 |
กระทู้แก้เลี่ยน อ่านเจอโดยบังเอิญ เกี่ยวกับละครเวทีไทยกับการวิจารณ์ เลยเอามาฝาก
จากเนชั่น วันที่ 29 กันยายน 2550
GUEST COLUMNIST
A theatre critic is merely an avid playgoer
From 1999 to 2005, a group of Thai scholars led by renowned critic Chetana Nagavajara conducted a study entitled "Criticism as an Intellectual Force in Contemporary Society", which was supported by the Thailand Research Fund and covered criticism of literature, visual arts, theatre and music.
Published on September 29, 2007
According to the study, theatre criticism has been regarded as a peripheral activity. As a written form, it gained popularity when university lecturers began staging translated European and American plays and incorporated modern theatre studies into their curriculum in the 1970s. Simultaneously, and interestingly enough, criticism of traditional theatre began declining. As in criticism of other arts, Thai theatre practitioners prefer the informal and private form of oral criticism to that of formal, published expression, which is deemed Western. The study also notes that university theatre programmes do not provide training for careers in criticism, although criticism is among the study's core subjects.
This is not surprising, perhaps, considering the fact that, currently, theatre reviews are published most regularly by two English-language newspapers, the Bangkok Post and The Nation, as well as a very few Thai-language newspapers and entertainment magazines; very little is found in academic journals.
After my very first theatre review for The Nation in March 2001, I received hate mail. An audience member of a play I attended, and who disagreed with me, said that my review was poorly written and mean-spirited. In addition, I was a reviewer who should not be reviewing. He said that the review should not have been published, as it attempted to demean the play but succeeded only in demeaning the reviewer. He finally urged The Nation to more carefully select and screen its reviews the next time that particular musical play returned to Thailand, as it most certainly would.
Throughout the history of theatre criticism, there have always been opposing views on the same night of a performance, I wrote in my response. Good examples of these can be found in newspapers, magazines and journals in the cities where theatre is a well-established culture, not a mere entertainment activity. After all, a theatre critic is merely an avid playgoer - and vice versa. Reviewers bring different backgrounds, experiences, tastes, standards and prejudices to the theatre, and thus they diverge in their judgement of it.
For the record, that production we argued about never returned to Thailand, nor did it go on to Broadway. Now, six and a half years later, I am watching more than 100 dance and theatre productions a year, and I still stand firm to this statement - and you probably have already noticed that my job here remains secure. In my Theatre Criticism and Play Analysis classes, I always welcome different opinions in class discussions. And in fact, those who disagree with me more, but with valid reasoning, usually receive better grades.
Recently, though, a commercial theatre company has been trying every possible way to prevent The Nation from publishing my review of its productions. First, the director said in a magazine interview that I was a scholar who studied theatre arts so much that I could neither communicate my ideas to common people nor stage my own works. For the record, I have directed five theatre productions and translated ten European and American plays for university and professional companies in the past ten years.
Then, the company stopped inviting me to the press previews of their productions. Yet, I went to a Thaiticketmaster outlet, bought my own ticket to attend a regular performance, and The Nation has been generous and professional enough to reimburse for this.
This company's PR representatives say that I have been spitefully biased to their director and producer and that my reviews, in both The Nation and Bangkok BizNews, of their previous productions are all negative. In contrast, my reviews for other mainstream and independent companies' productions are mostly positive. They also suggest that if I do not enjoy their productions, why can't I simply ignore them and not write a review.
In response to all this, although I do not look like Keanu Reeves, may I quote his character, Neo, in "The Matrix": "Whoa!"
My question, to the company and to you, is that if a theatre critic is merely an avid playgoer, why does a commercially successful - and self-proclaimed "professional" - company need to care about what only one person thinks about their "masterpieces". Readers of theatre reviews already know too well that they are only a single person's opinion, which does not even represent that of the editorial staff, let alone the majority of the audience. A critic does not work for the ABAC poll, does he?
And so, I will continue writing theatre reviews for you, The Nation readers. I spend my time and money watching and writing about as many dance and theatre productions as possible, so that you may not have to do so. More importantly perhaps, in any country, theatre criticism provides records, no matter how subjective, of theatre activities, and, more or less, contributes to the development of theatre.
Pawit Mahasarinand has taught at Chulalongkorn University's Department of Dramatic Arts for 15 years, and will retire in 2032. His articles on contemporary Thai theatre can be found in the "Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre", published by Greenwood Press. Pawit Mahasarinand
จากคุณ :
แมวเลียขน  
- [
29 ก.ย. 50 13:40:12
]
|
|
|
|
|
|
