Sunday, January 29, 2012

Brawndo's got what audiences crave



I was amused to suddenly think of a connection between the genius cult movie "Idiocracy" and the theatre of Mac Wellman - and others in the "Neo-dramatic Writing" school.

For theatre to work - for it to make contact with the audience, it has to have emotion embedded in some sort of narrative. The narrative can be absurdist, like WAITING FOR GODOT, or in bursts, like OUR TOWN, or across centuries like ARCADIA. But it has to have some coherence to be comprehended and to make the emotions resonate. So think of emotional resonance as water.

But the Neo-dramatic Writing school members have convinced themselves and/or critics and/or colleges that what audiences really crave - or what they should crave - is incoherent, emotionally arid word-salad. Think of the word-salad as Brawndo.

And like the citizens of the future, the Neo-dramatic Writers can't understand why audiences for their kind of theatre are fading. It's got what audiences (should) crave! It's got electrolytes!