By Charles Brousse
Writing last week’s review of the Shotgun Players’ production of Hamlet got me thinking about a trend that I’ve been watching for some time. Call it postmodernism or whatever you prefer, we in America are living in an age when aesthetic standards that have shaped human culture for millennia are being challenged or discarded in the creation of new work, and existing art is often “de-constructed”—literally torn apart—and then either discarded, or reassembled to reflect contemporary values.
This has happened in other countries for political or religious reasons. Think Nazi Germany, China during the Cultural Revolution, Italy and Spain during the high tide of Catholic influence, the Bolshevik-dominated Soviet Union and today’s warring tribes of the Middle East. With us, it may simply be weariness with the old order, a desire to create something fresh and original, that explains radical departures from tradition like Shotgun’s Hamlet. Cutting and rearranging portions of Shakespeare’s plays has been standard practice over the centuries, and “concept” productions like James Dunn’s Wild West version of The Taming of the Shrew that originated at the College of Marin have been increasingly popular. But Shotgun’s decision to have audience members draw the names of actors and the roles they will be playing from a plastic skull prior to every performance, goes a step further, crossing an important line.
“Casting by lottery” might be dismissed as an interesting but ultimately unsuccessful experiment—which I think it is—were it not for the fact that in program notes, interviews and press releases, Shotgun’s producers claim that audiences and the author are better served when the emphasis is entirely on the script, rather than who is playing what character. The contention is that random casting “democratizes” the experience by allowing us to perceive a variety of meanings through the eyes of actors who, because of their varied age, gender, training, appearance and skill level would perhaps not normally occupy the roles.
I find that hard to understand. It denies the symbiotic relationship between text and interpreter that has always been present in live theater. Every play gains from being well acted; some are even rescued from their otherwise fatal defects by this. Yet, Shotgun’s effort received a rapturous reception on the evening I attended, and I haven’t found any negative reviews among bloggers and critics. So—what’s going on? My guess is that, ironically, with this and other ill-considered attempts at novelty, we may be nearing the end of Shakespeare’s hegemony in the United States.
You may not realize it, but for about 75 years now, a 17th century English playwright has ruled our domestic theatrical landscape. Great as the Bard admittedly is, that is a very long time. Back in the 1920s, those who longed to see the emergence of an American national theater were encouraged by the advent of Eugene O’Neill, whose Long Day’s Journey Into Night and other plays set a high standard for homegrown drama. That aspiration continued to strengthen during the ’30s and ’40s, fed by writers like Clifford Odets, Lillian Hellman, Thornton Wilder, John Steinbeck and William Saroyan, whose diverse visions of life in the U.S. were birthed in New York and then sent out to regional and local playhouses. Its apex was the late-’40s’ arrival of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, who for about a decade and a half dominated the American theater scene like the Pillars of Hercules. Since then, not much.
The Denver Post’s list of “The 10 Most Important American Plays,” published in 2010, ended, chronologically, with Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(1962). More recent compilations have added David Mamet’s 1975 American Buffalo and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1983). Meanwhile, the number of Shakespeare productions has steadily grown. According to American Theatre magazine, during the month of April alone, they were more than double those of any writer. Add in the summer festivals and it’s no contest.
So much for the dream of an indigenous national theater. The reasons for this and why there may be a new era emerging for local producers (including those in Marin) will be explored in Part 2 of this series.
