Blogland burnout spectacular

Don’t panic; I’m close to hitting the wall in my current run of blogorrhoea. What did it for me was clicking through from a link in Lyn Gardner’s take on whether critics should have friends who are theatre makers (no, apparently), which was helpfully provided by fellow blogger Natasha Trippney of Interval Drinks.

This in turn took me to Fin Kennedy’s blog back in December and January [scroll down to the 14th] last year, which was cited by Lyn as an example of what can happen when poacher turns gamekeeper. As Fin noted in the comments section under Lyn’s original article, that’s not strictly what happened. But, It still makes for pretty depressing reading.

Not having had enough of arguments, and feeling somewhat chastened by the description of my blog as “a great resource for the London theater scene” on The Shalimar’s blog (not the intention, I know - but no one wants to feel parochial, and I really am far more guilty of it than most), I went on to have a look at the rumpus recently being waged over at George Hunka’s website concerning his committing the first cardinal sin of criticism - writing up after leaving at the interval. I was alerted to this by Australia’s Alison Croggan’s own excellent response (oh yes, I was really doing the rounds today). Actually, George's position is something of a grey area, and one which (to the best of my knowledge) does not exist in Britain - he was on a free ticket (to a preview performance) and had been invited to write-up, but as a "blogger" rather than as an "actual critic".

In his defence, Hunka can be found musing on: “useless dichotomies -- critic/playwright, amateur/professional -- which only serve to Balkanize the practice of theatre production, reporting and criticism in the United States. Preserving these dichotomies only serves to more firmly entrench the status quo in which these dichotomies encourage antagonism and separation.” This reminds me a lot of what I wrote about at no small length yesterday.

Anyway - yes: he makes a full admission that he left at the interval. No: I’m not sure that’s enough. Nor am I sure that I’m not sure. Obviously it’s terrible manners. But then so is boring someone half to sleep. Obviously a critic can’t report accurately on a play if they haven’t seen it all, and that is their job. By the same token, a blogger is probably well within their rights to leave at the interval if they really can’t face the second half. It is - as Ian Shuttleworth once remarked when someone threw a chair at my head - practical criticism in action. I’ve certainly felt no compunction about not returning for the second halves of West End shows that I wasn’t reviewing.

Hunka in turn points to theatre director Isaac Butler’s attack on US dramaturgy, which he describes as an “annual churlish slog” - this seems a little harsh given that Butler appears to have directed two of Hunka’s plays. Or perhaps “churlish” is a term of approbation in New York. That, or Butler didn’t do a very good job with the plays. Either way, in many respects Butler’s post seems to echo quite a lot of what gets said over here when writers are complaining about the culture of dramaturgy. What is heartening however, is Christopher Shinn’s comments on the matter. Specifically his praise for:
“other societies, which have much healthier new-writing structures in place -- where young playwrights are getting full and enthusiastically-received productions -- [which] have nothing even approaching "development" as we understand it in America. [...] Dominic Cooke's season since taking over the Royal Court is an example of what happens when structures exist that support the writing of plays (new writers' groups) and then productions. The intermediate step of readings and development without a commitment to production is largely lacking in the U.K. I am a product of a culture that produces, at the highest level, the untested plays of untested writers, and over there I'm one of dozens.”

As the row on Fin Kennedy’s blog, and several spats like it since across a variety of other blogs, attest, we in Britain fret and stamp around a lot worrying about our lot and about theatre here. For the most part, I try not to despair too much. Three years of being paid to read the Daily Mail and the tabloids has instilled in me an almost complete mistrust of hand-wringing and worst case scenarios. Yes, there are issues that want looking at and talking about - most obviously: the ongoing prominence of the British tradition of text-based work, the models of theatre management this can put in place, and the wider issue of what audiences want, expect, and are prepared to work at, or indeed are equipped with the intellectual reference points to deal with - but in our collective passion to improve everything, let’s not forget that we've got plenty to be pleased about too.

Edinburgh round-up: stab one

The general consensus seems to be that Edinburgh has been a bit flat this year. Several plausible theories have been advanced as to why this might be. Looming large in many is the mostly foul weather and the widespread Festival Flu that has been doing the rounds as a result. Another theory is that there aren’t as many stand-out shows as there can be – and, oddly, those that there are seem to be struggling to find audiences. There is also the widely touted belief that the critical consensus this year is more scattergun than usual with 5 star/2 star splits not uncommon. I do wonder if this consensus spreads much further than my friends. Maybe we’ve all just got several notches more cynical and lazy. After all, innovation is only innovation once, after that it goes from being enjoyable re-tread to tired cliché all too quickly.

That said, once I warmed into the Festival atmosphere, and before I got too bogged down in Festival flu, I had a really lovely time. I’ve seen several shows which made coming up well worth while, and a couple which I wouldn’t have missed for the world – particularly Chris Goode’s utterly wonderful Hippo World Guest Book and Melanie Wilson’s astonishing Simple Girl. Other notables include Shalimar Theater's La Femme est Morte, Unlimited’s Ethics of Progress, Third Angel’s Presumption, and Real Circumstance’s Limbo. That said, despite probably achieving a thirty-plus show count, I can’t help feeling I’ve been criminally remiss. Apart from the fact that I keep taking whole days off from seeing anything because I can’t face another hour of trying not to cough while constantly wiping my red nose as silently as possible, I worry that I’ve allowed far too many things to drift. Partially this has been conducted on the “if it’s any good it’ll transfer” principle, and partially because despite things being recommended, the recommendations have been pretty lukewarm. It seems you’ll always be able to find someone to applaud your decision not to bother going to something.

That said, the shows are only part of the fun. What has been really nice this year is to get a chance to spend a bit of time with a selection of people I see far too rarely; and in conditions where everyone is at their most switched-on and critically engaged. As well as catching up with people, it’s been nice to meet some new and apparently brilliant people – of whom I can now also fail to see enough until about this time next year despite living in the same city all year round.

On my way to my current position (the computer in the Assembly Rooms club bar – I swear I am never doing Edinburgh without a laptop again) I bumped into fellow blogger Andy Field who drew my attention to Lyn Gardner’s lovely write-up of his recent site-specific/sympathetic thing (which I, of course, inevitably missed). In a way this encapsulates the whole way Edinburgh seems to work. You potter along and once in a while you just run into someone or something which makes your day. Generally speaking, it's not a bad way of being. I haven’t seen Lyn this year, but have felt more than ever before that the whole Fringe benefits from her presence like she is some sort of theatrical Mother Theresa. Lord knows where she gets the stamina from, let alone the ability to keep on turning in acute readable prose. She is an example to us all and I am not a little awed.