go to see theatre often because, being an unknown playwright, I can’t afford to leave the apartment (in fact, I can’t afford the apartment). But at Word On The Street book festival last year, after agreeing to an exhibitor’s unexpected request that I read with her a scene from a script—out loud to passersby, who passed us by—I was rewarded with tickets to Tarragon Theatre, any show this season. I wanted to see their first show, Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or ‘the vibrator play’, which sounded good, and was nominated in 2010 for a Pulitzer and a Tony Award—but it was a busy month and I couldn’t make the dates.

Nicole Underhay and Rick Roberts in "The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs"
photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

Now a show is on which is expected to win awards (for whatever that’s worth). The English premiere of The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs, by Quebec playwright Carole Fréchette, inspired by the tale of Bluebeard, deserves any award it can get, as far as I’m concerned. Not that it was my favourite play, not that I was moved to tears, not that I would recommend it to everyone; but it “worked”, it entertained, and it made sense.

But what did it mean?

The full 200 seat audience was not stingy with applause, but there was no standing ovation or curtain call. Some gave each other puzzled looks as they put on their coats. On the way out I heard one person ask another “Not to your liking?”

It is easy to dismiss anything that is unfamiliar. And what was unfamiliar about this play was that it didn’t spell things out Hollywood-style. It was like a good poem. It said things in a way that requires a bit of cogitation. It might mean different things to different people, but it should not have been meaningless to a native English speaker. To me, the characters were not the disturbed oddballs that they seemed to be on the surface; they were entirely ordinary people and alarmingly familiar, like some specific people close to me. It helped me reflect on how I, my friends, my family members, may often seem to one another like disturbed oddballs. But that is just on the surface (in many cases).

“Who has time for that?”

Lots of people don’t have time for lots of things that are important. Most people don’t sleep enough, don’t chew their food enough, don’t communicate enough. Yawn, chew, “No time to talk,” chew, yawn. If I don’t make time to make sense of Shakespeare or my parents or siblings, that will be my loss. Theatre is communication. Like understanding family, it is not always easy, but making an effort to understand is time well spent.

Finishing a First Draft for Fringe Festival

Brrr! Is there a draft in here? Damn right there is! First draft of my Fringe Festival eFfort. Cool!

The title of this work is yet to be confirmed (but stay tuned!). It is a comedic drama (as in, “if you don’t laugh, you cry”), which must not exceed 60 minutes in length, to be premiered at the 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival from July 4^th to 15^th. It will be my* third play to be staged, (and my first not to be workshopped by Theatre New Brunswick with actors from Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal). *Unlike my previous plays, which were entirely my own ideas and developed with no outside contribution prior to rehearsal, this Fringe show is based on the writings of Paul Clement and conceived of as a stage show by Daniel Mackay. It is an adaptation and it is very much a collaborative effort. The three of us have met several times to experiment with different approaches to the material, and we will continue to do so now that this draft is finished.

Playwright Tavern, photo Tim Carter

It’s funny to use the word “finished”, though. Any first draft is more like a foundation to build on than a house to start filling with furniture. But this is even more the case with theatre than with other types of writing. A playwright is more of an architect than a painter. Write a piece of prose and you can get feedback, but no matter how many suggestions you heed, the changes are made by the writer. A script, on the other hand, gets filtered through actors and a director. (The exception would be a monodrama scripted and performed by a single creator. And even then, if such a solo artist engages a director or dramaturge, the work becomes a collaboration.)

So, “finished” is misleading. What is finished is the preparation. This stage is not quite the laying of the foundation but the sketching out of the blueprints. Now our creative triumvirate has something to compare notes on. Up to this point, what we had was a wild stallion of a concept which we corralled into a chicken coop of ideas. Now we have a crude block from which we can hew away the chunks that impair a clear view of a vision we hope to share. (Hmm, could I cram another metaphor into this paragraph?)

The significance of having a completed first draft is that we have something tangible to work on. This would be equally true if I were developing this script all on my own, but it is all the more urgent when there is a creative team waiting to get their hands dirty.

For writers who haven’t yet learned the hard way, take it from one who did: It is counterproductive to discuss a partially written draft. (I spent 12 years getting feedback on a partially written novel which I consequently kept re-inventing. Once I stopped discussing it, I finished the draft in six months.) If your baby is not yet able to stand on her own, you can’t ask her to dance for an audience of even one. If she still needs you to hold her up, the onlooker won’t see her dance but will just see her dangling there. You can discuss an idea, and you can discuss a first draft—which has a thread you can pull on and twist and tie in knots and still follow how one end connects to the other—but you can’t discuss a partial draft because it is as vulnerable as a half-born fetus.

Showing a half-written draft would be like showing a half-finished haircut, so hold off the unveiling until there are no more “and then a miracle happens” gaps that need filling in. Especially in a play, you need to be able to explain why this happens at this point and that happens at that point because, if not, even the most well-intentioned listener can crush your fetal idea by asking what your point is.

The draft has been presented. Will it be tackled by builders or the wrecking ball?

Yes, Shatner is Canadian!

You might know who “Beverley” Leslie Jordan is, even if you don’t know you know him. The 55-year-old comedic actor steals scenes on stage, film, and television (best known as “Beverley Leslie”, nemesis of Karen Walker on Will & Grace). He flies into Toronto tomorrow for one night to perform a one-man show tailored to the audience, a fundraiser for the CLGA. In honour of Jordan’s Boston Legal co-star William Shatner and last night’s “Genies“, here is part of the interview:

You’ve worked with William Shatner. Can you name the awards show he’s hosting?
No!

The Genies.
What is it?

Like the Canadian version of the Oscars.
Wow! Is William Shatner Canadian? I enjoyed working with him. I like him. He’s funny.

Would you ever want to host the Oscars, or would it be easier just to win one?
Oh Gosh! I don’t want to host one, I don’t want to win one, I don’t want to be nominated for one. I went to the Emmys once. It was the most nerve wracking thing. It was torture. I mean, you’re not going to get any sympathy: “I had to go to the Emmys and I won. Poor me!” But I’m telling you, at one point I thought I was having a heart attack.

Will there come a time when being gay is as widely accepted as being left-handed, and what would it take to get there?
I can’t believe you just said that! I’ve always said that I would love for a parent to say, “I think my child is going to turn out gay” the way you say, “I think my child is going to be left-handed.” Not so much with pride or shame, just that it is.

Read the rest at Post City online http://www.postcity.com/
http://www.postcity.com/Eat-Shop-Do/Do/March-2011/Loud-and-proud-Leslie-Jordan-at-Hart-House/