Tags and Murals
I saw a preview of “and I looked at the sky” yesterday (two preview nights at £10, then a full-price three-week run at £19-26). I love the neighbourhood theatre, and I love fringe theatre. They matter. Where else would I see a play about two people in their eighties contemplating their lives and deaths?
The concept is intriguing. I was hoping for a fresh take: wisdom about life and death, about bowing out gracefully. When is it time? How do we know? Instead, I got a rough draft full of what Elle Cordova calls exposition deserts. Most of the first act involves the characters reciting monologues at each other, reminding each other of things they both already know. There are moments of brilliance, like when Betty talks about how bored she was with the life she chose. I felt that. And moments where the writing is sharp and funny, like the cheese-and-tomato sandwich Betty finds boring and John polishes off and declares lovely. But they are moments (and none of them is in the first act).
I’m a writer, and I would never send a draft this rough to a magazine and expect the editor to print it and pay me. This theatre charges full price. Maybe this is what I should expect when I go to the neighbourhood theatre. But I’ve also seen great plays there. Not big productions; those are reserved for the West End. And the point of fringe theatre, I thought, was to bring good new writing to audiences, not promising first drafts. If this had been my first fringe show, I might well have decided this whole thing isn’t for me. My spouse did, years ago, which is why I usually go to the neighbourhood theatre alone.
I was in Berlin the other weekend for Rosh HaShana. The city is drowning in graffiti tags. There are gorgeous murals, too. Many muralists start with tagging; you don’t get the murals without the tags. No one asks permission to tag a wall, and no one charges you to look. But a neighbourhood theatre has gatekeepers. Someone decided to charge people for this.
I understand that fringe theatre economics are brutal, and I suspect that’s partly how an unfinished play ended up on stage. But audiences have budgets too, and a disappointing £19 evening is how you lose them to Bridgerton. London has so many good writers. We can do better.
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