Issue 4, 2010
Prompt Corner
Right, it’s time to give the German plays at the Arcola a rest... especially as my take on Heldenplatz is the very first item on the reviews pages of this issue. I’d fall back on my usual stand-by of considering Ireland instead, but I happen to know that, since it has been published since this issue of TR went to press, my Financial Times review of The Dead School will be in the “more on previous productions” pages next issue, so I can’t stealthily recycle it here.
Weasel
Let’s try a little provocation instead. Look at the reviews of Off The Endz. They’re all warm, affirmative... but are they at times just a little polite, a tad unwilling to engage? Henry Hitchings is fairly direct when he says “there’s not much subtlety or shading”, but he still puts a positive overall spin on the evening. Others deploy weasel words: “a touch schematic”, “sometimes overly direct”, “the canvas may be somewhat smaller” [than her previous play], plotted “a bit too neatly”, “somewhat schematic”, “occasionaly... feels like a fable”, “sometimes slightly characterised” [all italics added].
I’m not averse to a bit of weaselling myself, but I don’t recall seeing such a universal outbreak of it for some time.
Why, I wonder? Could it be that we’re unwilling to say that a play by a black writer, and one which takes a moral stand rather than floundering in wishy-washy non-committal liberalism, isn’t actually very good? I can’t say, not having seen it myself (I was in Berlin watching black characters depicted by golliwog masks – as recounted in last issue’s column – when Off The Endz opened). But compare this majority stance with the only one of our usual-suspect contrarians who wrote about it, Lloyd Evans: “The play’s ending is predictable, the narrative is unsubtly linear and the structure feels very wonky.” He continues in the same vein, but even he ends by affirming his belief in Agbaje’s ability as a writer. More forthright than any review reprinted here is Andrew Haydon in his blog at http://postcardsgods.blogspot.com::
Bleak
Essentialy, it’s a play by a member of an identifiable minority (which can be pretty much anything other than white, male, heterosexual or middle class) writing something that purports to be unique to the experience of that minority. It smacks of condescension and is a theatrical cul-de-sac. For the writer and for theatre. Primarily, because of the form this sort of work takes. It is grounded in “authenticity”. [...]
Agbaje is conducting two critiques here: with one hand she’s painting a bleak picture of attempts at an aspirational life in the workforce during a recession – al maxed-out credit cards and wage-slavery, while with the other hand she’s conducting a calow investigation into street crime, drug-dealing, guns and gangs. And in the world of this play, that’s it. Binary choice. It’s so simple, it’s almost like a parable. [...] By combining a bleak view of the struggle of life under capitalism with the suggestion that to live outside it can only mean committing to a life of amoral violence, Off The Endz winds up preaching the same message as medieval Christianity: “life is shit, but you’d better not fuck about or terrible things wil happen to you”. [...]
Problems
It is by making this a play specificaly about race rather than class that Agbaje causes the biggest problems. Given the narrative, given lines like: “When the stock markets crashed and al the banks were losing money – how many black faces did you see on TV? How many of our stories did they show?” and “Life is ten times harder for us”, it suddenly feels a whole lot more uncomfortable criticising its outlook than that of merely a dul play with an antique morality. By invoking “them” and “us”, it seems almost like it’s attempting to reserve the right to deflect criticism with: “You don’t know,
you weren’t there”. Wel, theatre is theatre, and this isn’t good theatre. As for the “authenticity”, I defer to a black theatre-maker of my acquaintance who said he hadn’t seen a play with clichéd, cardboard cut-out black characters that had offended him so deeply in years. That’ll do me.
In short, this is how the “authenticity” pays off: by creating a simplistic morality tale about a good person and a bad person, then filing each with clichés about “black people”, Bola Agbaje has written a play that would have been condemned as utterly racist if it had been written by a white person.
Shocking
It’s actually rather shocking to read a criticism like that. But why? It addresses the play on its own terms, on those of the theatre staging it (Haydon alludes elsewhere in his review to the Royal Court’s status and programming attitudes present and past) and on those of the social discourse within which it positions itself. We need to accept that that sometimes the maxim “Write about you know” doesn’t work, and that more often than not the debating position typified by the phrase “speaking as a [fill in relevant category here]...” is an attempt to claim privileged exemption from criticism.
