The question came up a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of Patrick by way of quote from Maya Angelou I believe. The quote was to the effect that it is often, usually, better to read a play than to see a production of a play. The idea was that one could get more out of a script (personal value) by reading alone than one could get sitting in a theatre experiencing a production of that very same script.
Rather than get into an either/or debate about the qualities of each, I want to articulate the concrete, fundamental differences between the two (besides the obvious).
First is logic. Reading a script (a play) allows for one single flow of logic - the words as written on the page. No matter if you move from a chair to the bed to the patio to field nearby under the shade tree while you read, this logic will be single and the same. A theatrical production/spectacle, allows for simultaneous, parallel and multiple streams of logic. (O.K. most U.S. directors and presenters, including our local artists, rarely present more than one stream of logic/action unless by accident - but the possibility is there, and even in the normal gussied up stage readings advertised as full productions there is some simultaneous logic and action).
Second is that in reading a script you are in the art and realm of the writer, the word(s). Sitting in the theatre you are in the art and the realm of the actor, action/behavior. The page belongs to the writer. The stage belongs to the actor.
These two fundamental differences, means that there are also fundamentally different skills required for the "audience" of each. The reader of the script is required to read and comprehend. The spectator is required to take in a production via the senses - sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Reading is a mental, intellectual challenge. Being a spectator, while including mental intellectual challenge, is a visceral experience.
For David--as a means to get him jump started on his "topic for a rainy day wish list # 3"-- here is my down and dirty three point rejection of Brechtian "theory."
ReplyDeleteFirst, Brecht's theory isn't really exemplified in his plays (most of which produce the opposite effect of us empathizing with his characters).
Second, his theory is poorly articulated (Brecht's writing is hardly scintillating and often downright preposterous in its generalizing (not unlike, double negatives included, mine here)).
Third, his theory may well have been insincere (which doesn't necessarily make it bad theory though if you believe as I do that all theory succeeds practice I'm wondering where the hell it emerged from given that his plays don't do it, his writing doesn't clarify it, and then there's that little something David recently suggested to me that he will need to elaborate on here that implies Brecht may have come up with his theory as a "selling point" for the plays he'd written; this at least would be in keeping with my notion that a good theory follows a good practice, but what is one to make of the good citizen Bertoldt wishing to sell his produce to the theatre consumers of this world? David?