Audio Anguish #34

Cained, Again by Gareth K Vile on Mixcloud

There is a prize for the person who identifies the play. And the language it is in. And why I thought that it was a good idea to make an hour fifteen version of a script in a language I neither speak nor understand. 

Wanted: beautiful and intelligent companion, GSOH, interested in the arts to join intense and tarnished romantic for horror and pretentious conversation.

EVENT PREVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 22 MARCH 2010

It must be time for me to start dating again. Andrew Campbell and Warcry productions are putting on Cleansed by Sarah Kane. Since Kane is my favourite dramatist, and Cleansed is possibly her most outrageous script, the choice of Sloans bar for venue fills me with a sense of dramatic irony and burgeoning romance. Cleansed, like much of Kane, abstracts the raw brutality into a vague environment – it could be a university, a clinic, a concentration camp. The students, the patients, the inmates rape, kill and love each other, become each other. And even though Kane commands language with supernatural skill, the nature of her scripts – terse, suggestive – allow directors to find their own path through the production, lending the experience a harsh, experimental edge.

It’s a bastard hour: her only script that I can’t read for pleasure. She goes further in her depiction of cruelty, picking up on Edward Bond’s viciousness and excising the failing hope that glimmers in Crave or4.48. While love is projected as the only hope, it can barely face down the repeated acts of violence that dominate the opening scenes. EvenBlasted, her first work that was roundly condemned, has an erotic itch – corrupted and sick, but alive. The desire in Cleansed is for the dead, for death, a ghastly vision of passion as dislocated body parts and tormented lust.

By setting the action in an institution, Kane’s savagery goes beyond personal and political intent, imagining human culture and civilisation as a mere machine for enforcing submission and stripping us of our agency, our hopes, our desires. She is relentlessly anti-humanist, diving into a metaphysical world where the fundamental nature of the human is examined and found bitter. It is intensely spiritual – not in the twee new age euphemism for optimistic and lacking rigour, but in the dark longing of God’s absence.

When a production is successful, as in Edinburgh University’s 4.48, the audience can leave the theatre uplifted with the thrill of having survived extremity. It’s a cliché that a play can force discussion and so intimacy and connection. Yet in Kane’s intensity, talking is the only solution. Her language is an infection, an inoculation. This, of course, makes it perfect for a first date. A ticket is available for anyone glamorous and brave enough to join me for an unflinching gawk at the horror and, even worse, a post-play discussion with the Performance Editor.

 EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 01 APRIL 2010

Enter Sarah and Gareth. They are shackled together. Naked, they recall the Rider Waite Tarot card of The Devil.

Sarah: Do you trust me?
Gareth: Yes. But why?
Sarah: You trust me because I write so well. You trust me because you recognise the things I describe.
Gareth: I don’t recognise this place.
Sarah: It’s a university.
Gareth: It looks like a concentration camp.
Sarah: What’s the difference?

Black out. Loud electronic music. Lights up, The Red Room. Grace is having sex with her brother, while a retarded boy, in a dress, swings from the ceiling on a pair of tights.
Black out. Loud electronic music. Lights up. Sarah and Gareth again.

Gareth: An hour and a half’s a bit long for this.
Sarah: Too weak to take it?
Gareth: It’s a good idea to read out the stage directions rather to act them. It saves the actors having to actually mutilate themselves.
Sarah: Why do you insist on considering Cleansed as a play? My pain transcends theatre. I am on the point of transforming the script into something like your beloved Live Art.
Gareth: You were consciously copying other authors. Edward Bond. Beckett. You even used Shakespeare to defend your stage directions. Just because you were clinically depressed didn’t mean that you weren’t literary.
Sarah: So how many stars are you going to give me?

Black out. Loud electronic music. Lights up, The White Room. Tinker and a gay male couple.

Tinker: I’m a doctor. I’m not a doctor. I hate women.
Gay Male Couple: We understand that sado-masochism is not a matter of whips and chains, but the deeper torments of the mind. One of us ends up dead, the other loses hands, feet and tongue.
Tinker: We are all symbols of internal and external expression. I might be God.

Black out. Sarah and Gareth.

