AM-Dram, or Crossing the Fourth Wall – November 2008

I've been doing 'Am-Dram' for the last month, which is why there has been a stony silence. 

I hold strongly to the view that there is no such thing as 'bad' theatre: all theatrical experiences are good in the sense that they stimulate insights and stir emotions.  If you're not stirred or stimulated, it's your fault: you're not much different from the truculent "I'm bored" teenager.

Am-Dram tests this attitude, sometimes to destruction.  And this is always the fault of the audience.  The audience have an important role in theatre: they passively absorb; they react to emotional provocation.  But, except for the special conventions of Pantomime, they don't cross the invisible barrier, the so-called 'fourth wall': they're not in the play; and they're certainly not in the cast.  When they try to cross the barrier, they wrest control, not from the cast, but from the playwright.  They are usurping the artist; a bit like going to a portrait exhibition and painting 'improving' moustaches on some of the pictures.

With Am-Dram, the audience are all related to the cast in some way: family, friends, neighbours.  And, like mums at a primary school football match, they're poised, ready to help.  So all their reactions are exaggerated: they giggle at the least mistake; they fill dramatic pauses with solid walls of loud, sympathetic silence; and they practically stop breathing if there's a prop malfunction.

So, since I'm determined to enjoy my theatrical experiences, I have to either avoid Am-Dram, or adjust for the 'audience noise'.

Over the last month, I think I've found a way of adjusting: I became, in some sense, a part of the audience; I found some way of 'belonging' to the company.  One was a church hall production, and I was invited by a couple who had just moved into the neigbourhood and seen an advert in their local pub.  Another was in the local Little Theatre, and I invited some friends.  (And it was the Mikado, which practically rates as pantomime in these circumstances.)  Another was billed as taking place in a local theatre of which I (shamefully) had no knowledge, except a dim memory from 30 years ago, so I saw it as a (local) voyage of discovery.

          The net effect is that I've had a very enjoyable month, watching amateur productions: deeply, penetratingly, heart-warmingly amateur: and all the better for that.