Hello everyone and welcome to September. Spring has finally arrived! Hooray!!
Okay – this is going to sound a bit strange, coming from the director of our current production, but my theme for this article is:
“It‘s perfectly okay to NOT like a showâ€.
I have a pretty eclectic taste in theatre – I love stupid comedies, and I love edge-of-the-seat character dramas. I really like wordy plays, and plays that play on words. I have no stomach for schmaltz, nor people breaking into song or dancing with/near/at each other. Many of my closest theatre friends are completely the opposite. They would rather scoop their eyeballs out with a spoon than sit through something by Tom Stoppard, whose writings I adore. And that’s great! How boring would it be if we all liked the same thing!
If you see a play that’s not your cup of tea, see if you can identify what it was you didn’t like about it. It might be the play itself, or the style of play. It might be that you found the plot silly, or just didn’t care about the central point the author was trying to make. It might’ve been a good play, but you would’ve preferred to see it done differently. That’s okay. We’ve all been there!
To me, going to the theatre is a bit like going to a restaurant with a set menu. You might see/smell/taste something you’ve never seen/smelt/tasted before, and be better for the experience. On the other hand you might find something you’ll know NEVER to order next time you see it on a menu!! Someone else will have adored the course you pushed aside.
Just because you don’t like a particular show doesn’t mean that you don’t like live theatre. It’s a bit like Melbourne weather – if you don’t like what’s here now, just wait a little while and something more to your liking will come along (did I mention that spring has arrived?).
The challenge for theatre companies like WLT then, is to make sure our program of plays is varied enough that, if you don’t like the current show, the chances are pretty good that you’ll be blown away by the next one. I’m really looking forward to the release of our 2015 season – I’m sure our Play Selection Committee will have something special lined up for us all.
See you in the foyer.
Peter
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