Over the last two years seeds of doubt regarding our status as season ticket holders to Triad Stage, a local professional theater, had germinated more frequently into an obnoxious variety of weed following what I felt were disappointing performances. While there was always an aspect of each performance that in itself was exceptional, i.e., set design has always been exquisitely beyond reproach, in toto a number of plays have been beleaguered by miscast characters, incongruous accents, weak dialog, or puzzling direction. Accolades continue to abound regarding last year’s production of Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road; and, they remain as mystifying to me as they are profuse. I found Tobacco Road to be a tired cliché, which applied to a long deceased generation and segment of the rural south. By way of clarification, I should add that I am not from the south. Minstrel shows and black face are historically verifiable and represent a way of thinking that was as impervious to change as it was insensitive to the effects of its methods of theatrical characterizations; however, a play based upon a revival of that period not set in contemporary America would challenge more than an actor’s craft but the motives and affiliations of the director and playwright.
Sunday night’s performance of Doubt written by playwright John Patrick Shanley was the equivalent of a master gardener employing his expertise to amend poor soil as a primary means of containing the growth of noxious weeds while insuring the nourishment of more exquisite varieties of plants; there are obvious risks in this approach. Since my wife and I had purchased additional tickets to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, we were delighted with the quality involving all aspects of the performance: the set, the dialog, and the acting. While I felt all of the actors delivered very good performances, one actor, Melanie W. Matthews, was outstanding; from the first line she uttered, her presence was palpable in the entire theater space. She was not a character at all. She was Mrs. Muller; acting dissolved, imagination receded, as a living person emerged from the complexity that all of us recognize as life.
Art most often warrants its touted sobriquet when it isn’t captivated by its own reflection. As crass as some may regard Shakespeare’s character Shylock and his approach, the pound of flesh that is entertainment is not always transformed by the plastic surgeon’s scalpel, nor should we expect it to be, to emerge from its wraps and bandages as a butterfly from its chrysalis. Art and entertainment are not incompatible; they are also not, at every instance, interchangeable. It is difficult to articulate precisely when art fails; however, it is an easier task for us to discern when entertainment isn’t particularly noteworthy. Art is rooted in aesthetics; aesthetics involves itself to a significant extent with meaning, specifically the clarity of expression, which is the keystone of meaning. Art then may be said to be successful or unsuccessful, or many of the other similarly evaluative terms, when clarity of expression leads to understanding or meaning. Meaning itself may in fact be dynamic while not promoting itself to the meaning and to the necessary state of final cause.
Doubt was wonderfully refreshing and provocative; my own doubts involving recent performances had begun to question the direction of the theater and my continued commitment to support its growth in that direction. To my surprise and great pleasure, Shanley’s treatment of doubt and Triad Stage’s spot on production, was a multifaceted success. There is no doubt that I have grown accustomed to great performances at Triad Stage: Hedda Gabler, The Diary of Anne Frank, A Moon For The Misbegotten, Dracula spring quickly to mind; however, past performance does not guarantee future behavior despite its strength as an indicator of what might be possible. Doubt, then, may serve as a most apt metaphor in the service of aesthetics. No doubt, we’ll renew our season tickets.
