Friday, 13 November 2009
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Eric Bentley's Theatre of Commitment: Is the Drama an Extinct Species?
Eric Bentley’s The Theatre of Commitment
Eric Bentley was born in 1916 in Bolton, England and it was here that he developed his love for performing and the theatre. However it was not until he moved to the USA that he began to receive plaudits for his work as a singer, translator, editor and most famously as a critic. Bentley taught at Columbia University during the 1950s as well as critiquing theatre for ‘The New Republic’, it was here that he developed his style of criticism which many call blunt. In fact Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams both tried to sue him during the 50s before dropping their cases. Bentley also worked closely under Bertolt Brecht during his time in America and is seen as one of the top experts on Brecht having written many books and translated many successful adaptations of his plays. Bentley has also written many books on the Theatre and it is one of these that I wish to review: The Theatre of Commitment.
This book is a collection of essays Bentley wrote between 1953 and 1967 and I will be reviewing each essay on whether it is still relevant today. I will also look at the issues that Bentley raises and how historically these have been faced and whether the situation has improved or got worse. The book was written with America in mind due to that being his base of operations but I believe that issues in the theatre are global and what was happening in America then may be the same today but for the UK.
The first essay was written between 1953 and 1954 and is entitled: Is the Drama an Extinct Species?
This is a question that will never die due to the fact that audience figures have dwindled in theatres over the years and less and less people are writing for the stage. Something that Bentley and I agree upon is that television and film take up the younger and newer writers because there is more money there and potential, there is a market for upcoming writing talent in Hollywood because the big wigs always want the next big thing whether it be story wise or actor wise to keep their profits high. However the backing for playwrights may not be there, Bentley talks about how subjective the idea of a ‘good’ play may be citing the example of George Bernard Shaw and how his plays written in the 1890s were cutting edge plays about social standards but it was only by the 1910s that Shaw was recognised as a genius and his plays became seen as classics. Bentley elaborates on this by saying that Shakespeare and Ibsen are lauded as geniuses of the theatre whilst people like Thomas Dekker and Henry Arthur Jones (contemporaries of Shakespeare and Ibsen) are dismissed or not even discussed due to the lack of coverage of their work. He then makes a bold claim that the same will happen with writers of the ilk of Brecht on the American stage. Bentley was of course right, Brecht in the 50s was definitely not a popular choice for theatre in America due to his communist leanings but as soon as that was not an issue any longer Brecht was lauded as one of the geniuses of 20th century theatre.
After exploring the argument that there exist good playwrights but because they do not get recognition soon enough to reap the benefits of their hard work they are forced to go into another part of the industry for their wage Bentley starts talking about another aspect of literature, authors and poets. Bentley argues that many people who wish to write to express themselves do so through the arts of fiction or poetry, he even surmises that if writers such as Hemingway and Penn Warren could devote a decade to writing for the stage they would give the playwrights of their day a run for their money. He goes on to say that there are not many opportunities for young writers to produce new work and allow themselves to make mistakes and truly learn the craft that is playwriting. This is something that has been greatly addressed in the UK in the past 15 years or so due to the death of rep theatres and the stagnation of our theatre industry. Bentley talks about how the American theatre lacks a place for the playwright to learn because on Broadway a show must be guaranteed to run for a year before it can be invested in. This is interesting to think of because in the UK that is no longer an issue, money can be thrown at a playwright and company who will not get a years run at a top theatre or even a regional tour as long as the playwrights work ticks all the boxes for funding. This is a situation that has caused some fantastic works to be written and has really helped give people opportunities but is also a bit of a double edged sword. When the rep system was active in the UK writers had a chance to have their scripts seen and tried out due to the relative cheapness of hiring a young writer attached to the theatre company, then they could develop their talent no matter what sex, background or experience they had. Nowadays it seems that you get help and backing from the arts councils or developing theatres only if you are some sort of minority, disabled, have an issues based play, want to be experimental or have an offensive subject matter. I am not saying that this is true in every example but it is a very true part of theatre today and it’s sad to think that writers such as Alan Ayckbourn would not get the backing today that he got back when he started writing if he only came along now. This is also something Bentley touches on lightly in that he says that poets and writers would not be able to get themselves on the West End stage on their own terms and that in many ways London will continue to produce renowned geniuses such as Shakespeare over an author or poets work. Of course that’s not strictly true any longer as the West End has opened up its doors to many more types of theatre and performance over the years and a good example of someone who proves Bentley wrong is the acclaimed author Mark Haddon whose first play is to be produced on the London stage in the coming months.