Gareth: Do you remember when we met at The Scala cinema, In King’s Cross?
Sarah: They were showing Pasolini’s Salo. I was the only woman in the audience.
Gareth: And I was the only man not wearing a mackintosh and furtively touching himself.
Sarah: You were a boy.
Gareth: You could have stayed the next morning.
Sarah: How would it have been different?
Gareth: You might still be here.
Sarah: Because I needed you? And I’d be writing adaptations of classics for the NTS.
Pause.
Sarah: Would you have died for me?
Gareth: I would have said that I would.
Sarah: From the man who lasted nine seconds when he was waterboarded.

Black out. Lights up. The chocolate room. The retarded boy is eating an entire box of chocolates to a loud, swirling soundtrack.

Audience member: PLEASE TURN THE FUCKING MUSIC OFF. IT IS DISTRACTING ME FROM THE EXTENDED HORROR OF THE FORCED FEEDING.

Black out. Lights up. Gareth and Sarah.

Gareth: Is it true that Tinker was named after a critic from The Daily Mail?
Sarah: These days, I’d write a witty acoustic song about it and put it on YouTube.
Gareth: We don’t do sincerity in the twenty-first century.
Sarah: That’s why you don’t have any good script-writers.
Gareth: You know, they were just boys. You needed an older lover, et c.
Sarah: I needed God. And He’s dead.
Gareth: This is your worst play.
Sarah: And so my most honest.
Gareth: It needs to be under-played.

Black out. Lights up. The Yellow room. Sounds of amputation, and screams. Grace is naked, with tits and cock.

Grace: (sings) All you love is need. All you love is need. Need, need: need is all you love.

Black out. Lights up. Gareth and Sarah.

Sarah: It’s not as bad as my version of Hippolytus.
Gareth: You hadn’t bothered to read the original.
Sarah: So what? I just fancied having a Greek hero wanking into a sock. You’d prefer a reverential version?
Gareth: I love everything you wrote, Sarah.
Sarah: Does that mean you are going to rape me?

Black out. Pause. Lights up. The stage is scattered with Tinker’s mad eyes, melted chocolate, piss, flames, feet, hands, half a tongue, blood which smells of tomato puree, the dead bodies of the cast. Gareth and Sarah again.

Gareth: They really went for it.
Sarah: I hate actors.
Gareth: Why else would you have written Cleansed?
Sarah: I do to actors what God did to me.
Gareth: Force them through a script that they can’t hope to escape?
Sarah: If God existed, that is what He did. But God is dead.
Gareth: You killed yourself because you had such a strong identification with God?
Sarah: I killed myself because... have you looked out the window lately?
Gareth: You killed yourself because you picked up a copy of Hello! Magazine in the STD waiting room?
Sarah: I saw what was coming. God is dead, and Jordan is sitting in His throne. If God is Love, then Love is dead. In the gap, there is need. Society weeds out the capable. Society destroys God.

Gareth: Sarah? It’s Easter.

Unmastered, Remastered (presented by Sick, Sick, Sick and Map)

A Comedian Speaks

...so I told them, right, I get it. I can do that alternative comedy. Things change - that Frankie Boyle went to court to prove he wasn't racialist, in my day it would have been a badge of pride - I can just get out the boot-polish and you've got yourself an ironic take on my old routines...

Sure, I can do it, just change a few lines here and there. The stuff about the Germans, that is old-fashioned. First heard that joke in 1942, and he said he's heard it in 1915... jokes go in and out of fashion... I remember this one started with 'God Bless Mrs Thatcher' then later changed to 'that bastard Thatcher.' I like to move with the times. Got to keep your finger on the pulse. One time, it was all set up, punchline, set up, punchline, then it was observational... isn't it funny how men are different to women, or how something happened at the post-office.

They don't make them like that anymore. He could bring the house down with a catch-phrase. All he needed. Vaudeville was a tough crude, they had to bring on the children to calm down the crowd some nights. Dancing children. Only thing to calm the heaving breast.

But those vaudeville performers. So versatile. I don't think Beckett would have been a success with them. They got his absurdism, right off the bat. Coming from Working Men's Clubs, you kind of understand what it means to be in a harsh world devoid of meaning.

