Pretentious, moi? Dina Korzun in the National's Attempts On Her Life. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
There are a few things that people in this country are absolutely petrified of being called, labels that transcend their context or meaning and simply become an unquestionable, irrefutable stain on your character. One of these labels is "racist". On the internet, this tendency is appropriately mocked by the general acceptance of Godwin's law, which states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." At which point the person that made the comparison is by general consensus considered to have lost the argument.
In the theatre world, people are less likely to find themselves accused of being racist or fascist - although it does happen. But that's not to say that there aren't some stigmatising labels flying around. Of these, the most prevalent - and the most stultifying - is "pretentious".
In this country we are terrified of appearing pretentious. Somehow it has become theatre's cardinal sin. Be boorish, loutish, crude, superficial, snobbish, elitist or just plain boring, but please, whatever you do, don't be pretentious.
Fuelled by this paranoia, the meaning of the term has been allowed to mutate and expand, its tentacles stretching outwards, moving beyond claims of "exaggerated importance" to encompass anything that might be intellectually or philosophically dense and challenging, or even just not immediately accessible. A quick scan of the responses to Katie Mitchell's Attempts On Her Life finds the production described variously as "pretentious in the extreme", "pretentious rubbish" or, more imaginatively, "pretentious arthouse crap" - a phrase that moves beyond a single production to castigate an entire genre of work. This gets to the heart of the matter, suggesting a lingering distrust (or, indeed, contempt) for the idea that theatre should assume it can be anything other than undiluted entertainment.
In this environment, the term has taken on a sinister life of its own. It's a weaselly, insidious term used with smug certainty to dismiss work without a second thought. It's a nasty, smirking insult used to dirty forms of theatre that are not to the taste of the accuser. It's a deadening label that silences dissent, because how do you respond to being accused of being pretentious? Do you explain your work? Explain how it's the consequence of a rigorous, honest, difficult and heartfelt process? Well, you could, but that's exactly what a pretentious person would say!
It's this culture that allows politicians desperately eager to prove their man-of-the-people credentials to make meaningless, dismissive jibes that denigrate whole swathes of theatre. It's this culture that means that the young artists striving to create genuinely exciting, innovative, challenging work are scoffed at in this country to the same degree that their contemporaries are lauded in France and Germany.
Which is not to say that we should blindly embrace everything bizarre or confusing or new that theatre throws up. But dismissing it as pretentious only serves to stifle, rather than promote debate. It's an easy get-out clause for people who don't deserve one.
And anyway, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "pretentious" has a secondary meaning to "affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance". It can also mean "making demands on one's skill, ability, or means". I like the sound of that. That wonderful pretentious sense of over-ambitious reckless endeavour; surely that's how all the best theatre is made?
