Turn Us Off
Some words of encouragement to all the avant-gardists out there, via John Clancy, whose blog I've recently become addicted to. Summarizing some notes he gave to a young director under his tutelage, he writes:
Look, some people are just not going to dig this no matter how well we do it. It's experimental. It's alternative. By the very definition, it's not easy to watch and understand. Lots of people turned off John Coltrane after the first two minutes.
This has been on my mind lately on account of a hilarious joke I heard over the weekend in a comedy sketch. It was a sketch lampooning egomaniacal theater directors, and featured, at one point, the line, "The audience greatly enjoyed the performance, and as an avant-garde theatre artist, I knew this meant I had failed."
The joke is funny, sure, but it also touches upon the theatre's ongoing dilemma: how the hell do we stay relevant?!
My short take on the subject, especially as it relates to Coltrane, is that people came around to Coltrane because he was playing the music he heard in his head. It's the people who try to replicate his music and get the same effect that no one gives a damn about. I think it works the same in theatre; if you're inviting people to understand a new possibility, it's exciting for them--it respects their intelligence and assumes they'll be hip to your idea. If you're challenging them to step up to your unbelievable level of brilliance and have their minds blown by your awesomeness, they'll probably react the way anyone does when they're put on the defensive: to defend themselves--most likely by not buying tickets to your piece.
Comments
You articulate this dilemma really well. I think some false logic crept into artists' mindset circa the end of Beethoven's career. Looking at his late music (which transcends the conventions of his day), fellow musicians thought, this stuff is great, yet the crowds didn't get it (at first). The dangerous and false corollary of this is to believe, the crowds don't get my piece/painting/play/movie/etc., therefore it is great. But whereas audiences have warmed to late Beethoven, Mahler, and some others whose music was initially rejected, very few have ever come to love Schoenberg's music, for instance.
I love a lot of avant garde art, but usually not when it pushes boundaries simply for the sake of pushing boundaries. I feel there should be some "reason" for doing so (it could be as basic as, it sounds/looks good that way). It can be thrilling when internal logic trumps conventional rules--we experience something new, yet it makes sense. The problem (as in some contemporary pieces I've had to play) is when the main reason for strange sounds seems to be, it sounds bad that way, therefore it must be good.