I've studied the art. Right back to the Greeks. Aristophanes - now, he had a way with the dick joke. A
saucy aside, a quick chuckle at the Spartans, then an undercurrent of conservative political thought. Like Benny Hill. Genius. To this day, people start laughing when you play his theme tune. On the internet, set anything to Yakety Sax and you are guaranteed a million hits. Even car crashes are funny.

But I don't really hold with that sick humour... it doesn't make it okay if you just ask 'too soon?' afterwards. No. Say what you like, we were never nasty. Like Chekhov... okay, so it is never clear whether it is meant to be a tragedy or a comedy but... there's a compassion there. You can't say Uncle Vanya, or Sonia, or anyone, are bad people. I mean, they all want a bit on the side, their share of the action, but they are not malicious. Except when he gets the gun out, I suppose. But what's Chekhov without a gun, eh?

It's like Michael Emans told me - Chekhov thought he was writing for laughs, but his director Stanislavski had them as weepies. Nice guy, Emans, does a bit of populist theatre - he did Vanya as a broad Scottish comedy with little Jimmy Chisholm. Vaudeville roots, see. It's about the way you play him, or translate him. And if you really want the comedy, overplay the romance. Sound stupid if you put your heart into it...

Then again, it's about the audience, too... what do they think they are going to get. Like that time I did a benefit for the miners... never should have gone with the Falklands routine. Funny how the working man changed in those years. But if you have a posh audience in a fancy proscenium arch, they want the tragedy... they probably belong to the same social class as Chekhov's characters, give or take a century and a different country.

It's like Shakespeare said - I'm paraphrasing, because stand-ups aren't good at learning lines - nothing is hilarious or melancholic but thinking makes it so. And he'd know... his comedies are comedies just because they have happy endings. It is up to the actors to get the puns from the pentameters...

Cut Up Widow Gets Clean

Oh dear! It seems that William Burroughs has got hold of my email. Can you work out what productions these press releases came from, before Uncle Bill rode in on his Horse and scattered the words?

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Double Bill: A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity/Clean
26-29 March, 8pm
A Play, A Pie and A Pint
1 April - 3 May, 1pm & 7pm

The Traverse Theatre welcomes the return of its award-winning Double Bill production A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity/Clean this week (26-29 March), with the arrival of the annual A Play, A Pie and A Pint series to look forward to next week (1 April - 3 May). We thought you might like to hear more about both productions.

Our 5*-winning Double Bill will be taking in the lyrical dexterity of Glaswegians in A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity and the razor-sharp edge of international criminal femme fatales in Clean. This is your last opportunity to catch these splendid pieces on the Edinburgh stage before they transfer to New York later this season.

The £12 ticket includes a play, a pie and a pint of beer/125ml glass of house wine/regular glass of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, lemonade, orange juice, tea or filter coffee.

Our line-up offers an eclectic mix of themes, characters and stories to enjoy. 

With both lunchtime and evening performances, there is a time to suit every schedule.

Each performance is presented as an easily digestible 50-minute package. 

Our five PPP pieces this year bring a diverse range of stories to the stage: thematically, tonally and geographically.

The National Theatre of Scotland

sure I saw an opinion in there somewhere...

The past year has been a quiet one for the National Theatre of Scotland. To put it another way, the past year has been a busy year for the National Theatre of Scotland.

While there was plenty of noise during the fifth anniversary year, 2013 has seen the company getting on with work without excessive fanfare. The change of artistic directors is always a time for a company to go for a rest, and although the new man at the top hasn’t burst out with a Big Plan, the NTS have been consolidating their strategies. The Auteur season, in collaboration with The Arches, offered evidence of their commitment to the rising generation of theatre-makers, the revival of Dusinane reminded audiences that they could still go a Grand Theatrical Event (even as it turned into a scenery-chewing contest between the stars), the ill-fated Patterson’s Land venue at the Fringe at least suggested they were still interested in ambitious projects. All of these share a preoccupation with the new: new approaches, new plays, new artists.

