Another “Edgy” Crumudgeon?
November 17, 2011
Jim Rutter likes to stir things up in the theatre community. I suspect the tone of his post Broad Street Review: An encouraging trend: Theater for grownups might generate a few irate replies from some of Philadelphia’s small and mid-sized theatre companies. I’d prefer if it stimulated some necessary discussion about what Philadelphia theatre audiences need (which can be risky to produce) versus what they want (usually a much safer bet).
Though I was not as sanguine as Rutter about the Lantern’s New Jerusalem, I can’t deny that it had a powerfully captivating affect on the audience the night that I saw it. As we slog through a period where our public discourse has been reduced brief declarative sentences (“Drill, baby, drill!” “We are the 99%” etc.), a play that actually encourages thought is a valuable cultural resource–something Philly actually needs. The unbelievable success of the Lantern show (see J. Cooper Robb’s article) suggests that at least some large portion of the local audience agrees with my assessment.
As I mentioned in my recent post , there is plenty of Philadelphia theatre that is merely entertainment in a hip, dark, “edgy” wrapper. Perhaps “intelligent”, “challenging” and “profound” will become the new marketing buzzwords that will replace “edgy” and “provocative”. If effective marketing buzzwords shape the audiences’ expectations of what they will see, then I certainly hope that’s the case.
