Emerald Coast Theatre Consultant

Looking back at the chart on the first page of this blog, the artistic director resides between the community and the theatre and the director is located between the play and the audience.    Given that, then, how is good or bad taste determined?

But let me give you an example first.  If an Artistic Director of a producing company in Salt Lake City opts to present Angels In America (the Mormon church is skewered), he/she and their theatre might/could/will/shall expect major repercussions given that SLC is the seat of the Mormon sect.   Now, this is not to say it should not be presented, but it is a good sign that the theatre management should expect a response from the community that it might or might not be expecting.     The same might be said of a theatre in Milwaukee presenting a play about the evils of drinking beer or a theatre in New Orleans that opts for a play that suggests that listening to jazz causes sterility and birth defects.   The examples are humorous, yes, but a lesson can be learned about taste.     

When selecting a season, who bears the brunt of a tasteless bit of business that might creep into a show.    The answers are:   The Theatre, The Community, The Artistic Director, The Actors and above all, The Audience.

But who is the person, usually, who must take responsibility for that blunder?  I would say, the person who helms the production:  The Director. 

Recently I saw two presentations which demonstrate how the loss of objectivity and less than stellar taste overshadows good intentions.    One was in a French Farce (which was, IMHO, neither French nor a Farce nor Funny!) where a female character bent over to unlock a door and her paramour walked in behind her and stood there with his crotch touching her butt for a total of perhaps a minute or so.   But to be honest with, you judging by how much squriming in the audience, it seemed like a hour.   The second example, in the same venue, a well known but extremely difficult musical given into the hands of local and inexperienced thespians, the same type of offensive occurred.   A “substantial” woman bent over to pick up something, back to a male character, and stayed there for a long, long time supposedly enticing or attempting to interest the male character,  who was sitting behind her with her butt in his face, ogling her behind.   And while that was going on, one look at the audience and their shuffling and fidgeting would have told even the most casual observer that the picture is not only offensive and overstated but far too long.  It was, frankly, embarrassing for the audience.   How stupid to you think a mature audience can be is the question.   Do they need to be insulted by that kind of physicality that is so lacking.   I think not.   In fact, a brush, a glimpse, a tid-bit of that kind of physicality would be more than sufficient.   

And if you think bad taste is limited to only amateur productions, think again.   This next example is one that will absolutely boggle your mind.

The setting was the stage of an excellent professional Theatre Festival north of our northernmost border.  I will avoid mentioning them by name for fear they might cancel my favored patron status, and then no more free drinks!! The production was Romeo and Juliet.   The audience was full of students from the area’s middle and high schools.  The production was moving along and the students were engaged and attentive.  Likewise for those of us who are much older.   Then came what I will refer to as the “cucumber bit!”    The nurse, appearing rotund in a large skirt hiding a young man underneath, is surprised to see him emerge from beneath the skirt.   Not only did he emerge, he brought with him a cucumber which the nurse tried, vainly, to retrieve.   Now, at that point, it was a marginal bit of fun business.   But, no, we had more to see, unfortunately.   The cucumber was then thrown back and forth from young man to young man until finally, as a final grand gesture, he sniffed the cucumber at length, slowly,from one end to the other .    At that point, had any one in charge been listening or watching, the audience had become almost silent with a few titters here and there.   Even the students were surprised, to say nothing of their chaperones.   Two older ladies sitting nearby were very upset and were quite vocal about it.  

One can only guess the response after the play by season holders, single ticket holder, potential donors, and any number of the students’ chaperones.    

Now, to me, that was in bad taste.   Pure and simple.  

Again, according to the graph on the first page of this blog, our job is to connect the play with the audience.   And it should be free of just any kind of personal view of life that a director feels compelled to add.

Now, that said, had the audience been solely adults that would have been more acceptable given that you expect a mature audience to be more “worldly wise” and capable of having more fun with that type of business.   

But at a theatre of this magnitude and reputation one would expect that SOMEONE would have suggested a slight modification to that bit of business given the range of ages in the audience.   And like I’ve said before, my take on it.  

Now, to me, that was in bad taste.   Pure and simple.