Programming
All right. Let me try my new “Stando“. Its Name is : No Limit.
It’s a powerful Stand. It gonna crush me against the wall – today’s topic is suicide. Yes, but I like it.
That subject, honestly, I shouldn’t bring it up. This is our terrible Dark Side.
I should do what everyone else in my line of work does: pretend it doesn’t exist.
Or worse, use my bad faith. “What??? You didn’t enjoy that incredibly caustic, modern, disturbing show? My poor friend…” …and let it be thought that criticism comes only from a poor, stupid, narrow-minded, dramatically bourgeois & confined mind.
Everybody does that in my job.
Yes, but … that’s not true at all.
In fact, it’s one of the reasons that has literally killed the live show.
How many times have I congratulated myself for working in the theatre and not paying my fee?
So, yes, there are some horrible & boring shows.
These are pretentious, conformist things, which confuse art and low-level politics, where you shouldn’t laugh, where the artist takes himself for a revelation from God – in short, a catastrophe.
And living in the land of Cultural Exception, of catastrophes I have seen packs of 1000 of them.
There’s the dance company that dances without music.
A must. A kind of curious pearl. You can hear the feet hitting the stage, the dancers out of breath. You even have time to notice that the bowl cut is quite funny for a dancer.
There is play without text. Okay. Without a story; …. well. Without ? ….the whole play is “without”: without real actors who really play, without set, without sounds, without lights. – not : without tickets ( bad girl !) –
All is for: the brain.
For my part, my brain is not big enough to contain all this emptiness.
There are the “sober” sets: where there is nothing at all except grey or black blocks.
There are those who prefer silence: for a musical show, it’s something, I assure you. It’s true that when you study on stage, you learn that you have to know how to create silences.
But that doesn’t mean you can do anything with this technique. I’m sorry. That means – except for me & a large part of the audience.
You notice that I’m not even talking about the more or less gruesome amateurs who are happy with their work. No. I’m talking about “professionals”. Well.
I’ve seen one of the worst show of my life this year. My neighbors thought I was having an epileptic seizure.
In fact, I hid in my scarf, and for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t stop laughing, because it sucked so bad.
I was so bored that I was betting on what was going to happen. And I was winning every time. Anything I thought was dumb, I’d see it on stage in a minute.
Frankly, I, as an audience member, can’t stand it.
BUT : I have no right to throw my shoes at the heads of these pretentious bastards.
I’m not allowed to whistle, boo, go away.
No, no, in modern theatre, the spectator is subdued. He waits for it to end and then he leaves. I say that because it’s quite modern.
The Battle of Hernani. They really fought. The young against the old. The wigs flew, the swords came out, they strangled each other – and the first scene wasn’t played. Paris 1830.
The obligation to sit in a theatre was a pure scandal in the 19th century.
Before, on the floor, you had to stand and you could be disgusting. Shakespeare’s plays are also excellent because he had to seduce his audience from beginning to end.
I even think that movies are often objectively better than live shows because the audience can leave and go to another room to see another film. Yes I did it. No. Of course not – I stayed & sleept. Okay, sometimes I did it.
You’ll tell me it’s a matter of respect : the artists are six feet away, we respect them
Right.
But respect goes both ways.
When I ask people I don’t know for money for my show, I have to give them a show that interests them.
And if I present them with a pathetic disaster, without any work but with a lot of pride, I stop respecting them.
So they should have the right to stop too.
But as I’m not allowed to, if I’ve seen two or three shows like that, I NEVER come back to the theatre. And I’m right.
So the problem with scheduling shows for next season is: avoid the boring stuff.
Is that possible?
I mean, really?
Frankly, the answer is: NO.
No – impossible when you want to put on a splendid programme. –> did you see my wonderful “No Limit Stando” act ? The wall is so close !
We can avoid as much as we can. But all creations remain potentially a “danger”.
We could just choose shows that already exist: there we take no risk.
But we don’t have any exclusivity. We don’t have any creations. Any Life. Any fun.
My Stand and I will die of boredom. No, no, this option is not interesting at all. Do it in Paris, London, New York, Beijing wherever you want. But to see the same thing over and over again, it’s despicable. Even if they’re good things.
Thus, we have two ways: a company we already know is usually quite safe.
And for those we don’t know… there’s experience of programming.
What do companies usually do? They send us their Com files.
When you can’t understand the file because it is so intelligent, philosophical and cultured, it’s a good sign for a very bad show.
The technical file allows us to refine the premonition a little.
But you can always come across people who manage to present nice creative briefs and … and then it will suck.
That’s part of the game.
Failed mission: I’m in the wall.
Never mind, I’ll say it anyway: I had an idea – I’m sorry.
Here is the idea : propose to this companies to set up their show in our stage, but associate it with another game: that of the audience expressing itself.
And I let people express their feelings. I let them go. I let them use their ticket for other “theatrical activities”.
Maybe we can get a new Shakespeare.
That way I don’t lose my audience. I can even attract them.
And I’m sure that only the great shows of the future will agree to play my game.
The others won’t even come – it’s normal, these others despise the audience, they think they’re gurus of their own morals. They can’t accept criticism. They are there to “shock the spectator in his bourgeois and capitalist morality”.
That’s the only way I’ve found to avoid this kind of plague.
But I don’t think it’s a means that is widely used in the profession.
As a result, in the meantime, the performing arts are losing their spectators.
“No Limit” out of control….. well well well….. the next post will be worse. I have to talk about “my Target Audience.”
ALTAIR - Concepts 