Old, experienced, and anew.
One of the debates currently going on asks “why are we still producing so many OLD plays? Why are we not producing more new plays?”
Last night I was privileged to be working on a play I had done years ago. And though the play itself was familiar to me, and the text much older than I am, it was still powerful. Walking from the theatre, I remembered my initial reaction to it. Despite its familiarity, it was still moving. That is the mark of a great script. When I had originally worked on this play, it was one of the few shows that I would fully watch every performance (those of you who run shows know how rare that is to be just as interested the 30th time as you were the 1st).
I began thinking back to other productions that really struck me. Most are well known, some not so much. But they continue to be produced.
So often in this business, familiarity breeds contempt. Nearly all of us can talk about a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” or “The Glass Menagerie,” or “Godspell,” that we have worked on, and immediately have others in the business share their stories of doing a production of the same show. Depending on the present company, the stories may trend toward problems that happened with technical elements or the actors (if the audience had known that “Anne” delighted in flashing the crew members right before going onstage…). Or it may go in an analytical discussion of the play and the playwright (hated women, totally unrealistic, etc…). This makes for good conversation, but also begins to alienate us from how the work is perceived by the audience.
So let us pause for a moment in our “old script” bashing, and consider why these scripts continue to be produced: because they entertain, educate, and connect with the audience. No artistic director sits down and thinks “hey, that show I saw 15 years ago really stunk. Let’s see if we can make it better.” We continue to produce these same plays because they are good, and the audience responds to them.
Many of us in the business may look at that is being the easy way out. Doing the same shows gets pretty boring after awhile. But there are always people who have never yet experienced a production of “King Lear,” or “Our Town,” or “The Glass Menagerie.” Like it or not, these plays are powerful, and never more so than to someone who it experiencing it for the first time. A good script should not be ignored simply because it is old. And, like several of the shows I watched intently every performance throughout their runs, they were new once, too.
Many of us who have been working in this business tend to grow complacent over time. Even though each show is different, the behind-the-scenes work on each eventually seems repetitive. The floor is still made out of platforms, walls out of flats. Costume building techniques rarely change, new lighting equipment is rarely all that “new”, and sound plots still come in on paper napkins too often to be considered a joke. Eventually, we look at an arguable masterpiece, such as King Lear, as just another show. “Ok, regal to ragged. We’ll need some strobe lights for the storm, and a gross effect for the blinding scene. Rain pipe this time?…” We forget the true story, and we forget the emotion. We need reminders of why we got into this business in the first place.
Last night I had that reminder. On a show that not only was old, but one I had worked on years ago. The story drew you in. The audience could relate to the characters. Despite the setting being dated, the story resonated, and I was fortunate enough to be part of the group of people that was presenting it to that audience.
That is what we are all really working toward. Old or new, the script must resonate. We should certainly support new work, and those companies that only produce new work. But we should not be looking down on those that present older work. What playwright wants their work to only be produced once? A handful of the “new” plays of today will become the old plays of tomorrow, and will be presented again and again if their story still holds up over the years. We should not discard the good simply because it it old. That old play will always be new to someone.
Hudson & Gaines
