Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Peter Craven's Total Bullshit

Here is a link. Read it then read on.

http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-trouble-with-australian-theatre-20090930-gbkn.html

In his article Peter Craven derides a new trend he percieves in Australian theatre, a trend which he lables as "talented directors who feel they are above realism and well-made plays." Talented directors like Benedict Andrews and Barrie Kosky. According to Craven their productions War of the Roses, Season At Sarsparilla and Women of Troy are some of the worst offenders in a director led revolt against the text. He suggests that these directors "often...cut their teeth with student theatre and have been too narcissistic to grow up" and indeed that "It's much easier to treat student actors like puppets and to improvise a text than it is to treat Judy Davis like that. Most cut-and-paste postmodern tinkerings with classics make Joanna Murray-Smith look like Racine on a good day"

As a burgeoning director, working at present in student productions, cutting my teeth as it were: I think Peter Craven is full of shit. His article shows a willing blindness to new playwrighting, an obvious penchant for the naturalistic and perhaps worst of all an outdated attitude to the artform itself. Poisonous attitudes such as his are what stunts the theatrical community, and are not (as i'm sure he sees it) a heroic belief of the sanctity of illusion. Any person working in the artform that dismisses the work of Robert Wilson as "mime-oriented experimentalism" is not only ill-informed and a lazy researcher but a complete fucking idiot, and the fact that his pompous wank of an article was published at all is what is indicative of real issues in Australian theatre.

His article bears several similarities with David Williamson's back earlier in the year, in which the big DW accused the STC of only programming capital T theatre, the theatre of Barrie Kosky. At the time on theperf I accused DW of being an antiquated tit-mouse, not knowing what a tit-mouse was, but finding the insult fitting nevertheless. Since finding out a tit-mouse is actually a small insect-eating passerine bird of the family Paridae, found in woodland areas throughout the world, maybe i missed the mark a little. But I think the sentitment was still there and as such I would like to declare that Peter Craven is too, an utter tit-mouse.

What he is suggesting about student theatre is so patronisingly infruiating that it needs to be explored further. I think that (in between the lines) he's calling me young, telling me to grow up, get a real job, get into realism, direct Joanna Murray-Smith, forget about Sarah Kane, forget about Performance Space, Romeo Castellucci and The Black Lung, forget about 3xsisters and Marius Von Mayenburg, forget about the Sydney Front and Robert Lepage and Open City, you'll grow out of it, wake up to yourself, tuck your shirt in, all the people you admire are not artists but arrogant wankers, what you like will take you nowhere, give up the dream, give it away, theatre is not for you Mark Rogers, you who cannot write for the stage and as such must to find other ways of communicating, theatre is not for you, it for other people, it is for Joanna Murray-Smith and for the big DW, it is a literary theatre where you Mark Rogers have no place.

Well Peter... get fucked.
I direct plays, plays written by writers, but I try to bring to plays written by writers an attention to aesthetic detail, an interest in formal innovation, an awareness of the power of direct audience contact, a willingness to delve into abstraction, a search for some kind of truth however we get there, a hope not to create a theatre that has been perfected, but one that is ever evolving and fluid, one that listens to the artists around it and filling it and one that doesn't simply put all the faith into one individual writer. Theatre is made by many people, not one, and they are all important.

I listened to a radio national podcast of Edward Albee's recent talk at STC a while ago and when he said that directors are interpretive artists and not creative artists (or something to that effect) i thought; how interesting to hear this kind of statement, he thinks about it like a heirachy, wow, that's not the way people think anymore. But obviously I was wrong. Peter Craven does.

Now that was a rant, yes. But am I unjustified? Is this what he's saying? Shoud I just wake up to myself and get my hands on a copy of Don's Party? What does everyone else think? Please comment, I need to talk about this.

44 comments:

miss.maddie.meds said...

As much as I dislike discussing theatre, I agree 100% with you. I think this comment:

'It's much easier to treat student actors like puppets and to improvise a text than it is to treat Judy Davis like that. Most cut-and-paste postmodern tinkerings with classics make Joanna Murray-Smith look like Racine on a good day'

is possibly one of the most offensive things someone could say about student theatre, and as a student studying theatre myself I am actually just as outraged and offended by this out of date naturalism lover's opinions are you are.

Joe said...

Ripe time for my favourite Muller qoute:
“This is where I see a possibility: to use the theatre for very small groups... in order to produce imaginative space. Free spaces for imagination- against this very imperialism of occupying and stifling the imagination with prefabricated clichés and the standards of the media. I think this is a prime political task, even if the content doesn't have anything to do with the political cir-cumstances. ... It does not matter in the first place how or what those free spaces for imagination are made up of, if the content is bad or good, this is pretty much irrelevant.”

