What do audiences want?
Sat, 8 Sept 2001, 12:38 pmGambler19 posts in thread
What do audiences want?
Sat, 8 Sept 2001, 12:38 pmWhat do audiences want to see when the come to the theatre? The current audiences seem to consist of theatre goers and friends, but maybe if we take a look at cinema for a bit we can draw in new members to our theatre audiences. The award winning movies are often Actions/ Comedies or the 'extraordinary' Dramas. Young guys want to see fighting, explosions, 'cool' or charismatic characters with guns. Young Girls want to see lovers getting together in comic situations. Both want to see something hilariously funny. Lets face it, people want this, if we thespians can deliver the goods then we can bring new people to the theatre. Comments?
RE: What do audiences want?
Fri, 14 Sept 2001, 06:32 pmWalter Plinge
Tricky one. I think there's some truth in the theory that audiences want to see the same things movies give them, although, as has already been pointed out, we're talking about two very different mediums.
I think it's an attitude thing. Whereas film has always been consumed and accepted by the public at large (And so always keeping a focus on issues and/or styles they know the public can relate to), theatre still has elitist connotations harking back to the days that only intellectuals and the upper-class saw plays. Hence, it seems to me that a lot of theatre people have been conditioned into this attitude too; everything has to be very 'serious' and 'arty', which is great for an audience who go to the theatre already and are used to it, but maybe not so good for your average common-or-garden-variety 'Man On The Street' who sees theatre as basically being Shakespeare and nothing else. When it comes down to it, people want good stories about things they can relate to. Most importantly, however, they want to be entertained, and by that I don't mean 'dumbed-down' (Hey, if guns n' boobies were all it took, 'Tomb Raider' would be the most-loved film of all time). People take Shakespeare so blinking seriously: He was writing for the rabble! He had to make his plays compete with bear-baiting so he put in all the sex and violence to bring the people into the theatres. Yes, they were great plays which dealt with universal issues, etc. BUT he made sure the general public would enjoy it. If Shakes were here now, he wouldn't be writing 'Hamlet'. He'd be writing plays like 'Bouncers' and 'Shopping And @!#$', plays which do attempt to give the public what they're looking for but get largely ignored by the public because, y'know, theatre 'doesn't do' that sort of thing. Maybe we should be putting plays like this up more often, and perhaps people'll start getting the point.
Bloody hell, this is a long post. I'll wrap this one up; we all have to be careful not to take ourselves too seriously, because the public have been conditioned to expect po-facedness from us all. It is possible to entertain and fulfil, we just have to let the public see that, and that ain't gonna happen if we keep putting up eight million Shakespeare productions a year. Well, hope I put my point across (Probably didn't-there's something about the Net which makes all my writing skills go bye-bye)
I think it's an attitude thing. Whereas film has always been consumed and accepted by the public at large (And so always keeping a focus on issues and/or styles they know the public can relate to), theatre still has elitist connotations harking back to the days that only intellectuals and the upper-class saw plays. Hence, it seems to me that a lot of theatre people have been conditioned into this attitude too; everything has to be very 'serious' and 'arty', which is great for an audience who go to the theatre already and are used to it, but maybe not so good for your average common-or-garden-variety 'Man On The Street' who sees theatre as basically being Shakespeare and nothing else. When it comes down to it, people want good stories about things they can relate to. Most importantly, however, they want to be entertained, and by that I don't mean 'dumbed-down' (Hey, if guns n' boobies were all it took, 'Tomb Raider' would be the most-loved film of all time). People take Shakespeare so blinking seriously: He was writing for the rabble! He had to make his plays compete with bear-baiting so he put in all the sex and violence to bring the people into the theatres. Yes, they were great plays which dealt with universal issues, etc. BUT he made sure the general public would enjoy it. If Shakes were here now, he wouldn't be writing 'Hamlet'. He'd be writing plays like 'Bouncers' and 'Shopping And @!#$', plays which do attempt to give the public what they're looking for but get largely ignored by the public because, y'know, theatre 'doesn't do' that sort of thing. Maybe we should be putting plays like this up more often, and perhaps people'll start getting the point.
Bloody hell, this is a long post. I'll wrap this one up; we all have to be careful not to take ourselves too seriously, because the public have been conditioned to expect po-facedness from us all. It is possible to entertain and fulfil, we just have to let the public see that, and that ain't gonna happen if we keep putting up eight million Shakespeare productions a year. Well, hope I put my point across (Probably didn't-there's something about the Net which makes all my writing skills go bye-bye)
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