I trudge through the darkness that is
merely a shadow. Above me, the canopy that hides me from the light is a thin
lattice of reports on audience responses to live events. Yet the canopy is not
natural: those reports that seem the thinnest, based on the least rigorous
scholarship and little or vague data, cast the deeper shadows. And in the darkness, looming, a figure
that I can barely make out and yet retains a fearsome aspect.
My conversations with Lucifer are a matter
of concern both to the preacher and the psychotherapist, and still, I recognise
him from the mellifluous tone of his voice. He urges me to accept that theatre,
all art, is merely cultural capital. It’s a product, the same as washing powder
and purchased with the same criteria: value for money, efficiency of effect,
reputation of the brand. The quality I supposedly seek is merely a reflection
of my own vanity, an untoward emphasis on efficiency that is, at once, an
attempt to make spiritual the material (a play may be ephemeral, but it is, above
all, physical and temporal) and an act of my disturbed social conscience.
‘In seeking to make theatre some kind of
exalted species of experience, you only occupy its existence, make it another
tool in your relentless quest to aggrandise yourself,’ he sneers. ‘Critic, you
want the arts to be holy, in order to bask in its glory, like a provincial
priest pretending to holiness through his post rather than his actions.’
I don’t know why Lucifer still bothers with
me: he already has the arts administration in his lair. What appears to be a
sensitive attempt to involve the audience in the analysis of art – to define
quality as being defined by the audience and not a panel of elevated experts –
is quickly revealed as a cynical exercise in marketing. The language of
consumerism stinks out the discussions of audience reception of performance.
‘You are a pocket of resistance – an
elitist. Remember how Tony Blair would attack ‘conservative forces’ that
believed they knew better than the common man or woman. That’s you, Vile.
Former Latin teacher, cod-intellectual.’
The attack is always swift, always emerges
from the darkness and retreats back into the warmth of the night. I make
tentative statements about why I follow theatre – they usually involve a
recollection of Iona Kewney’s solo, and the majesty of the intense, emotional
experience.
Lucifer sneers and points out that in
requesting art to be so divine, so authentic, I am begging it to have qualities
that my life lacks. I am buying into a myth of artistic behaviour to support my
intellectual superiority.
“And so reduce it to cultural capital. You
already fit in one of the demographics.’
Attempts to qualify art through audience
response are sophisticated. Here, a paper reduces it to a simple formula –
KRAC. The audience wants Knowledge, to escape Risk, to experience Authenticity
and Collective engagement. The quality of the play depends on its ability to
offer all four.
There is no indefinable quintessence that
makes for good.
There is no value to art that offers
genuine transformation – if such art even exists.
There is only product, assessed by weight
like the packet of old fashion sweets I buy on cheerless mornings to help me
past the bus journey into the office.
My job as a critic is merely to help set up
the shop window. My job is to give Knowledge, to reduce Risk.
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