Honesty with the Audience
By
ROBERT BETHUNE
ART TIMES December 2007
Every
theater company that ever was is completely dependent on one crucial player
in the theatrical experience: the audience. That proposition seems so
obvious, so straightforward, so completely self-evident that it seems
impossible that anyone would doubt it. Yet some theater companies put
their relationship with their audience at risk, not by being artistically
daring, not by ignoring their expectations, but by means even more stupid:
by being dishonest.
Just
recently I read a review of a production by a well-respected theater company,
in which the reviewer mentioned that the company had publicized many worthy
aspects of the production, but neglected to inform the world that the
production was three and a half hours long. The reviewer had an excellent
point: the company owed it to the audience to let them know what they
were letting themselves in for, and didn’t. At least that’s not an outright
fraud, but it is a failure to be honest about the product, to ensure that
the buyer knows what they’re buying. When you are utterly dependent for
your very existence on the people you are keeping in the dark until they
are in their seats, should you be surprised if repercussions eventually
come your way?
Years
ago, I worked with a small theater company that put a certain laudatory
phrase on their publicity and brochures, something like, “outstanding,
cutting-edge, even revolutionary theater.” And they credited that statement
to the New York Times. What a great quote, right? What a terrific thing
to be able to put on the brochure, the letterhead, the advertisement,
the poster, right? Well, that phrase had indeed appeared in the New York
Times. It had appeared in the calendar-of-events listing, exactly as the
company publicist herself wrote it, just like every other listing in the
calendar. It did not represent the critical judgment of any writer or
editor actually employed by the Times in any way, shape or form.
Just
now, I am aware of a situation in which a well-known professional company
is billing a production as a “world premiere.” That, of course, has help
spark interest in the audience that attends this theater to quite a noticeable
degree. The problem is that the play in hand has already had its “world
premiere” a year ago, elsewhere.
These
were frauds, perpetrated by the company on its own audience.
All
it takes, these days, to expose such a deception is a few minutes casual
browsing via your favorite Internet search engine. This fraud will come
out sooner or later. Why take such a stupid chance? Why risk alienating
the key element in your operation, the one that keeps you alive?
There
are obvious answers—carelessness, stupidity, cupidity, desperation,
hubris. To me, there is a more insidious and deeper answer. The odd thing
about today’s theater is that many practitioners of the art are quite
deeply alienated from the people they do it for. You hear it in casual
snide references: “the blue-hairs,” “the yahoos in the seats.” You see
it in the attitude that audience expectations are irrelevant, that the
audience has some sort of duty to come and pay for tickets, regardless
of whether or not they enjoy or respect the work offered. You hear it
in how theater artists talk about their work as if the audience did not
exist, as though the theater exists purely as a means to satisfy the private
inclinations and obsessions of the actor, the director, the writer.
The
root of this attitude lies in the self-glorifying concept of the artist
as Romantic outsider, prophet, visionary, sole perceiver of truth and
justice, oracular enunciator of social and cultural revelation. This ubermensch
has no need to care what the peons on the seats think; it is not for them
to think, only to bow in humble respect. This idea has done enough damage
during the last 150 years. It’s time for it to die.
We
owe it to ourselves to reconnect with our audiences. We need to share
the work with them, to learn from them what they need from us, to find
the meeting point between their existence and ours. We can start with
a very simple plan: let’s be honest with them. Let’s tell the truth about
what we are putting before them. Let’s earn our accolades before we parade
them. Let’s treat the audience as the key element we know it really is.