How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.
Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in
love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe
theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten
years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he'd
become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat
kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?
A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off
theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes
in the spectrum of English-language drama - from the flashiest of
Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront
theatres - to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they
persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics,
passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill
addresses what he considers the culture of 'risk aversion' paralyzing
the form.
Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill's wry and revelatory personal
reckoning with the discipline he's dedicated his life to, and a roadmap
for a vital twenty-first-century theatre - one that apprehends the value
of 'liveness' in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk
and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and
alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an
obligation to a destination.
'[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre?
film? dance?) artists for whom interdisciplinary is not a buzzword, but
a way of life.' --J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail
'Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the
country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.'
--Nicolas Billon, Governor General's Award-winning playwright (Fault
Lines)
