Last week we skipped over the Atlantic to look at a conversation about the value of theatre. This week, I want to stay on that side of the pond to examine another debate that has been simmering away.
It revolves around Hello Failure, a new play by Kristen Kosmas, staged recently in downtown New York. George Hunka loved it, but not everyone was as taken. The Playgoer concluded that "while Hello Failure has all the makings of a strong one-act, the craft on display seems too flimsy to sustain a full 90-minute voyage". And Helen Shaw, Time Out New York's reviewer, argues that Kosmas's writing has "an air of wistfulness: a lazy emotion that fritters away the propulsive qualities of her superb dialogue".
But it was another comment of Shaw's that sparked the real debate. She describes the play as belonging to "a newly popular school of realist whimsy". The Playgoer goes on to argue that other writers like Sarah Ruhl and Jenny Schwartz could also fit into this category, and a commenter on the Playgoer's blog adds Sheila Callaghan and Anne Washburn to the list.
Yet Lisa D'Amour feels the "realist whimsy" tag is "aimed at women writers" and could even be "related to a kind of unconscious misogyny ... if we call it "cute" it is no longer powerful". In a follow-up post, the Playgoer accepts that this is a problematic phrase in relation to "whether it's sexist to brush off a certain selection of currently well-regarded young female playwrights as "whimsical" (i.e. "impulsive, playful, unreasoning" according to the dictionary) for adopting a tone and language that seems "lighter" (i.e. less "rational" and "hard edged") than what we expect from "serious" drama." Though as the critic Adam Feldman points out in a comment in response, he had been exploring this idea of realist whimsy in Time Out for a while in reference to writers like Noah Haidle and John Cariani - who are both male.
Now, I don't want to flog a dead white male. But this debate is reminiscent of the infamous comment that Nicholas Hytner made about critics and their attitude towards female directors. Of course, not everyone agreed with him. But as Alex Ferguson pointed out, referring to Nicole Kidman's presence in The Blue Room as "pure theatrical Viagra" could hardly be described as feminist.
The problem is not just restricted to critics. Lyn Gardner has rightly argued that women are still woefully underrepresented across the theatre industry. In today's Guardian, Jude Kelly agrees with Margaret Hodge's comment that there are far too few women in key roles at UK arts organisations.
This exclusion of women can be seen around the corner from Kelly's Southbank Centre at Hytner's own National Theatre. In the National's entire history, not a single original play by a woman has been staged in the Olivier - its biggest, and most prestigious, auditorium (though there has been the odd adaptation by a woman, such as Coram Boy). Nicholas Hytner will be finally rectifying this in the summer when Howard Davies directs Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play Her Naked Skin. Better late than never, one might say, but if the glass ceiling is still relatively shatter-proof in such a liberal industry as this, what hope is there for those working elsewhere?