And I’m quite sure that these comments will be read in some quarters as racist. But then, I was recently accused by columnist Mary Dejevsky in the Independent of being sexist, on the grounds that I am a man. The irony of this amused me, but seemed to pass her by entirely.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
At the Back does not appear this issue
| Production | Venue | Opened | Closed | Page |
London |
||||
| ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN THE NEW WORLD New piece by Sarah Sigal | Old Red Lion | 25 Feb |
13 Mar | 193 |
| THE DEAD SCHOOL New play by Pat McCabe (Livin' Dred / Nomad) | Tricycle | 24 Feb |
13 Mar | 190 |
| DEMI-MONDE: THE HALF WORLD OF WILLIAM MORRIS New piece by Jack Shepherd (Love & Madness) | Riverside | 17 Feb |
21 Mar | 189 |
| DISCONNECT New play by Anupama Chandrasekhar | Royal Court Upstairs | 22 Feb |
20 Mar | 182 |
| DUNSINANE New play by David Greig (RSC) | Hampstead | 17 Feb |
6 Mar | 166 |
| DURANG DURANG Revival of plays by Christopher Durang (Mind The Gap TC) | Jermyn Street | 18 Feb |
6 Mar | 176 |
| EVERY YEAR, EVERY DAY, I AM WALKING New piece by Magnet Th, Cape Town | Oval House | 25 Feb |
13 Mar | 180 |
| GHOSTS New version by Frank McGuinness from Henrik Ibsen | Duchess | 23 Feb |
15 May | 185 |
| HELDENPLATZ UK première of play by Thomas Bernhard | Arcola | 12 Feb |
6 Mar | 156 |
| LITTLE FISH New play by Sarah Liisa Wilkinson (Pact Imagination Th) | Space | 25 Feb |
13 Mar | 157 |
| MEASURE FOR MEASURE Revival of play by Shakespeare | Almeida | 18 Feb |
3 Apr | 171 |
| MERCURY FUR Revival of play by Philip Ridley (Th Delicatessen) | Picton Place | 16 Feb |
13 Mar | 180 |
| A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare | Rose, Kingston | 15 Feb |
20 Mar | 158 |
| MISS POLLY RAE: THE ALL NEW HURLY BURLY SHOW Cabaret show | Leicester Square | 24 Feb |
28 Feb | 175 |
| MODELLING SPITFIRES New play by Vanessa Rosenthal | New End | 19 Feb |
7 Mar | 194 |
| MUCH New play by Hannah Patterson (Nordic Nomad Prods) | Cock Tavern | 25 Feb |
20 Mar | 162 |
| OFF THE ENDZ New play by Bola Agbaje | Royal Court | 19 Feb |
13 Mar | 177 |
| THE PROMISE New play by Ben Brown | Orange Tree | 19 Feb |
20 Mar | 181 |
| SERENADING LOUIE Revival of play by Lanford Wilson | Donmar Warehouse | 16 Feb |
27 Mar | 163 |
| TWO WOMEN New adaptation from novel by Martina Cole | T R Stratford E15 | 25 Feb |
27 Mar | 192 |
| WARNINGS Adaptation of two stories by M R James | St Pancras Church Crypt | 23 Feb |
13 Mar | 176 |
Regions |
||||
| À LA CARTE New piece by Molly Taylor | Glasgow, Arches off site | 25 Feb |
27 Feb | 208 |
| THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE Revival of play by Martin McDonagh | Edinburgh, Royal Lyceum | 20 Feb |
13 Mar | 206 |
| THE CITY Revival of play by Martin Crimp | Glasgow, Tron | 23 Feb |
6 Mar | 207 |
| CLUTTER KEEPS COMPANY New play by Davey Anderson (Birds Of Paradise TC) | Glasgow, Tramway | 17 Feb |
20 Feb | 204 |
| AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE Revival of play by Henrik Ibsen in version by Christopher Hampton | Sheffield, Crucible | 17 Feb |
20 Mar | 197 |
| FASCINATING AÏDA Musical cabaret | Chipping Norton / touring | 21 Feb |
21 Feb | 201 |
| FOREVER YOUNG Song drama by Erik Gedeon, adapted by Adrian Laurance | Nottingham Playhouse | 12 Feb |
27 Feb | 197 |
| THE FURIES / LAND OF THE DEAD / HELTER SKELTER Three plays by Neil LaBute (Dialogue Prods) | Glasgow, Citizens / touring | 16 Feb |
20 Feb | 202 |
| THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR Revival of play by Nikolai Gogol in adaptation by Adrian Mitchell | Glasgow, Tron | 16 Feb |
27 Feb | 202 |
| THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY Site-specific performance | Bristol, Wonder Club | 11 Feb |
28 Feb | 197 |
| LIFE LONG Devised by Tillie & Ronnie Jeffrey, Tashi Gore & Jess Thorpe (Glas[s] Perf) | Glasgow Art Club | 18 Feb |
20 Feb | 205 |
| A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare | Bolton, Octagon | 4 Feb |
6 Mar | 194 |
| A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare | Bristol, Tobacco Factory | 17 Feb |
20 Mar | 200 |
| WAY OUT WEST, THE SEA WHISPERED ME New piece by Cupola Bobber | Lancaster, Nuffield / touring | 22 Feb |
23 Feb | 201 |
| WHAT WE KNOW New play by Pamela Carter (EK Perf) | Edinburgh, Traverse | 19 Feb |
27 Feb | 205 |
