THE GUARDIAN PUBLISHES THE DUMBEST THING YOU WILL READ TODAY
I'm in the midst of doing an incredible amount of media, but this is worth commenting on because it's so amazingly boneheaded, and it is the flavor of boneheaded that you only get with the THEA-TAH...a vaguely 18th century regressive way of viewing a dynamic, live, utterly relevant art form I and many other practice now.
So the Guardian, which I normally love, published this.
This is so jaw-droppingly stupid, it could only come from the bowels of the THEA-TAH—a universe that prides itself on not ever interacting with, or touching, the popular culture in any way, shape, or form.
The errors start factually in the first sentence: I'm not a playwright. I have written plays in the past, so I know what I'm talking about—this is not a play. Plays have characters, in relationship to one another.
Even more importantly, plays are written.
And I don't script my monologues—I tell them extemporaneously, night after night, and refine them for the stage. But they never lock, they are never finished, and there is no script.
So I can't actually endanger the "European premiere" of my work, because I have to be there for the work to happen, because the act of the work is me telling the story of what I have witnessed. That's the act of the monologist.
The Guardian doesn't seem to understand this, which isn't surprising—last week the Guardian printed that I had only done this monologue in tiny obscure clubs before this moment, instead of performing it for over 70,000 people in 18 cities. Some people will understand what they want to understand to make a story work—as a professional storyteller, I'm familiar with the pitfalls of that kind of fallacy.
Mr. Trueman goes on to say:
"Daisey's announcement yesterday that he will post a full script online, and allow anyone to perform it royalty-free, raises the possibility of the performance being gazumped."
Gazumped? WTF? Is this vocabulary used only by people in the THEA-TAH? Do they have monocles and top hats whilst they perambulate to luncheon time?
It's true that the transcript (it's not a script for me) will be published. And it is true that I'm releasing it completely royalty-free, for anyone to do with whatever they wish. And I will allow theater scholars to decide if when this work is being performed by an actor if it would then be considered a play—I'll let others weigh in on that.
Finally, with regards to the possibility of the "European Premiere" being pre-empted...
...does anyone actually care about this shit?
I mean, seriously. Other than the forces of the THEA-TAH? This is exactly why for the last few years we don't let anyone have the WORLD PREMIERE of our work, because it's a ridiculous exercise in theatrical egotism. Audiences care about the work that is happening in front of them, the ideas and emotions in conflict, and the way in which that catharsis can lead to change within themselves and in the world.
The fact that the Guardian can't understand what is groundbreaking about releasing this work under a completely open license is part and parcel of exactly what is wrong with the traditional theater world.
Until we transform from THEA-TAH to theater, we will never be the art form we could be.
But change is coming.
