Non-professional theatre

I was thinking of calling this amateur theatricals or something, but that doesn't quite capture what I am after.

I am specifically thinking through whether I should apply my critical apparatus (which can be highly critical indeed at times) to non-professional theatre.  This is sort of tangentially related to the (fairly boring debate) in progressive circles about whether satire can ever punch down or only punch up.  I really dislike these debates, as it reminds me far too much of the ultimately oppressive P.C. culture that dominated my early 20s and ultimately comes down to one group of people trying to shut down others (with the best intentions in the world, of course).  I find the number of people claiming victimhood to have multiplied to the point where one can hardly say anything without offending some tiny or not so tiny interest group (with aggrieved white Christian men some of the most offended these days).  So I pretty much ignore all those people who say that this or that is off-limits.

To the extent that I have rules for reviewing, they basically break down to 1) kids are off-limits, 2) it's probably better not to review a friend's work (covering writing and/or acting) and 3) if it truly is an amateur performance, I might go a little easy on reviewing the individual performances (but not the script).  I feel, so long as I was expected to pay (or pay over $5), then the play can be reviewed without kid gloves.

What I think is actually insulting is that some non-professional companies being patted on the head for just showing up and putting on a show.  Or worse, the play is being valued for its political context (extremely common among reviewers in Now for instance) or building community (the overly friendly reviews of work at Buddies in Bad Times for instance, or this blog (Mooney's*) that generally does not publish negative reviews at all) or focuses on a back story that is interesting (and not on the play that is actually being put on).  This last category is certainly what is most important to many of the reviewers of AOHDDS.  Here is a typical review from the Globe and Mail.  As it might be behind a paywall, this is the money quote (to my mind): "The meta-narrative surrounding All Our Happy Days Are Stupid is what made the production work – and it’s tamped down this time around. But the story behind the story cannot be forgotten."  What doesn't really seem to matter is the craft or professionalism of the actors.  Of course, this assumes that the play is reviewed at all.  I believe The Star still tries to hold the line and only review Equity shows (with an exception made to the various Fringe shows, which has become an institution that can no longer be ignored).  I tend to have to go to Now to find out what is really going on, though I still find the reviews themselves a bit slanted.

What happens is that then people get kind of misled or sidetracked by an overly generous review and go spend their money and feel they didn't have the right kind of information going in.  Or what might even be worse, the play gets moved from a Fringe venue (or even incredibly enough transfers to the big league, i.e. New York) and it gets slaughtered because what it had going for it (aside from local good will) was some kind of magic that just couldn't scale up.  I have seen or heard of this several times.  I wasn't terribly surprised that the New York Times was not overly impressed with All Our Happy Days Are Stupid, giving only 2.5 stars and the reviewer (Ben Brantley) essentially coming out and saying that the actors embarrassed themselves on stage.  What he actually says is that it starts to feel painful watching these unprepared performers "who use a motley mix of mismatched and undercooked techniques."  That very much squares with my impressions of the play.

Now the actors probably had the time of their lives in New York, and certainly some people enjoyed the play (or convinced themselves that they hadn't wasted their money, which is nearly the same thing).  But I think it would have been worth everyone's while to sit back and reflect if perhaps a more polished style (and a coherent approach above all) wouldn't have been more rewarding to the cast and the audience.  

Am I getting too hung up over this?  Isn't the main point to have a good time?  Ultimately, there is no play that will satisfy everyone.  And that is true, though I feel (or I wouldn't go on at such length) that plays with some organic unity (and that don't rely on digital tricks and flashy graphics) will more often than not, bring pleasure to the majority of theatre goers.  Plays that break all the rules will occasionally hit it out of the park, but will more often strike out swinging.  For some artists, that is fine (an acceptable trade-off), and I don't begrudge them that, but my general preference is for the more carefully constructed play with a well-trained cast.  Perhaps ironically, The Object Lesson, which does break almost all the rules but does it extremely well, worked for me, but I overheard a couple on the streetcar home saying that they didn't feel it was worth their time because it wasn't a coherent piece.  I'll try to get to a review of this in a day or two, though given the extremely short run (it closed today), this will be more valuable (to the extent it is of any value) as a reflection on art and theatre than as a guide to what to see in Toronto.

* I will say that the reviews are generally informative (and I may even have seen one or two that were not all sweetness and light) and they may even be slightly more comprehensive than Now in listing very small theatre companies, so I will probably end up bookmarking this site after all.