A Spirited Defense of the Put-Upon Audience

“ I’m not in the business of pandering to the audience. “

-- Reza Abdoh

Well, I do think it’s time somebody spoke out for the audience, the poor audience that goes to the theater--having paid cold cash--to be entertained.

In an article in The Times (Calendar, Aug. 25), playwright Reza Abdoh goes on to tell us “there are more important issues than satisfying people’s taste buds. People who are offended are afraid of their own demons.”

I must agree with Abdoh, because I am certainly afraid of my own demons and likely to remain so. I would argue, however, that were I to see--which I haven’t--his “Bogeyman,” in which there is a castration-by-chainsaw scene, 10 naked men singing and dancing, the torture of a black slave, a physically handicapped Fairy Godmother and a green-haired boy with rings piercing his tongue, nipples, stomach, genitals and worse (don’t ask!), were I to see these wonders I wouldn’t lose my demons, I’d gain some.

Where is Mary Poppins when I need her?

You may think me flippant. I don’t mean to be. I’m deadly serious. There is something going on here that is neither new--oh, how we went through it in New York in converted garages in the ‘60s!--or interesting. I’m afraid it is the same tired old avant-garde laboring under the same self-delusion: that this sort of unpleasant, gut-wrenching, pseudo-shocking nonsense will make audiences think .

What it will do is make audiences get up out of their seats, go up the aisle and never come back. Why go to the theater to be nauseated? And pay for it?

And I would now remind Abdoh and his producers what will make audiences think: words.

That is what the theater is about. The cinema is an action medium, but the theater remains the last bastion of the word. Language. We do go to the theater to think because thinking is fun, but thinking is triggered by thoughts, by ideas. Do, as a playwright, respect your audience instead of affronting them. A playwright who loathes audiences is not a playwright. Audiences are not the enemy.

And--back to Mary Poppins--a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. By revolting the very audience one wishes to convert, one defeats one’s purpose. We all wish to be enlightened, for the human condition to be illuminated, for the heart to be bared. But audiences are not so moronic that a point can be made only by scenes of “assaultive violence, simulated sex, castration and cannibalism.” Try words , Mr. Abdoh, if you are a playwright.

It’s especially saddening that the beleaguered Los Angeles Theatre Center, under the very sword of financial ruin, has chosen to present this most expensive of all productions at this time. They must, indeed, believe in it and that is to be commended, although it does seem rather like a sinking ship firing on its rescuers.

“If this company is going to close,” declares LATC co-founder and artistic director Bill Bushnell, “then it’s not going to close whimpering in a corner doing a two-character play.”

Gee, I always liked two-character plays. And some of the plays have gone on to play for years and make millions and make audiences think.

Ask A.R. Gurney, who wrote “Love Letters.” I doubt that he’s whimpering in the corner. I suspect he’s at the bank.