I think your comment about him doing his research is very important... Craven is either completely unaware of, or indeed seems to just ignore the overwhelming ouvre of theory that would otherwise reveal his seemingly very poor understanding of theatre's ability to actively explore not merely itself, as he imlpies, but entire worldviews, socially, artistically and personally. Constructing a counter-argument to present to him would not be a matter of thinking up an original reply, it would be a matter of pointing him in the direction of a library, and not only towards the theatre section, but towards the philosophers, sociologists, pyscho-therapists, authors etc. who have for centuries been engaged in debating how we construct ourselves and the role representation plays.
The real question is, Mark, not why *you* and others like you are interested in theatre, but why *he* is interested in theatre.

Joe said...

I should clarify that that's not because naturalism is invalid at all, but because, from an admittadly personal view, Craven writes off much of what I see to be the essential power of and indeed reason for theatre, not least the power to explore and change with that exploration that Muller alludes to in that qoute.

Tom said...

I am so enraged by Craven's article that i felt compelled to constructively contribute to this discussion, but could not find any words other than 'you fuck head'.
After painstaking thought my constructive response is this: Craven's view of theatre calls for a stagnant, conservative construct in which Australian theatre should abide by. Ironically, he calls for "A theatre which is...cutting-edge", but critises experimental, "student" theatre (it doesn't always work but as Joseph pointed out it doesn't have to); he wishes to instead dominate our theatrical landscape with bourgeois, status-quo reaffirming realism.
But the biggest problem with Craven's arguement for me is that it dismisses the very idea that theatre could be amazing and powerful and potent and beautiful while at the same time pulling "away from traditional illusionistic conceptions of the theatre." Because theatre can be all these things with or without Naturalism you fuck.
But lets pay Craven his due: well, we need a theatre writer that has emotional truth, and we need a theatre writer that understands the magic of its own orifice.

David Molloy said...

Tough one. Actually, it's not a tough one at all, Craven's a remarkable douche who represents the terror of change. I think the key flaw is in his examples.

"the production took Shakespeare as its demolition site with its smeared body fluids and blood spitting. There was plenty to admire in Wars of the Roses, plenty to deplore."

This is a crock. Fair enough if you didn't like it, opinions are important, but to suggest that Andrews 'demolished' Shakespeare is an abhorrent notion. I think he treated the text(s) with a great deal more respect than John Bell ever did. It humanised each of Shakespeare's kings in ways I'd never considered before, and the artifice was so neatly constructed that for me it never detracted from the action of the text/staging.

"The Malthouse welcomes the Barrie Kosky approach of standing a play on its head until its teeth rattle to see if it's alive."

The last show I saw at Malthouse (Knives in Hens) didn't follow this formula: it took the text's teeth out and pushed them into its eyes. But I digress. I have seen two of Kosky's shows and again found their connections to the texts remarkable. The Telltale Heart looked like Poe had staged it himself - so sparse, so unnerving, so captivating even though it was one man on stage (two if you count Kosky's back). More significantly, I thought Women of Troy threw Euripide's brilliant tragedy into the modern world without warning, into blindingly harsh light and echoing gunfire in the most devastatingly poetic manner. And why shouldn't he? I sat thinking about the treatment of POWs in Abu Ghraib and similar situations for most of Robyn Nevin's torturous storytelling, and this is what made the production brilliant. In what way does a theatre composed of naturalism serve texts made hundreds/thousands of years ago? There must be a point at which the classic is questioned and reinvented for the modern age. This is not an act of destruction, but an act of rebirth, and it is what constitutes the most cerebral and haunting theatre of the modern age. I'm a writer - I still have a great value for the text itself, but having studied theory I know that if I am the only one who invests an authority of knowledge in the text, NO ONE ELSE WILL CARE. This is the essence of collaboratively developed meaning, a harmonious relationship between writer, producer, performer and spectator.

My only contrary point to the torrent of abuse directed at Mr. Titmouse Craven is that there seems to be a developing war between the (dare I say it) postmodern and the naturalistic. Naturalism has its place and is valuable in theatrical expression. Postmodern theatrical expression is vital to artistic movement forward. The two seem to be butting heads somewhat, if you listen to the conversations going on. But this problem is only confounded by loudmouth, borish twats who take the offensive against 'student theatre' because they didn't like Women of Troy.

Simon Binns said...

Ok let's get one thing straight first of all. I love texts. Some of the most powerful pieces of theatre I've seen have been texts performed well. When I think of my favourite pieces of theatre a bunch of great plays come to mind, mostly at Belvoir, such as The Pillowman, Scorched and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Hang on, wasn't that last one directed by Benedict Andrews? I think it was... Does it to this day stand out as one of the best plays I've ever seen? I think it does...

