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Articles
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Articles |
What is't you read, my Lord?Dateline: 30th April, 2000 So Polonius questioned Hamlet. And his reply? - "Words, words, words." Have you noticed how similar things often happen together?
So I've taken the hint that fate has been dropping - I'm writing about words this week. Some recent comments Back in May 1999, Sir John Drummond, a former controller of BBC Radio 3 and ex-director of the Edinburgh International Festival, claimed that British theatre is based far too much on text. "We don't care what it looks like," he said. "We do radio drama in public." What Drummond felt that theatre in the UK lacks is spectacle and he claimed that that we are lagging far behind the continent, with its "total theatre" which uses superb sets, costumes and effects. A month or two back it was suggested in (not by, I hasten to add!) The Stage that the future of theatre may well lie in massive shows mounted in the huge arenas which are springing up around the country and which were originally intended as homes for ice-shows, major pop concerts and the like. The person who made the suggestion instanced the recent tour of Les Mis which played a number of these venues to audiences of 10,000 plus. A couple of weeks ago I was discussing a certain playwright (not well-known but we'll still not name him) with a friend of mine who, as a technical director, had had the responsibility of staging one of his plays. "It's bloody difficult," my friend remarked. "He writes as if he's working for television." Clearly the common theme which emerges here is the perceived conflict between the verbal and the visual in theatre. A wordless theatre? Is it possible to have theatre without words? Of course it is: mime, dance, clowning, circus are all forms of theatre, and we see them more and more frequently nowadays combined in what has become known as "physical" or "total" theatre. In addition, there have been times in the history of theatre when spectacle became the central feature. The tone was set by the royal progresses of the Tudor monarchs, especially Henry VIII, which were theatrical events in themselves, with the King always the central figure. Then under the first of the Stuarts, James I, the procenium arch and perspective scenery, followed by sets which moved in grooves set into the stage, were introduced in court masques, and theatre began to follow suit. When a technology becomes available - even if it is as simple as scenery moving in grooves - then it will be used. Theatre people, like everyone else, like to be at the "cutting edge", which is why we now have intelligent lights and computer controlled scenery being used in theatrical productions. At the end of the Vietnam War, the personnel of the US embassy were evacuated by helicopter, hence the famous - and much reviled in some quarters - helicopter scene in Miss Saigon. "We have the technology to do it, so why not?" was undoubtedly the thinking behind the this particular bit of theatre. In the words of Barry Norman, "And why not?" Perhaps because it is really the text that is central to theatre, not the spectacle. Next page: Theatre and the Other Performing Arts Articles Indices:
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