Bentley moves on to discuss the fact that censorship of material can have a massive effect on the production of dramatic work citing the case of the Soviet Union where there was still a great theatrical system with government initiatives for playwrights and good treatment of Soviet artists, however there was a huge amount of censorship from Stalinists and other government bodies. I honestly know very little about the censors laws in Soviet Russia but I can believe that it was detrimental, especially when you think of some of the things the censors in the Lord Chamberlains Office imposed on the theatre such as saying in a 1961 adaptation of ‘Lady Chatterlys Lover’ the male character Mellors was not allowed to be shown onstage with a bare chest, and at the time of the writing of this essay the writers John Osbourne and Keith Tynan were fighting for what would become the Theatres Act of 1968 which abolished censorship of the theatre. In the UK this isn’t obviously an issue any longer.
In conclusion much of this essay is either no longer relevant or the issues raised by it have been changed by positive moves forward within the industry. However saying that the fact is this essay still has resonance 55 years after it was first written due to the death of rep theatre and its force for good in training people to work in the theatre as actors/writers/technical/directors etc. There is still a strong level of work coming out of the UK thanks to theatres such as the Royal Court which has a fantastic new playwrights development system and due to the investment by the government in the arts council, however there is still the issue that writers are generally dismissed until their work is no longer relevant as discussed in the case of George Bernard Shaw. Of course that is changing with the invention of the internet and the fact that media and the arts are global now and what is a failure here in the UK could theoretically pack the houses in Australia or even on Broadway for example. Drama is alive and strong as well due to the fact that more4, BBC4, ITV4 and many of the main television channels within the UK are producing films which are written excellently and this I believe is why drama on the stage is more often than not a restaging of an old favourite. The real issue that Bentley raises, that of the threat of TV and the Cinema is still there, a very real and perilous situation is something we find ourselves in and its one that there is no way out of. Audiences will dwindle until Theatre becomes a niche art form unless something can stem the tide and truly push it once more as the standard bearer of drama in our society.
For more info on Bentley try this link for an audio version of his book Theatre of Commitment:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheTheatreOfCommitmentByEricBentley
Eric Bentley was born in 1916 in Bolton, England and it was here that he developed his love for performing and the theatre. However it was not until he moved to the USA that he began to receive plaudits for his work as a singer, translator, editor and most famously as a critic. Bentley taught at Columbia University during the 1950s as well as critiquing theatre for ‘The New Republic’, it was here that he developed his style of criticism which many call blunt. In fact Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams both tried to sue him during the 50s before dropping their cases. Bentley also worked closely under Bertolt Brecht during his time in America and is seen as one of the top experts on Brecht having written many books and translated many successful adaptations of his plays. Bentley has also written many books on the Theatre and it is one of these that I wish to review: The Theatre of Commitment.
This book is a collection of essays Bentley wrote between 1953 and 1967 and I will be reviewing each essay on whether it is still relevant today. I will also look at the issues that Bentley raises and how historically these have been faced and whether the situation has improved or got worse. The book was written with America in mind due to that being his base of operations but I believe that issues in the theatre are global and what was happening in America then may be the same today but for the UK.
The first essay was written between 1953 and 1954 and is entitled: Is the Drama an Extinct Species?
This is a question that will never die due to the fact that audience figures have dwindled in theatres over the years and less and less people are writing for the stage. Something that Bentley and I agree upon is that television and film take up the younger and newer writers because there is more money there and potential, there is a market for upcoming writing talent in Hollywood because the big wigs always want the next big thing whether it be story wise or actor wise to keep their profits high. However the backing for playwrights may not be there, Bentley talks about how subjective the idea of a ‘good’ play may be citing the example of George Bernard Shaw and how his plays written in the 1890s were cutting edge plays about social standards but it was only by the 1910s that Shaw was recognised as a genius and his plays became seen as classics. Bentley elaborates on this by saying that Shakespeare and Ibsen are lauded as geniuses of the theatre whilst people like Thomas Dekker and Henry Arthur Jones (contemporaries of Shakespeare and Ibsen) are dismissed or not even discussed due to the lack of coverage of their work. He then makes a bold claim that the same will happen with writers of the ilk of Brecht on the American stage. Bentley was of course right, Brecht in the 50s was definitely not a popular choice for theatre in America due to his communist leanings but as soon as that was not an issue any longer Brecht was lauded as one of the geniuses of 20th century theatre.