How dare someone suggest that Andrews has no respect for the text then try and cite War Of The Roses as an example. For the first hour of the show all you got was the text, Benno said, let's drop some sparkly gold, and nothing else because Shakespeare has done enough. Let the text speak volumes in the imagination of the audience. Yes, the text was heavily cut, but that was simply a matter of cutting down the time of the production. What was Ewen Leslie's amazing Henry V if not an homage to the beauty of Shakespeare’s words?

Now perhaps I'm just a theatre student and therefore my opinion is invalid.

I don't care whether he's taken the time to read theory, that doesn't bother me so much, what does bother me is that he obviously hasn't seen that much work by the artists he is attacking, either that or he has chosen simply to ignore those examples that he can't fit into his loosely formed argument.

Women Of Troy, again, how was it disrespectful to the text? What I don't understand is how you can see Kosky's production as an attack on the text, rather than an attempt to bring it to life again. The only director's who have the bravery to take on the classics at the moment are the new exciting directors. The Hayloft Project are the most obvious example, a company based around reworking classics. But it's ridiculous they are interested in destroying these texts. Anyone who has heard or read Kosky talk about his love for the classics would know that his desire to stage them comes not from some sort of narcissistic desire to place himself above Euripides, but from a full-blooded desire to show people what these great texts can do. I'm not even a huge Kosky fan and I'm outraged by this attack.

Also, there is an inherent problem with ignoring the younger demographics. The STC currently offer under 30 tickets for less than half the price of a concession ticket, something I personally am very grateful for. But what it shows is that they have to budget for a loss to even get young people to come in. It's not a disadvantage thing, these aren’t student tickets, they're tickets for those 28 year olds who are well into their careers and have never had a theatrical experience worth a damn so why the hell should they subscribe? If we don't offer these audiences something worth seeing than the theatre industry will die. Convincing them that and $80 theatre ticket is better value than a $15 movie ticket is going to be quite hard if they're coming in cold. And why would they bother if the play they're going to see is just a movie with worse cuts and a lower budget set? Craven doesn't want us to think about what can be done with theatre? I just hope he lives to watch the theatre die if he gets his way.

Finally, I'd just like to have one last laugh at Craven's expense in regards to this comment: "We want the best actors commanding the respect of directors who will allow the best of our playwrights to take their places alongside the Pirandellos and Greeks." Is he for real? At this point he pulls out Pirandello? As if Pirandello wasn't one of the great innovators of form? As if Six Characters In Search Of An Author was some piece of well-made naturalism? ARGH!

- Simon

Mara said...

I too heard that Edward Albee podcast and had a similar reaction.

I also thought the idea that you "are" something which he brings up is interesting - that you "are" a playwright, it can't be taught.

"Maybe in the end we need it more than the declamatory atonal music of Andrews and Kosky"...does Craven even understand what atonal means? I can't understand why he would use it in that context if he did. I would hardly describe Kosky as atonal. It's definitely tonal - it just has it's own harmonic structure.

Alison Croggon said...

Don't be drawn into the naturalism/anti-naturalism dichotomy. It's a straw man, like everything else in that article.

Anonymous said...

A sidelight, prompted by your reference to Don's Party: in the mid 1970s, in a newsletter published by The Currency Press Rex Cramphorn ruminated on the possibility of producing that play with the actors on high platform shoes, masked and declamatory. No doubt Peter Craven would shudder at the thought. (I don't know if that essay is in A Raffish Experiment, a colelction of his writings that's coming out soon.)

Rachel said...

A little off-topic, perhaps, but other than agreeing with most of what has been said here already, I would just like to make a little side note to David: it's spelled 'boorish'.

Nathan said...

I'm as angry and offended as everybody else here, but I'm going to suggest that excessive swearing is not the way to demonstrate the integrity of student artists. I also agree with Alison that the naturalism vs. non-naturalism debate is not really a valid one, and I think that people like Peter Craven who think it is are the sort of people who aren't really thinking about theatre on a level that qualifies them to criticise it, much less suggest "the problem with Australian theatre".

miss.maddie.meds said...

Well said Nathan.

Anonymous said...

I hate to say this but before you all "debtate" this any further, please take a step back and further read the title of Craven's article. This is not a criticism of student theatre but of Australian theatre in general. If what is being taught, learned and developed in this country as theatre is trite like Andrew's War of the Roses then here here to Craven for this article. Having worked in theatre, surrounded by theatre and having seen every play of every season at the RSC for several years running, having seen the Birmingham Repetory Company play Hamlet at Kronborg Castle, having seen performances by all levels of directors, I know good theatre. And what Andrews did to Shakespeare is a disgrace. Decontruct? Half of his cast clearly had no grasp of the language. There was no deconstruction of any subtext - rather a definite lack of understanding of the true nature of any of the Historys, and an attempt to cover this up with supposed "shock factor".
Before anyone begins to state their supposed positives of "Australian Theatre", treat yourselves to "English" or "American" theatre and see how this country stands up. It's an embarrasment.