The birth of the NTS promised a ‘theatre without walls’ both literally – they have no home venue – and metaphorically: there are no boundaries to their vision of performance. Supporting Claire Cunningham sees them wander into choreography; the Jump project is a bold attempt to shape community theatre. A few years ago, The Arches had a reputation for allowing artists ‘the freedom to fail.’ It’s an unfortunate phrase, but the NTS is founded on a similar principle.

Vicky Featherstone liked to mention how, as artistic director of a national company, she was most excited by theatre that was led by the creator. Rather than shaping the company according to a pre-ordained vision, she looked to the theatre community to provide ideas and enthusiasm. While there is a whole discourse about what ‘failure’ means within art (generally, ‘I don’t like it’ becomes the foundation of deeper criticism), the ‘failures’ of the NTS ought not to be counted as the occasional poor production, but in terms of the organisation’s overall remit and ambitions. On these terms, it is doing pretty well.

The Auteur season, although it produced two complete works and a selection of works-in-progress, was a more intriguing success than Blackwatch. Sure, Kieran Hurley’s Rantin is designed to be a smaller show, and won’t ever garner the same international audiences. But it revealed that the NTS is ready to get behind emerging artists and throw down theatre that doesn’t confirm to some grand ideal but engages immediately with specific moments in time. Rantin didn’t conjure up a mythical statement about Scottish identity, but it did sketch out opinions and possibilities. It was also an intriguing fusion of post-dramatic and ‘popular’ theatre, of the sort that once made 7:84 a big deal.

The Auteur selection was all about a National Theatre that speaks to its nation’s artists. Back in the 1960s, when that National Theatre in London was being built, there was still a trace of the ardent nationalism that made a state-supported theatre an urgent need: like Opera Houses, or a good ballet company, matters of British pride were at stake. Somehow, the NTS has avoided that. Sure, it has Blackwatch and whatever Alan Cumming vehicle it needs to show the world how wonderful Scotland is. More importantly, it is cultivating artists who work in the country. There are probably a few competing agenda in there somewhere, but its output has been remarkably free of the kind of pontificating national pride that sadly marked Dear Larry’s stewardship of the NT down in the Big Smoke.

The National Theatre in England

not at all totalitarian font, then

The traditional histories of the National Theatre (of England, or Britain) tend to begin in around 1848, when the idea of a state-funded company was first given formal, public expression. There then follows a slightly depressing litany of the various attempts to persuade the government to stump up the readies, with Kenneth Tynan emerging as a bit of a super supporter in the 1950s and being rewarded with the post of Literary Manager (not, as he testily points out in one interview, the dramaturge).

It’s a lovely, coherent story, and has plenty of very English heroes, struggling manfully against institutional inertia while the state manages not to be blamed since it was usually a war that stopped it fulfilling its various promises (or, in the 1950s, the building of the Welfare State). It is so delicious and lineal that it has the quality of a myth, and immediately awakens my distrust.

These days, the meaning of ‘national’ is far more contested. The growth of Scottish Nationalism mocks a National Theatre based in London as any sort of representative body, while even my gentle Wessex Regionalism questions the unity contained within the concept of a British (or English) nation-state. Back in the 1970s, they joked about “The People’s Republic of Yorkshire,” both to identify the county’s leftist bent and the distinctive character of its inhabitants. These days, regional identity is more difficult to define (Yorkshire was once notable for refusing players who were not born in the region of flat caps and vowels) but promoted more heavily. Scottish Nationalism has made a point of not limiting itself to any racial, religious or even geographical purity.

And so, thinking about the Establishment of ‘The National Theatre” is a pain in the arse, and not something I would be likely to do without the motivation of an academic requirement. I am not even sure of the best way to name the bloody institution – it is too easily confused with “The National Theatre of Scotland” or “The National Theatre of Wales.” For the record, I am talking about the one that was set up in the early 1960s with ‘Dear Larry’ Olivier as the first artistic director. From now on, it gets called the NT, so I can cut the angst.

