Once a month, Dramatugry at Suite101.com will discuss why we do this. After all, we have invented and dismissed many reasons why we want to see things live, in spite of the many advantages to recordings. I know with the shows I am trying to write and direct that I need to find some reason for doing this. Yeah, so it's fun. What I mean is, I would like to discover, even if I just rediscover, a purpose for the modern theatre so I can put it in a historical perspective and forge ahead with its evolving future. I hope these sessions are helpful to other performers, directors, and playwrights as this is the purpose of the Dramaturgy Topic as a whole.
While American theatre audiences have enjoyed exciting genres and monumental playwrights, there may never have been a more important time in our history than right now. Even Broadway, which has been criticized as a showcase for non-American musicals and American fluff, is becoming both a celebration of theatre history with revivals as well as a playground of new energy with Julie Taymor's breathtaking imagination. More importantly, the regional theatres, various local scenes, and even the Internet are creating, and in some ways recreating, theatre's purpose.
My concern lately with the plays I have been seeing, reading, writing and performing is how these shows fit into the ever-evolving world of theatre. In other words, how do Albee's tangents and O'Neill's strange interludes fit into an art that, as you know, began over twenty-five hundred years ago as a religious ritual? Do we still have signs of the ritual in our productions and do we have an American mythos and a strong enough cultural literacy to support performances that will transcend time?