Alison Croggon said...

Anon, puh-lease. I've seen embarrassing Shakespeare, and it was Sir Ian McKellen camping it up for Trevor Nunn's RSC Lear. Risible, unless a knighthood happened to be obscuring your vision. Being English or even a good actor doesn't necessarily save the stage from crappy, shallow productions, neither here nor in that sceptred isle.

Andrews's WOTR, on the other hand, featured a number of revelatory performances. It was far from trite, and had plenty of subtext for those with ears. It was an acute vision of the history plays that reflected rather well what Jan Kott - the pre-eminent Shakespeare critic - thought they were: essays on the machinery of power.

And if you're so au fait with correct "language", you should know it's "hear, hear". One of my pet peeves.

miss.maddie.meds said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris Boyd said...

I was too baffled by the article to be angered by it. The bit that cracked me up was this:

The theatre of Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan hardly nurtured the mime-oriented experimentalism of Robert Wilson.

Nor could you have plays like Eugene Ionesco's if you stuck to Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.


Jesus, Mary & Joseph... wot a crock.

Bald Prima Donna was five years before The Doll. Waiting For Godot premiered before it too. Lawler's play was the throwback, the "well-made play" clinging on to the long-gone 19th century.

Peter Craven and his acolytes like a good story. They probably think Virginia Woolf and James Joyce weren't such a good idea. And Patrick White's plays are a bit of an embarrassment to them. All that nasty non-naturalism. D'oh, I mean mime-based experimentalism!

They don't really get theatre... the collaboration, the participation, the act of it. The life beyond the ink on the page.

Their flat-earth ideas and their anachronistic criticisms are the more than "half the trouble with Australian theatre."

David Molloy said...

I don't believe in the naturalist/postmodernist dichotomy, I'm simply pointing out that it features in Craven's argument and it is an unwarranted polemic to embark on, for him or anyone else.

Anonymous,
I realise Alison has already made her point quite admirably, but I feel the need to respond to your post as well. Firstly, I think it's dangerous to start judging (or if not judging then at least labelling) theatre by the nation it comes from. This is such a broad-strokes statement that it borders on the obscene. Every piece of theatre I've seen in this country has been remarkably different from the next, let alone comparing it to global productions. We're doing our best with a limited (but growing) theatrical audience and limited (but growing) funds, which is EXACTLY why the student body moving towards theatre careers are vital to progression. Agreed, the article is not entirely an attack on student theatre, but it does criticise it directly more than once.

Also, could you clarify what you mean by Andrew's "lack of understanding of the Histories"? What could be a better understanding than the unwavering personal exploration of Shakespeare's political figures? For me, the heart and soul of the history plays is not the battles or the events, but the characters. They are, after all, each named after the king in question. This was what made it so engaging for me - being reminded that the royalty of a bygone age were still ultimately human. The violence was carefully constructed and I did not once feel shocked by it, but rather morbidly curious.

To the PC army,
Language is the soul of debate. Cursing is part of language.

Nathan said...

Dave, if you had any understanding about what political correctness means, you wouldn't be talking about it here. No one said anything remotely to do with political correctness.
I simply said that if Craven is representing student theatre practitioners as uninformed and immature, then rebutting with great thought provoking lines like "you fuck head" and "a remarkable douche" is counterproductive.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of fuck heads and remarkable douches... PC, Nathan, stands for Peter Craven.

Unknown said...

Oh man, this article and the subsequent comment stream was made all the more enjoyable having spent 5 days hearing about it before seeing it while at the This Is Not Art festival and subsequently meeting and hanging with a group of people who are creating and discussing some pretty freakin' spectacular theatre.

also, here's a picture of a tit-mouse: http://www.houstonaudubon.org/html/TitmouseAMmed.jpg

Anonymous said...

Man, look at the crest! It should be called a tit head.

the anvil said...

Great comments! love a good theatre stoush. anyway, i applaud Fairfax for making an effort to engage in theatre conversation, but the actual content was a little disappointing. here's my reply:

http://5thwall.wordpress.com/critic-watch/

David Molloy said...

Ok, Nathan, I did not use the term "you fuck head" at any point. I understand perfectly what political correctness is, and it is the same culture that whitewashes language, including that of debate. I get where you're coming from in terms of considering immaturity - I do not get where you're coming from in making accusations about my intelligence. I don't see how Mark's comments are any less informed than my own. Call it counterproductive all you want, that's a valid point. Don't be elitist.

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