Anyhow, back to that delicious creation myth. Part of the myth depends on those plucky characters who fought to establish the NT: Granville Barker, Archer, Winston Churchill (he made one speech about it, then promptly forgot what he had said), GB Shaw (who was probably hoping that it would provide a warehouse for his interminable issue plays), Kenneth Tynan (shameless enough to apply for a job immediately after his lobbying for the NT) and Olivier himself. They provide an elegant, acceptable structure to the narrative. Not only do they fit the traditional English stereotype of ‘the great men, who made history,’ allowing the NT to follow the same pattern as the Tory version of the past, their plucky failures give them a quintessential English glamour.

What this version lacks is something I cannot provide because I understand history in flashes of lightning against a dark background of ignorance: the economic and social vagaries against which the evolution of the NT as an idea was played out. One book makes an effort to compare the two great exhibitions, one in Victorian times, the other in 1951 to show how the political context changed. This was inspiration enough to encourage me to climb towards a more… dare I say… comprehensive analysis.

In another sidebar, it’s worth saying that comprehensive is not the best word. Let me stick with alternative. The problem comes from noticing how, in ten years, the very idea of ‘National’ has changed so much – leading me to consider that in the century between the first stirrings and the NT’s origin, the intentions and understandings of building a National Theatre would have changed so much that they would scarcely recognise each other.

What do I know about 1848? Well, there were revolutions all across Europe – mild ones compared to the gore-fest of the previous century, but ones that would lead to the birth of the German state (about thirty years later) and the Italian. Britain had no Labour Party, so the representation of either socialist or working class politics in government was minimal (in that respect, 1848 is closer to 2013 than 1951). Actors were low in the hegemony of Victorian society (Queen Vic got pelters for watching a play about The Corsican Brothers).

Britain had already had a Glorious Revolution (1688, I think) and was getting better at reforming through parliamentary democracy. I am sure we had the Corn Laws around then – I can’t remember what they were exactly, but they get mentioned in any history of how British democracy became more inclusive. I am betting on an increased social confidence, the growth of Empire and the presence of a capitalism that might be recognisable to the contemporary observer, albeit with more mutton-chop facial hair and a dash of philanthropy.

I am probably talking about the period around 1848, up until about 1900 or so. Just long enough so that I can point at the next time slot during which the NT was debated (Shaw, Granville B and Archer) and pretend that I can delineate the differences. Shaw was a Fabian and intellectually respectable, so I am betting on their being a good socialist aspect to the discussion in this period. By the time of Tynan, socialism was perfectly legitimate for the Oxbridge cabal that runs the country (once the back of the aristocracy was broken, they took over. Let’s not waste time debating that and pretending it’s all meritocracy in these isles). So the meaning of ‘National’ had expanded from meaning ‘the rich and the bourgeois’ to everyone living in the country.

The idea that the UK was inclusive is put to shame by the sudden memory of Dear Larry blacked-up for his Othello. Even if that version of the Moor wasn’t racially offensive, I don’t think the chat about it suggested that the Jamaican migrants were part of the national conversation. When Jonathan Miller sniffily called Olivier’s Othello a clippie, he wasn’t exactly breaking down stereotypes.

But it was, in the way of the UK until post-modernism broke it all, getting more inclusive. Slowly and relatively, the UK was becoming more diverse and, possibly cosmopolitan. In 1848, the Empire was emerging, and was A Good Thing. By 1951, intelligent people had learnt to be ashamed of running about the world and enslaving people for economic gain.

Now that I have established how Britain went from a tentative parliamentary democracy to the land of happy joy, I have two different very different contexts for the discussion of the National Theatre. Stupid generalizations aside, the state in 1848 and 1951 had two distinct sets of priorities, and the results from history show that the latter had more will to establish the NT. I wish I had the skill to prove that the latter date was establishing an organisation that is fundamentally different to the one proposed, thereby destroying the usual myth and disconnecting the NT from the traditional history.

I have proved nothing of the sort, but I have introduced a degree of doubt, enough to make me think that there are other ways of reading the evolution of the NT than tracing its slow development to fruition as the story of Great Men Inspired.

