(Lyric Hammersmith, 3 July 2017)
The play does not offer much in the way of acting. Instead of developing relationships with each other, the characters simply speak at the audience, rather well. What is spoken is Philosophy 101, illustrated with the same textbook examples. Should one be utilitarian? There is not much else out there. Should one ever defy the authority of man or law if one believes this authority to be malicious or mistaken? WWII has answered this question. The facts of the case at hand are curious.
The chilling finale is that forty percent of those scattered about the house think differently.
9 July 2017
The Great Gatsby
(12 Pilgrimage Street, 2 July 2017)
Fitzgerald’s novel is moralising and trite. The play is contrived and protracted. The actors try to conjure up intensity by shouting and running around. The soundtrack bears no relationship to the period or the mood of the performance. (The dance moves presumably do.) The audience are neglected and neglectful guests, not privileged voyeurs.
Fitzgerald’s novel is moralising and trite. The play is contrived and protracted. The actors try to conjure up intensity by shouting and running around. The soundtrack bears no relationship to the period or the mood of the performance. (The dance moves presumably do.) The audience are neglected and neglectful guests, not privileged voyeurs.
The Comedy About a Bank Robbery
(The Criterion Theatre, 1 July 2017)
Shakespeare would set plays in exotic locations, which might as well not have existed. So exiled, events are less prone to being judged by the audience's parochial norms. Characters avoid being typecast by their location alone.
Today, dramatic settings tend to gravitate towards the US, which has an air of plausibility about it, in part, due to the news coverage, but mostly because of its cultural reach. For a theatregoer in London, the late-1950s Minneapolis, where the theatregoer has never visited, is likely to be more real than Birmingham, where the theatregoer might have even lived. The US history is recent enough for audiences to identify with and to see the analogies with and the repercussions for the present. Individualistic, the US is an auspicious setting for stories about individuals.
Besides, just like Facebook and science, art does not live by national boundaries. The London art scene is also the New York art scene. The leadership of the English-speaking world is unlikely to ever be challenged, not because this world is infallible, but because the entire world will have become English-speaking before any challenge can be mounted.
Much of contemporary entertainment is free or cheap, and easily goes viral. As a result, it is often designed to be sterile: politically correct and targeting the least common denominator. By charging its customers a hefty ticket fee in money and time, live theatre makes it harder for the audience to be inadvertently exposed to offence and makes it costly to admit that offence has been committed. (It is hard to admit one has paid to be offended. Instead, one has probably payed to be intellectually challenged.)
A Comedy About a Bank Robbery is a slapstick comedy designed in London, set in Canada and mostly in Minneapolis, and energised by the 1957 hit "Dynamite." The staging of action scenes is impressionist and free, instead of appearing constrained and impoverished by the limitations of live theatre.
Shakespeare would set plays in exotic locations, which might as well not have existed. So exiled, events are less prone to being judged by the audience's parochial norms. Characters avoid being typecast by their location alone.
Today, dramatic settings tend to gravitate towards the US, which has an air of plausibility about it, in part, due to the news coverage, but mostly because of its cultural reach. For a theatregoer in London, the late-1950s Minneapolis, where the theatregoer has never visited, is likely to be more real than Birmingham, where the theatregoer might have even lived. The US history is recent enough for audiences to identify with and to see the analogies with and the repercussions for the present. Individualistic, the US is an auspicious setting for stories about individuals.
Besides, just like Facebook and science, art does not live by national boundaries. The London art scene is also the New York art scene. The leadership of the English-speaking world is unlikely to ever be challenged, not because this world is infallible, but because the entire world will have become English-speaking before any challenge can be mounted.
Much of contemporary entertainment is free or cheap, and easily goes viral. As a result, it is often designed to be sterile: politically correct and targeting the least common denominator. By charging its customers a hefty ticket fee in money and time, live theatre makes it harder for the audience to be inadvertently exposed to offence and makes it costly to admit that offence has been committed. (It is hard to admit one has paid to be offended. Instead, one has probably payed to be intellectually challenged.)
A Comedy About a Bank Robbery is a slapstick comedy designed in London, set in Canada and mostly in Minneapolis, and energised by the 1957 hit "Dynamite." The staging of action scenes is impressionist and free, instead of appearing constrained and impoverished by the limitations of live theatre.
