an old Canadian play: Marsh Hay

[Shawn Huffman]

On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Reid Gilbert wrote:

>
> Surely the "practioners" (some theorists and academics are quite
> professional, Denis) create primary material upon which the theorists and
> historians and other academic critics write. And surely, these days, many
> productions are informed by the criticism "in the air" such that
> "practioners" incorporate styles, attitudes, politics growing out of "theory"
> into their design of plays/performances.  I always fail to see where the
> split needs to be.   We may not all speak each other's metalanguages but we
> all reflect upon and create the project of "theatre."
>

I think that there is a multi-layered discussion happening here -- with
some confusion -- caused perhaps by an over-sensitivity on the part of
critics to that famous dichotomy:  practise/theory.

We need to be more careful, and distinguish, as Verdecchio has tried to
do in his last post, between stage theory (as practise) and dramatic
theory (as criticism).  I *believe* that Verdecchio and some other
advocates of
"practise" were referring to stage theory in the "debate" which has
occurred.

The theory/practise debate...

I would also like to address Reid's statement that there doesn't need to
be a split between dramatic theory (criticism) and stage practise.  "We
all create the project of theatre" he says.  With respect, I don't
believe that this is so.  Critics create a body of work called criticism
and theatre professionals (including dramatists) create a body of work
called theatre.  Theatre professionals probably do read critics and
critics, I'm sure, "read" theatre professionals; the sharing is not at
issue here.  What is important however is to recognize that we create
seperate bodies of work, theatre professionals using an artistic sign
systems to give rise to artistic representations, and critics using
a linguistic sign system to communicate their "reading" of an actual
object called "theatre".

I want to stress my opinion that critics communicate a reading, an
insightful, original, closely argued and often essential reading, yet not
an explanation, not an evaluation.  What I am saying is that
critics need to be aware of what theatre professionals are *doing* on
stage.  For example, the idea that a performance needs to be queerer
seems really strange to me.  Instead of evaluating art based on a
theoretical episteme, why not try to understand what is actually
happening in the performance?  Does theory amount to measuring plays
against a metre-stick of (non)-conformity?


Shawn