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Divide and ...?Dateline: 23rd November, 2003Total theatre, physical theatre, circus theatre, dance theatre, music theatre, directors' theatre, actors' theatre, perfomance art... Why are we so keen to categorise, to pigeonhole? And, once we've categorised, why then do we create sub-categories? - musicals, musical comedies, plays with music, opera, operetta, light opera, comic opera, rock opera. I've even heard people arguing the differences between musical plays and plays with music! There's precedent for it!
It's the scientific method, isn't it? Categorise, bring together all things that are alike, separate them from those things which are different and you begin to understand them. But while that may be the case for plants, or animals, or even rocks, I do doubt whether it helps us with art forms. In fact, I suspect that it's a barrier to understanding - or, at any rate, to appreciation. It's so easy to lump all - say - musical comedies together, and, because we don't like one, simply dismiss them all. How many times have you heard people say (or even said yourself), "I don't like musical comedy (or dance, or opera, or whatever)"? Last week we published a review of The Sorcerer (G&S, of course). Is that out of place on a theatre site? Some weeks ago I reviewed baritone Simon Keenlyside and the Trisha Brown Dance Company performing Schubert's Winterreise. Was that? Jackie Fletcher often reviews circus. Should we not run these reviews? Theatre, for me, is any live performance in which one or more people appear in front of an audience playing a character. That means Al Murray's Pub Landlord is theatre, although not, I admit, a form I particularly like personally. It means Giselle is theatre, and Tosca, and they should all be grist to the BTG's mill. "All human life is there" might be the motto of the News of the World (one of the UK's most salacious Sunday tabloids, for those who have the good fortune not to know it), but it's much more approriate to theatre! Articles Indices:
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