Works in Progress (A Sort of Apology)

I don’t have a problem with the idea of works-in-progress. Back in the 1990s, a great many of the big names of international theatre would tour their latest opus as a work in progress, learning from the mistakes and the audience, yet delivering memorable performances. And for emerging artists, they are vital: a space for learning, taking risks, or reminding the public that they exist.

I know that any attempt to discuss the frequency of works-in-progress gets very close to economic questions. They are cheaper than a full-scale production and in the current financial blah blah blah…

There’s nothing wrong with them, and there is certainly nothing worth bullying in any individual WiP. As long as they are fairly advertised – and priced – nobody loses.

What I am bothered by is how many there seems to be at the moment. Alongside the clustering of festivals, which are run on minimal cost by dedicated and brave curators, and often feature work by unpaid artists, the WiP has become the most obvious response to the contemporary credit crunch.  The rise of the DIY ethos, with its roots in punk and the “let’s do the show right here” romance of the musicals, prizes the immediate over the polished (and the veneer of polish, famously, can’t be applied to dog faeces) and blurs the line between incomplete and deliberately rough around the edges.

Here’s the thing: I’m a critic, and I’ll go to anything. I get sick if I have to sit in my house. Without an almost daily infusion of art, I begin to dwell on the mundane details of my life, and think about how I seriously need to tidy my bedroom before the rats gnaw through the protective barrier of dirty clothes that surrounds my bed.

Audiences are more discerning, and they are not going to be satisfied by the WiP. They want to see the money up there on the stage. Going to see a work in progress ‘by accident’ might not be a good thing. Unless the audience fully engaged with the process of making art, a WiP might come across as a shambles.

Of course, the audience most fully engaged with the creative process is “other artists.” The WiP and the DIY could be in danger of creating an audience made up of artists, and no one else.

In conclusion, I am thinking aloud. I like works in progress, but worry that they set up a cycle of artists watching artists making work for artists who watch artists and….