6 July 2017
BP Portrait Award 2017
(The National Portrait Gallery, 2 and 3 July 2017)
There is something to be said for a random allotment of awards, which lately seems to have been the case with BP portrait awards. If one accepts progressive taxation, why not "tax" a better painter more by refusing him recognition? However, while progressive taxation does not flip the after-tax income ranking, BP awards may flip the post-award recognition. Two considerations may make such flipping palatable. First, before the award has been made, a better candidate may face a slightly higher probability of winning, so expected recognition will be aligned with merit. Second, even after the prize has been awarded to an arbitrary candidate, the authors of better work will gain greater recognition from the public, journalists, and gallery owners. The committee's choice of winners is a better indicator of the prevailing politics than of artistic merit.
As population grows mobile, and alternative forms of existence flourish, Living in London, NYC, Paris, San Francisco, and Los Angeles proper will become a form of traditional existence that only the best of the best will be able to afford and for ever shorter amounts of time.
The Book of Mormon
(The Prince of Wales Theatre, 4 July 2017)
Two sets of beliefs co-exist: science and religion. Science organises knowledge. Science’s political instantiation is democracy. Religion makes statements about that which cannot be verified from experience. Religious beliefs help cope with whatever cannot be controlled. Religious beliefs also help affect individual behaviour by postulating non-verifiable threats and inducements at a sufficient distance from common experience. Religion’s political instantiation is church, an authoritarian state. A well-designed religion promotes the beliefs that favour desirable social outcomes. As any authoritarian regime, however, centralised religion is liable to be closed to change and vulnerable to being hijacked by a malevolent leader.
"The Book of Mormon" is about the power of creating and sharing one’s own narrative and about distilling dreams into a collection of principles, not a particular instantiation of these principles. A good story is not necessarily a true story but rather a story that resonates, gives hope, and leads to socially better outcomes. Of course, an untrue story should be universally recognised as a metaphor. Art and some branches of mathematics deal in such metaphors. (Good art and mathematics are true in the sense that they are internally consistent but may not be true in the sense that they need not correspond simply to observed phenomena.)
Religion designed right is art.
There is no virtue in being boring when it costs the same to be unique. Seduced by the exclusivity of the experience, theatre audiences can handle uniqueness. In the wild, the exercise of uniqueness is an effective sorting device for identifying friends and fellow travellers and is the only way to bet on finding one's niche.
“The Book of Mormon” is subtle and intense. The intensity stems from the show's occasional directness, from Cody Jamison Strand's owning his part, and from the musical format, which has been perfected over decades to fuse acting, singing, dancing, and a notch of surrealist madness into an efficient universal language. The ephemerality of the art form renders the artwork immortal.
Two sets of beliefs co-exist: science and religion. Science organises knowledge. Science’s political instantiation is democracy. Religion makes statements about that which cannot be verified from experience. Religious beliefs help cope with whatever cannot be controlled. Religious beliefs also help affect individual behaviour by postulating non-verifiable threats and inducements at a sufficient distance from common experience. Religion’s political instantiation is church, an authoritarian state. A well-designed religion promotes the beliefs that favour desirable social outcomes. As any authoritarian regime, however, centralised religion is liable to be closed to change and vulnerable to being hijacked by a malevolent leader.
"The Book of Mormon" is about the power of creating and sharing one’s own narrative and about distilling dreams into a collection of principles, not a particular instantiation of these principles. A good story is not necessarily a true story but rather a story that resonates, gives hope, and leads to socially better outcomes. Of course, an untrue story should be universally recognised as a metaphor. Art and some branches of mathematics deal in such metaphors. (Good art and mathematics are true in the sense that they are internally consistent but may not be true in the sense that they need not correspond simply to observed phenomena.)
Religion designed right is art.
There is no virtue in being boring when it costs the same to be unique. Seduced by the exclusivity of the experience, theatre audiences can handle uniqueness. In the wild, the exercise of uniqueness is an effective sorting device for identifying friends and fellow travellers and is the only way to bet on finding one's niche.
“The Book of Mormon” is subtle and intense. The intensity stems from the show's occasional directness, from Cody Jamison Strand's owning his part, and from the musical format, which has been perfected over decades to fuse acting, singing, dancing, and a notch of surrealist madness into an efficient universal language. The ephemerality of the art form renders the artwork immortal.
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