Now that my cotton-ball head is unwinding some(!) - the way physical theater
and its actors (including all manner of 'contact improv') abandoned the
'authoritarian' play (in the late sixties) led to the movement spreading
into either modern dance and/or solo performance art (probably paralleled by
the emergence of 'singer-songwriters'). The All in One Package.
But it seems to me as most interesting were the folks who still 'main-lined'
well worked texts (scripts) but let the body explore and max out on the
gestural properties of the language. A big bang for the play's buck. La Mama
was great in that mode.
Yet, I suspect Alison is both knowledgeable and right - the box office plus
I suspect abuse of audiences by narcissistic physical theater folks
(remember, as well, 'audience participation'?) put a quick end to
theatrical group created plays. Indeed, contact improv much more fun to do
than look at, etc.
In San Francisco there is a still very successful vein of performance
art/plays by real virtousos (Charlie Varon, Geof Hoyle and his son Daniel,
Joshua Kornbuth, and several others). Of course there is much advantage for
the presenter to have only one actor and his/her Director to pay.
Stephen V
> 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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