REVIEW: Devil's Disciple @ Shaw Festival

[David Akin]

At 10:40 29/05/96 -0400, Richard Plant wrote:
 
>It's great to have you providing a commentary on the theatre. I'd like to
>add a comment myself. Please don't take my point as in any way meant to
>detract from the vlaue of your review in helping launch a bit more
>discussion of theatre.
>I note an often found pejorative use of the term melodrama. I wonder what
>have you got against melodrama? Might it be that you are referring
>to ineffective melodrama as opposed to the genre in whole? Hamlet,
>several of Euripides' plays, and countless others can be seen to have a
>close affinity to melodrama, drawing considerable power from melodramatic
>apsects. Moreover, there are many melodramas, particularly from the 19th
>century, whose performance by strong companies made powerful impacts on
>their audiences. In short, the source of the problem might not be
>melodrama, but a weakness in approach or production elements.
 
Richard's right. After reading my comments, you might think I took a rather
dim view of melodrama. In fact, that's not the case. I said, "The Devil's
Disciple was an opportunity to raise a
pedestrian dramatic form - the melodrama - into the realm of serious art." I
tend to side with those who define melodrama as a populist or popular form
of theatre. It's popularity stems from it's clearly defined character types
and, more often than not, a clearly defined unambiguous moral centre.
Perhaps that's why I likened it melodrama to farce. Not only are both forms
populist and popular, they both have clearly defined character types.
Perhaps the difference between the two is in the absence of a central moral
vision (or, even better, competing moral visions).
Because melodrama has the kinds of characteristics that are easily
indentifiable and because its dramatic structure is relatively
unsophisticated, I find them rather one-dimensional, hence the (probably
ill-advised) adjective pedestrian. By infusing the central haracters in The
Devil's Disciple with just enough  self-doubt, Shaw has done his bit to
prevent the play from suffering the fate of other now-forgotten 19th century
melodramas.
 
David Akin