After exploring the argument that there exist good playwrights but because they do not get recognition soon enough to reap the benefits of their hard work they are forced to go into another part of the industry for their wage Bentley starts talking about another aspect of literature, authors and poets. Bentley argues that many people who wish to write to express themselves do so through the arts of fiction or poetry, he even surmises that if writers such as Hemingway and Penn Warren could devote a decade to writing for the stage they would give the playwrights of their day a run for their money. He goes on to say that there are not many opportunities for young writers to produce new work and allow themselves to make mistakes and truly learn the craft that is playwriting. This is something that has been greatly addressed in the UK in the past 15 years or so due to the death of rep theatres and the stagnation of our theatre industry. Bentley talks about how the American theatre lacks a place for the playwright to learn because on Broadway a show must be guaranteed to run for a year before it can be invested in. This is interesting to think of because in the UK that is no longer an issue, money can be thrown at a playwright and company who will not get a years run at a top theatre or even a regional tour as long as the playwrights work ticks all the boxes for funding. This is a situation that has caused some fantastic works to be written and has really helped give people opportunities but is also a bit of a double edged sword. When the rep system was active in the UK writers had a chance to have their scripts seen and tried out due to the relative cheapness of hiring a young writer attached to the theatre company, then they could develop their talent no matter what sex, background or experience they had. Nowadays it seems that you get help and backing from the arts councils or developing theatres only if you are some sort of minority, disabled, have an issues based play, want to be experimental or have an offensive subject matter. I am not saying that this is true in every example but it is a very true part of theatre today and it’s sad to think that writers such as Alan Ayckbourn would not get the backing today that he got back when he started writing if he only came along now. This is also something Bentley touches on lightly in that he says that poets and writers would not be able to get themselves on the West End stage on their own terms and that in many ways London will continue to produce renowned geniuses such as Shakespeare over an author or poets work. Of course that’s not strictly true any longer as the West End has opened up its doors to many more types of theatre and performance over the years and a good example of someone who proves Bentley wrong is the acclaimed author Mark Haddon whose first play is to be produced on the London stage in the coming months.
Bentley moves on to discuss the fact that censorship of material can have a massive effect on the production of dramatic work citing the case of the Soviet Union where there was still a great theatrical system with government initiatives for playwrights and good treatment of Soviet artists, however there was a huge amount of censorship from Stalinists and other government bodies. I honestly know very little about the censors laws in Soviet Russia but I can believe that it was detrimental, especially when you think of some of the things the censors in the Lord Chamberlains Office imposed on the theatre such as saying in a 1961 adaptation of ‘Lady Chatterlys Lover’ the male character Mellors was not allowed to be shown onstage with a bare chest, and at the time of the writing of this essay the writers John Osbourne and Keith Tynan were fighting for what would become the Theatres Act of 1968 which abolished censorship of the theatre. In the UK this isn’t obviously an issue any longer.
In conclusion much of this essay is either no longer relevant or the issues raised by it have been changed by positive moves forward within the industry. However saying that the fact is this essay still has resonance 55 years after it was first written due to the death of rep theatre and its force for good in training people to work in the theatre as actors/writers/technical/directors etc. There is still a strong level of work coming out of the UK thanks to theatres such as the Royal Court which has a fantastic new playwrights development system and due to the investment by the government in the arts council, however there is still the issue that writers are generally dismissed until their work is no longer relevant as discussed in the case of George Bernard Shaw. Of course that is changing with the invention of the internet and the fact that media and the arts are global now and what is a failure here in the UK could theoretically pack the houses in Australia or even on Broadway for example. Drama is alive and strong as well due to the fact that more4, BBC4, ITV4 and many of the main television channels within the UK are producing films which are written excellently and this I believe is why drama on the stage is more often than not a restaging of an old favourite. The real issue that Bentley raises, that of the threat of TV and the Cinema is still there, a very real and perilous situation is something we find ourselves in and its one that there is no way out of. Audiences will dwindle until Theatre becomes a niche art form unless something can stem the tide and truly push it once more as the standard bearer of drama in our society.
For more info on Bentley try this link for an audio version of his book Theatre of Commitment:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheTheatreOfCommitmentByEricBentley
Monday, 9 November 2009
Brand new News Round Up
Sorry its late guys but this past weeks News Round Up is now up on:
http://headtheatre.mypodcast.com
Enjoy!
http://headtheatre.mypodcast.com
Enjoy!
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