Reply to “great/not great play” post

Dear Tennessee-

Here is the answer which you asked about your play. It is in fact a total failure. How will you get a bear on stage that is dead, and why would people want to watch you eat oatmeal?

And yet it is at the same time a raging success- and this is why. What we need more in life is not merely failure, but BIG FAILURE, BIG OFFENSIVE STUPID NEON-COLORED failure like yours.

Too often in our theatre today we have nice. We have cute. And then the bane of all art, we have the CLEVER! Ack! Cleverness about smart things, clones, cute parallels with classic plays, add some sleek costumes and pretty music and people leave entertained but the next day they have forgotten all they saw.

Your play they would not forget. They would have to take a side on your play. There would be no fence sit. Sadly, I  great Zamboni must take on some of the guilt of helping to create this Bourgeois Narcotics Factory as my old friend Bertolt Brecht used to call it. I have been in the theatre business for quite some time.

But I am hopeful. People are starting to say “where’s the excitement?” “Where’s the childlike awe?  the open mouth gasping at what you see on stage saying ‘can they really do this?'” ?

More plays with bears and oatmeal? More plays with people hurling things at the audience so we have to duck! Let us do something!

Everyone, FAIL TODAY! But BIG! It just might be amazing. (like Forced Entertainment, from Scotland, above)

Like Zamboni always say, if you are hunting for Moby Dick, make sure to take a long the tartar sauce..