Public peer feedback

Last week playwright Tara Beagan and I got into an intriguing conversation on Facebook with Obsidian Theatre Artistic Director Philip Akin about barriers to theatre artists talking to each other about their work. There are numerous pitfalls to this in terms of alienating one’s peers for a myriad of reasons, but we all agreed that we ought to be better at talking to eachother about our work than we were.

A few days later, Tara, who once wrote a whole play with Praxis, texted me with some questions after a performance of our latest work, Rifles. Would I be interested in the sort of public critique of my own plays that only days ago I had lauded as necessary? Could I find a third person who had seen the performance on the same occasion to participate, so it would be more of a discussion?

This seemed a good and fair question to ask and so I agreed and sought out Emma Mackenzie Hillier,  current Nightswimming Theatre Metcalf Foundation Dramaturgy Intern, who had also seen the show the same evening as Tara as well as the first version I directed as a Shaw Festival Director’s Project.

She agreed – and so we all gathered round our personal Facebook hearths, the evening after the play had closed, to have the discussion that follows below. I was going to edit it down, but I started to feel like what is awkward about this format was also interesting, so the conversation is preserved in whole:

• • Conversation started Monday

• Hey is this this just like gchat?

• Oh! Hello!

• seems like it’ll work

• well it is where it all started

• Perfect setting.

• true!

• Tara! I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at the LMDA Conference this past year and was quite moved by your speech. It’s a pleasure to e-meet you here.

• or maybe you have a plan… i’m bossy.

• i am a bit nervous bit also intrigued

• ditto!

• i am much more into it now that it has closed.

• it does make the gut jump a little. honesty. eep!

• “closed”

• I’m interested by what we mean by “critiquing” – I think we view that word with a lot of negativity.

• fair enough. though i wish we were dropping bravery bombs on each other DURING runs so we could make changes if we wanted to.

• hahaha… unless it’s an Equity show, in which case the Director isn’t allowed to!

• i like to work on a show past opening if cast is into it.

• That would be nice. It would certainly open the channels for collaboration in a bigger way.

• definitely.

• So… how do we want to start?

• my beloved friend pj prudat will haunt directors for notes all the live long run.

• But public acting notes-mid run would be weird. There are alot of trust issues between a director and actor that would come up.

• Oh… that’s fantastic.

• I think that’s a good place to start. Especially for me since I think that’s where most of my questions are.

• curation/context is big and small: curation of the play by the producing companies, context in the theatrical ecology, context within an actor’s body of work, etc.

• hahaha – I might have to jet by then… in which case it would be down to Tara to chat with you.

• cool. emma, you spark us with a question!

• Well I guess the reason I picked it more than anything is that it is anomalous for Brecht in that it is not like the rest of Epic Theatre; He called it and Aristotelean Empathy drama. Buut even so – you can’t escape Marxist underpinnings and primacy of economics in that paradigm.

• did praxis commission nicholas to do the adaptation?

• Well… I don’t have a response to that answer, really.

• we still have 20 minutes we want to adapt from Orwell and include. it is non-fiction

• What is it about the Orwell character that you think will enrich the current text?

• (he was lovely)

Talk to me about what didn’t quite work for both of you

• it is quite fair. i think to say that

• I found that he opened up the world to me, a little.

• intriguing. will you say more?

• Yes – well – in Brecht’s version he comes in ang goes out. he is onstage for maybe 2 minutes. in our version he is there for an hour

• I appreciate this. and im sure Nicolas would too, as I think that would gel with his goals for the character – but I still would like him to be more cohesive.

• honestly, though, i often have troubles following war stories.

• Because Brecht described this as Aristotelean I have been brushing up on what that means in terms of drama – a biggie is that there are no extraneous elements. Cohesive.

• The first round, as Michael pointed out to me a few days ago, at Shaw had a lot of different Generals who were oppressing (read: mass murdering) the people of Spain. This edition had only one which simplified things considerably.

• Im not sure that the Orwell element we have inserted is cohesive yet – but that’s why we’re planning another workshop.

• i did like seeing mostly The People, for sure.

• huh. can you expand on that?

• wheeler, i have a question that andy wondered. can i chuck it in the ring?

• well. its a good point that we need not look to europe or WWII to find examples of genocide or Fascism

• yeah. i have some things on this.

• no that is interesting. does not sting. continue.

• Oh that’s interesting. Yep. I wanna know more too

• i actually realized it just now. people who don ‘t have a lot of money never call themselves poor.

• Ah!

• Not to simply disagree with you, but I think I disagree with you Tara.

• oh, exciting!

• Perhaps it depends on the level of poor you’re talking about.

• Really? I think I agree with Tara.

• When Brecht has his character’s say “We’re Poor” – i hear the propagandist for a moment and we leave psychological realism.

• yeah – getting by, maybe down on luck.

• Whenever the line “we’re poor” came to the surface, I disconnected from the argument. Except for its first use, every time those words were used after I was taken out of the very “realist” (with a musician on stage) world that I was watching. I felt as though the propaganda was getting in the way of the story being told.

• me, too, emma. i need to love someone on that stage. or something.

• did brecht always do the brechtian thing of pointing out that the play is a play?

• bless his little red boots.

• Yeah… that sounds pretty Brechtian.

• was there anyone in the cast with mediterranean roots?

• (sorry i’m not going to bother seeking out the proper spelling of mediterra etc.)

• @Tara – no there was not – but this was not for want of trying.

• it felt WASP-y to me. straight up. very talented actors, but quite WASP-y.

• I have a whole other blog post about diverse casting, and indie theatre, because it has some unique challenges.

• i think you may be biased buy the super-waspy image aislinn and i make on your program cause of how fringe did the marketing.

• i wanted more blood in the mouth and fire in the bellies. antonio banderas would look great in a long black frock. all of the frocks.

• i loved that it was you & aislinn. you are undercelebrated, both.

• don’t lie, wheeler. actor.

• only when you write them.

• And centre stage sits Beau.

• I think a critique should always include positive elements and I wanted to mention that I really enjoyed and appreciated the sound design / soundscape (sorry, this is off topic)

• yes, we bought into his presence immediately. and it was impressive how you guys disembodied franco, but beau was RIGHT THERE.

• nice to meet you!

• hmm. i know what you mean about it should be clean. a big design challenge is how do you reasonably hide 5 realistic rifles in a festival setting. we had to create something big for them to be reasonably camouflaged by. in a diff version would love to put them under floorboards. then lots could change.

• ok this was great guys. can we call it a successful 1 hr online critique?

• i’d love to see them in plain view. the whole time. hanging, like the crucifix.

• yep. if you’re saturated, as you have every right the day after “closing”, we should sign off as well.

• I look forward to reading your article!

• i don’t mean to be entirely negative. i’m only saying because i feel there is a lot to make much muchier.

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