THE DOCTOR IS IN

ART AND THE AMATEUR

Earlier this week, a friend and I went to the theater. Over dinner beforehand, we discussed the mixed reviews the play had garnered. For the most part, the objections were to its "talkiness" and "slow spots," and we wondered whether we would be bored.

"I actually prefer talky and slow," I said. I tend to feel assaulted by the rapid-action films and books my teenaged son and his friends are drawn to. I prefer to be led, gently and thoughtfully, into the heart of the conflict. "If a reviewer complains that there isn't enough action, I know it's my kind of piece."

My friend, who is a gifted composer of musical comedies, observed that his own work (which is generally very well received) has sometimes been dismissed by critics as unexciting. "They want to be jolted out of their seats, bowled over by something totally new." My friend's music, while often innovative, draws subtly on his appreciation of classical, jazz, and musical theater traditions. His songs have moved me to tears, guffaws, and blissful trance states, but they have never jolted me out of my seat--for which I'm grateful. But critics--like agents and editors, we speculated--are not free to immerse themselves in the experience. They have a professional obligation to discover new and exciting work and bring it to public notice. They are attuned to the "cutting edge," the knife honed to draw blood, not to the lovingly crafted tea service.

"Maybe they get jaded, too," I said. "They have to see so many plays, read so many manuscripts, that they lose their patience for nuance and detail. They want to jump right to the meat." We speculated about whether this induced ADD might have helped shape an artistic culture that caters to thrill-seekers rather than lovers or conoisseurs.

The play was talky and slow, as promised. Nothing much happened on the surface. Yet an entire world was created, layer upon painstaking layer, that was so rich and believable that when I met some of the actors later, I was initially taken aback that their vocal patterns, body language, and attitudes were different from those of the characters they played. A half-hour could easily have been cut from the dialogue without damaging the plot or the major themes--but the texture and shading that drew me in would have been lost--as would the thoughtful explorations of seemingly innocuous cultural differences that can spark heartbreaking schisms, and of the ways language can both unite and isolate us.

I'm grateful that I don't have to say anything new or clever about this play, and that no one is paying me to assess its position in the canon. I couldn't even say whether it was "successful" or not by any objective standards. And I don't care. For a few hours I inhabited an environment completely different from my own. I experienced the world through the eyes of people I'm unlikely to encounter in real life. I left looking at certain questions of language use differently.

If I had had to approach the play as a professional, would I have missed the beauty, the luxury, of slowness?  Would I have advised theatergoers to stay home, or to forgo this experience in favor of something hotter, fresher, faster?

What do you think?

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

[sesgaia]

What I do know is that the same "professional obligation to to discover new and exciting work and bring it to public notice" seems to apply to novelists as well. If one goes by the myriad blogs, books and writing services dedicated to becoming a successful novelist, writers are supposed to be "...attuned to the "cutting edge," the knife honed to draw blood, not to the lovingly crafted tea service" or they are doomed to fail. If you can't shock an agent or editor right out of their seat with your first five pages, no, make that your first paragraph, your first sentence, then you might as well give up now. I can see the effect of this on some of my fellow writers-they keep trying to ratchet up their writing as a way to get attention, even if it interferes with the integrity of the overall work. The ultimate goal, it seems to me, is work that has depth without sacrificing liveliness, and tension without shock for shock's sake. Still working on it!

[Susan Messer]

I'm with you on this, Dr. Sue. Thanks so much for crafting these ideas for our consideration. I too am savor the slow pace, the deep immersion, the open-ended exploration of themes and feelings in performance art and books and any other media. It would take too long to express all my thoughts on this topic.