Tigers

During Barrowland Ballet’s Tiger, there was a moment that expressed the devotion of the parent to the child: as the child danced around the space, the mother and father presented their bodies to her feet, preventing her from ever touching the ground. It recalled the description in The Golden Bough of ancient leaders, who were never allowed to touch the earth. At the same time, it was moving, a symbolic choreography of extreme care and love.

Later on, when the three dancers were seized by wildness – represented by the male dancer dressing in bright orange and teasing the women into abandon, I thought ‘I really must stop hating myself.’ At the risk of turning into a moist-eyed critic, sentimental and trivial, Tiger was a reminder of why I bothered chasing performance a decade ago. For a brief moment, the bullshit of my daily life disappeared. I was confronted, directly, by sincerity. For a brief sliver of time, my ego had a rest from parading itself and I recognised something better than showing off in front of women.

Of course, if I were doing my job, I would be complimenting the set-designer of Tiger: the three dancers are contained within a mesh of rope and metal, sometimes comforting, sometimes caging.  I’d be saying how well Jade Adamson (child), Kai-Wan Chuang (mother) and Vince Verr (father and tiger) danced – and when they kicked, they kicked in time and they kicked together. I might even mention the accessible and clear choreography from Natasha Gilmore, working from Robert Alan Evans’ writing.

And if I were one of those critics who don’t like to judge, I’d probably retell the plot – nuclear family, oppressed by the conformity of their routine, find liberation through a calculated application of wild tiger energy. I certainly saw the beauty in the detail, as the parental relationship decayed whilst trying to provide for their playful daughter.

But here’s the rub: the emotional experience struck me as far more telling. When I am teaching young critics, I insist that a ‘five star’ review can only be justified if the writer had some kind of epiphany during the performance. I tell them that the work has to have changed their life in some way. It is a high standard, but the alternative is that ridiculous star-inflation that happens during the Fringe.

I did have an epiphany during Tiger. I also saw my life reflected in the misery of the parents – I have no children but I do have a routine that crushes me. My personality was stripped away, exposed and revealed as a form of armour that disguises my cynicism – born from my failures – and protects my emotional vulnerability. It might have been the moment when the tiger switches off the lights and spins in the darkness, or the terror of the mother when she is flung outside of the cage. At several points, I observed Tiger without my habitual filters. No long words, no complaints, and no clever analysis: I saw and I felt. The stupidity of the stand-up comedy routine I call my personality was evident.

Fifteen minutes after the production ended, I found an audience and was at it again: ranting about a review that I have decided embodies the intellectual cowardice of the modern critic. A quick amusing anecdote at my own expense – this one about how I was lecturing my fellow students on the subjectivity of critical opinion (‘The interpretation is always about the critic’s obsessions and not the play itself,’ I opined. There was almost no irony in my voice when I added that every male character in the script was a sex-pest).

I wish that Tiger had changed my life, that the thrill of religious conversion did happen during a show – and then encouraged me to change my ways. I have epiphanies with the same regularity that I gorge on chocolate. But they stick about as well as my daily determination to eat more healthily.

Anyway, Tiger is amazing. It is paired with a shorter version, Tiger Tale, which is aimed at younger audiences (but I don’t think that works so well – it feels edited, and not adapted). It’s got a cool soundtrack by Kim Moore – from sinister rock guitar to flowing strings and banging techno – and Fred Pommerehn’s set design is jam-packed with relevant props and scenery.

I know that critics often write praise that ends up on posters. Here’s my contribution. Tiger deconstructed by personality through sheer force of beauty and exact technique: Gilmore is possessed of a choreographic genius that is light in touch but serious in purpose. The occasional flashes of wit are accompanied by a genuine insight into the challenges of relationships: love becomes both admirable and controlling, and deft sequences expose the cost of selfless devotion. Just fucking go and see it.

Another Critical Moan: What Do You Want, Performers?

To get a rough idea of how I am feeling about criticism at the moment, imagine that I am running up and down a corridor with my hair on fire.

Most of the time, criticism is an easy game. If I stick to plays by established companies (Rapture, NTS, Dominic Hill at The Citizens), the rules of engagement are simple. The cast, the backstage crew, the ushers, the press office are all getting paid and this payment allows me to focus on being critical. I can be as harsh as necessary, and the review is directed not for the benefit of the company but potential audiences. If I am unkind about a particular performance, or performer (within the bounds of social acceptability - there is no space for personal insults), their wage ought to provide a buffer.

