This week, theatre bloggers have been namechecking those people who have influenced the kind of work they produce. This discussion was started a little while ago by the director and blogger Don Hall, who lists a number of influences – and I'm ashamed to admit I have not heard of a single one of them. In response, the playwright who blogs as the Devilvet lists some more familiar names, such as Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and August Strindberg. Presumably, this means that the Devilvet's own plays are not exactly a barrel of laughs.
Perhaps the most surprising influence is cited on the New York-based 99 Seats blog, whose list includes great writers such as Tony Kushner and August Wilson and is topped by our very own Alan Ayckbourn. It's hard to imagine that there are even many young British writers who would claim Ayckbourn as one of their heroes. But he is certainly a fine playwright to emulate – his work is often phenomenally well-structured and is far more innovative and politically engaged than many people assume.
It would be impossible to list everyone who has influenced the work we make, as we absorb so much subconsciously over the years – and not always from the sources we expect. Still, if I were to put together a list of the directors who have had the biggest effect on me, I would have to include Tim Etchells, Katie Mitchell, Rupert Goold and Ariane Mnouchkine.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere this week, Mica Cole has a different take on the issue of race and diversity in the theatre, which we touched on a couple of weeks ago. She argues that when theatres engage in colour-blind casting, or choose to programme a "black play" as part of their season, they are still failing to address the real problems that the industry faces. She says that if they are ever to be truly diverse, theatrical institutions need to be "challenged to include diverse backgrounds (race, gender, sexual orientation – the whole gamut) at the executive and governance level". Only this kind of fundamental shift in the way the theatre is run can enable it to really "challenge the historical and traditional way that decisions have been made and who they have been made by: white men".
Finally, Matt Trueman at Carousel of Fantasies has written an insightful piece about how theatre can play with notions of truth and falsity. It used to be the case, he says, that much experimental work sought to eradicate any need for the audience to suspend its disbelief. Now, some of our most cutting-edge theatre-makers are taking this a step further and are deliberately toying with our perception of what is actually true on stage. In doing so, they introduce an element of doubt into the audience's experience. As a result of this, the audience is "granted a responsibility over what we believe and, as such, we must simultaneously act both as jury and audience".
Perhaps this shift is partly a reaction against the growing dominance of verbatim and other forms of documentary theatre. After all, if theatre is to increasingly take on this kind of journalistic role, then it is vital that we interrogate the medium itself. If we don't do this, we will never be able to create a space in which the audience is allowed to truly think for themselves.
