By P.C. Clarke

Speaking from the point of view of the audience it is sometimes hard to understand how a particular play ever sees life on stage. Some shows leave you shaking your head in wonder that an artistic director, an artistic committee, a producer, a director and fifteen actors ever saw merit in the piece of self abuse that just spent two and a half hours parading itself in front of you.

Choosing a play. The act of choosing a work to perform is the first step in the artistic process of producing a play. It is also the first step in the business decision of producing a play. It is important when choosing to stop and think, who is going to want to see this? Is this an avant garde piece of work that will only interest students of Bauhaus 1920s German experimental theatre or will the average theatre attendee enjoy it. Is this a piece of children’s theatre that you intend to only stage as a midnight show? Those of you in charge of picking a theatre’s season really need to ask yourselves who is my audience and will this piece interest them. Choosing plays because you think it has great parts for gay, trans-gender, female-ish, half Arab half Ceylonese performers is the wrong reason. Choosing a play because you want to ‘understand’ it is also wrong. For that you should put on a staged reading. Choosing a play because it is only done once every fifty years should tell you something. Choosing a play because it is a ‘world premier’ doesn’t mean it is going to entertain the people who buy your tickets. If you want to sell tickets, you need to consider your audience. It is as much, or more, a business decision as it is an artistic one.

Another factor in choosing a play is its length. I have reached a point in my theatre attending life where one of my first questions about a production is, how long is it. Now that may seem crazy, but think about it. If the show is selling itself as a comedy and your friend tells you that it is two hours long…. it’s a mighty slow comedy. I will bet you anything that the direction is bad or the actors have bad timing. If it is a drama and you sit through three hours of sadness only to find that you have only made it through the first night of a two night ‘experience’ (Cider House Rules) you may want to slit your wrists. Your average, irked to be spending $30 a ticket, theatre go-er (me) is in this for the entertainment value. We expect to be in our seats at 8:00 and out them by 10:45, including intermission. If a play has anything of value to say, it can be said in less than two hours. If a play is written to be less than two hours and the director decides to make it last for three, she/he is not serving the work. You will never, never, never read a review saying that a play was staged too fast.

Faster, Funnier, Smarter.