If I decide to review a community or youth company, it becomes more difficult. First of all, any harsh criticism is being directed at individuals who do not claim to be professional. It isn't their job to be on stage. Besides, youth and community theatre is not just about the end product - the journey of the company is equally important. Saying that Show X is not up to standard denies the process that went into making the work. That actors who fluffed their lines? Three weeks ago they couldn't stand up in a room in front of six people. The usual standards are not relevant.

Even that doesn't provide a real problem. First of all, these shows are easy to spot - and be avoided, if I don't have a solution to how to review them. Furthermore, when I had a bad knee, I worked out an answer to integrating process and product. Get in touch if you would like to buy this information.

The difficulty comes from Works-in-Progress. Again, if they are clearly labelled, it is not a problem. I'd argue that those critics who give stars to WiPs are missing their point - the artist is putting the piece into the public realm for feedback, not definitive ratings.

The real problem, the flame to my receding hairline, is when a work is not properly labelled, or exists in a festival like Arches Live! In the latter, artists are encouraged to take risks, and are likely to make mistakes. For many years, there was chat about how The Arches offered a 'freedom to fail.' The phrase isn't a good one - it suggests that The Arches' programme is full of actors deliberately making bad work, which isn't true. But its spirit is valuable.

September is always Arches Live month, and I am going back for the second night tonight. The first night reminded me why I always get in a tizzy during the early autumn. A quick breakdown: I saw four works. All of them were artistically interesting. Half of them would also be interesting to a wider audience.

The division here is between art that is interesting to people who have a vested interest in the art form, and art that would appeal to people outside of the industry.

As a critic, I do have a vested interest in the art form and I am supposed to understand what the hell is going on - I don't have a normative, or average, perception of performance. So, I can look past the shaky performances, the incomplete theatricality, and see the vision. I can make the grand statement: this is worth moving forward.

I also recognise that it is a WiP - so it gets a pass on the 'classic review' with star ratings and that...

However, if I review it from this position, how do I make it clear that this is not the sort of piece that is going to appeal to an audience that is used to the polish of a full professional production?

I am asking performers to tell me what they think I ought to do. There is a space for dialogue here. Should I go in, studs out, and point out which acts could do with a spot more training at the RCS? Or should I be gentle, recognise that the investment of the performer deserves respect, and that support at this stage will enable them to pursue the ideas to fruition?

(If I get some replies, I do have some non-negotiable positions - I'll save them in the hope they intrigue. And as for the first artist who claims they 'just want an honest review': they will get one.)

Critical Ratings

I am starting the new year (that is to say, the new academic year) with a commitment to making my critical intentions clear. This blog will continue to broadcast four types of criticism. I'll even mark the type up in the labels.

Type O: Traditional Criticism (reviews, previews, interviews - the sort of thing you can get less personal versions of by reading a proper newspaper or magazine)

Type A: Churnalism (press releases, either with or without my sardonic comments. Again,you can get this in proper newspapers, although I tend to identify it rather than pretend that the press release is either my own work or the genuine research of scientific scholars)

Type AB: Experimental Criticism (not available anywhere else, aside from the output of my Young Critics classes - this group can include reviews of events that never happened, a pretty picture based on a show, anything that denies Type O)

Type B: Provocations (rather like one of those columns you get from proper newspaper, except I am less likely to believe a word that I am saying. For best results, please bear in mind the Erisian mantra: 'this is true, in some sense, this is false, in some sense, this is meaningless, in some sense.')

There is also an additional level of grouping: each piece can be RhD positive or negative.

RhD positive: concerned with issues around an event or performance, seeing it within a cultural context. We could call these extroverted.

RhD negative: focuses on the event as an end in itself.

If it lacks a RhD rating, it is most likely all about me.

Let's see how long I remember to put these warnings onto the articles. In addition, please assume that a large minority of articles will include some swearing. After I saw A Respectable Woman Turns to Vulgarity, I decided it was Big and Clever.