Hi George - thanks for that wonderful and illuminating essay (I too was
taken aback by "essentialist", wondering what you meant, so I'm glad you
elucidated...)
It's a different story here, but in some ways the upshot has been the same:
a tunnel-vision concentration on the "craft" of playwriting, meaning
workshops with an eye to audience-pandering, and so innovative theatre
artists have gone off the word, thinking of the playwright - in some cases,
quite rightly - as a paranoid tyrant who really hates the theatre....and
this to the loss of both theatre practice and writing. (There's a wonderful
essay by Robert Musil on precisely this question of the place writing in
theatre - obviously the sacking of the writer is a regular occurrence - do
you know it?) In the end it has meant that many of our more interesting
writers - Margaret Cameron, et al - performer/writers. But we do (for the
moment) have government-funded arts, which at least provides some space and
even decent spaces for innovative practice, which sounds a little more
difficult there in NYC.
All best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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