Sunday, October 28, 2007

(Production) Dramaturgy defined: attempt 1

I am waiting1 for a call2 from Libby, the Greasy Joan director of The Misanthrope, to discuss who she thinks the characters in the play are and how they fit into the world that Moliere (see also Jean Baptiste Poquelin) and, more importantly (objection: argumentative!), she is wanting to create. She is wanting to create a futuristic dystopia (google search: futuristic dystopia movies) akin to that found in the film Brazil. I had never seen Brazil. I have now seen Brazil. Some major translation is going to be necessary, and I am not talking the kind that can be resolved with the help of a French-to-English dictionary (n. dictionnaire m.).
1. Consider sharing that lovely bit from the Noah Haidle play in which the old Colonel refers to his book on how to do most everything in order to reteach himself how to wait.
2.
"Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." (Alexander Graham Bell, March 10, 1876)

So it seems that now is as good a time as any to try to define what dramaturgy is. For myself as much as anyone. Because I consider myself a dramaturg. I also consider myself a playwright. Soon I might consider myself a literary manager, and eventually I hope to consider myself a scholar and call myself a professor, but not yet. Right now I am a dramaturg and a playwright and as such I hope I can speak to both with the same freedom and frankness that Dave Chappelle uses when he makes black jokes and Jerry Seinfeld makes Jewish jokes and Howard Stern makes asshole jokes.

The old takes-one-to-lampoon-one theory.

Because ultimately the only people who are going to be happy with my theories on Dramaturgy are directors.

Dramaturgy is tricky because dramaturgs are -- while helpful -- ultimately unnecessary. In order to produce a play, one needs a script and actors. (For performance art, even the script is an unnecessary luxury.) In order to have a good production of a play, one needs a director: the voiced manifestation of a consistent understanding and vision as seen from the perspective of the audience. In order to have a smooth production of a play, one needs a stage manager. In order to have a production that is both visually and aurally pleasing, one needs designers and the crew to implement their designs.

And a good smooth visually and aurally pleasing show has often been enough.

The least necessary voice in the room is the playwright. After the first production of the show, after the playwright has lain (laid? I was a writing instructor?) the script to rest, after she has made her vision as clear as she can with the words of her play, after she has kissed it on the forehead and sent it off into the world -- "don't forget to write sweetheart. let me know what you're up to" -- the playwright is no longer in charge. She was before this moment. Of course she was. It was her play. New Play Dramaturgy will be the subject of a later post.

But now it is the director's play: the playwright is dead. And here is why: the play was written with a set of intentions to communicate to an audience in a specific context. And that specific context has dissolved into the recesses of time. It is a new time with an audience with new needs. Theatre is lovely because it is organic and it is organic because it is a collaboration between the past (as it has been captured in the text) and the present (as it is understood by the director). If the playwright dominates the direction of a production, it's growth and applicability is stunted. Literature consists of time capsules, while the theatre is constantly renewing itself.

This is not meant to sound pretentious: I like time capsules. I just don't think theatre should be one (historical fictions and, maybe, documentary dramas excluded).

And none of this is to say that the playwright should not be involved: but her voice shouldn't have any more authority than anyone else in the room, and certainly not more than the director.
The dramaturg is the second most unnecessary voice in the room, which is why many productions do without. There was a directing professor back at school who "didn't believe in dramaturgs" because they simply do the work a good director should be doing for himself.

Well yes and no: it is true that if a dramaturg does the basic research surrounding a play -- production history, contextualization, looking up what a ookpik is -- this frees the director up to concentrate on what is seen and heard on stage. And in a pinch, one cannot argue this is a bad deal.

But to say that a dramaturg is useless is to say that the field of consulting is useless. I used to resist defining dramaturgy as a form of consulting because I did not like the implications associated with comparing art to business. But it is basically comparing research to research. A consultant is one who is hired from outside a company to look inside a company(and at the environment surrounding that company) to tell that company how to improve, usually with the goal of making money. Likewise a dramaturg is brought in (though not hired in my experience as of yet; how to make money as a dramaturg is something I have yet to figure out) to help the director realize his goal: producing the best production of a play as possible under the circumstances given.

This unsatisfying definition is vague, but is has to be; the requirements of every show are going to be different. But I think I can simplify it -- unfortunately without adding much to the explanation -- by saying that a production dramaturg keeps the director honest to his vision. And he can do this in a number of ways: understanding the play, understanding the original context, understanding the playwright, understanding the present social climate, understanding the social climate the director wants to create in the play, understanding the director's vision and helping the director communicate his vision to the actors and designers with your cumulative understanding.

Theatre does not need dramaturgs. There have been brilliant productions without them. But I am guessing that many shows have also been saved by an astute dramaturg. And dramaturgs can add a level of consistency and complexity to a production that would otherwise be absent.

Okay. My head hurts. It feels full and empty simultaneously. I think this is right. It is right for now. Deirdre being a genius once dramaturged a day in her own life (which is a different kind of dramaturg all together: lets call that Creative dramaturgy with a capital C because she is creating a new work through dramaturgy; that said, it probably already has a name; I will have to look that up). I will probably dramaturg this entry later to make sure it is consistent.

Until then: fellow dramaturgs and playwrights, if we spirits have offended...it was not my intent.

2 comments:

Jess Hutchinson said...

Oh, I like you. You're pretty brilliant. Wanna be friends?

Dan said...

Of course you do. You're a director, love...but yes.