Chris writes --
"I think the better distinction is between whom one intends to please --
oneself -- some specific customer -- or a larger, general audience. Have there
ever been playwrights or film directors who only tried to please themselves?"
Why believe it has to be solely one or the other?
As a playwright, I certainly aim to write things that I can later look upon
with approval. But if a hundred respectable theater sensibilities read the
script and none finds anything to approve -- that would be deflating to me
because, in truth, when I write something that pleases me, I feel convinced
some
others will be pleased too. And I want them to be. If none ever did, I'd be
chagrined.
When Van Gogh could sell none of his paintings, he was, let's call it,
dismayed. I don't disdain him because while painting the way he wanted, he also
wanted others to admire his work. Moreover, I'm sure he expected some to. When
it
didn't happen, his consternation must have been extreme. But, I intuit, Van
Gogh COULDN'T change.
Perhaps we can dichotomize artists: those who, when they find they are not
pleasing others, will change "the way" they create, -- and those who either
won't or can't change.
These are two factors motivating an artist's willingness to change his "way":
He has to make a living -- or he realizes that a primary reason he creates is
to bask in the approval, respect, and seduceability of others. The character
of his work is secondary. (If he's lucky, he can do two different sorts of
things he approves of himself, and, if one sort pleases no one else, he may
with
little discomfort abandon it, and do only "what the audience wants".)
Let's say for the purposes of argument that, in addition to the sort of
scripts I write for the stage, I could write "successful" and applauded tv
sitcoms
like CHEERS, or FRIENDS, or SEINFELD. I wouldn't change -- one, because I
don't need the money, and two, though I certainly want approval by others, I
know that approval for that kind of work would be a weak tea, not nearly enough
to make up for losing the enjoyment I get from doing the sort of thing I want
to do -- and that I secretly feel is worthy.
"Worthy"? I esteem, call "worthy", those things I write that both please me
AND have the effect I aimed for in others. The prototypical example for writers
is the would-be funny line. "This'll break the audience up!" But if it
doesn't, if night after night it evokes total silence, the writer's esteem for
it
will diminish. Even the writer who says to himself, "These dolts just don't get
it!" will secretly begin to suspect that maybe it was a personal quirk within
himself that made it seem funny to him, and he'll probably cut it after the
out-of-town try-out.
Some gifted artists -- painters, writers, directors, actors -- luckily have a
sensibility such that what pleases them personally also consistently pleases
their audiences. There may be some of these who genuinely never consider any
sensibility but their own.
In sum, most writers' esteem for a bit is a combination of the tickle it
gives him personally PLUS the effect he expects on the audience. The
anticipated
prized effect on viewers was an essential part of what pleased the writer to
begin with. Thus playwrights and novelists will usually willingly revise in
preliminary stages if it becomes clear to them a bit isn't having the effect
they
hoped for.
I myself listen to all comments from others. I do so in part because I revise
so much on my own. Before showing a work-in-progress to anyone, I repeatedly
feel I've got something what I judge "right", only to reread it later and
decide, no, that needs to be fixed. This taught me the absurdity of ever being
sure I'd at last made the work "flawless".
When ENDPAPERS had its try-out production out of town, it received both
favorable and unfavorable reviews. I read them all carefully, and I found at
least
half a dozen specific complaints that, upon reflection, I agreed with. (E.g.:
The play takes place inside a book-publishing house. The set was very large,
showing six offices of editorial people. One reviewer remarked this was
supposed to be a twenty-first century house, but he couldn't believe it because
there
was no computer in sight. I realized this was a blunder -- both mine and the
director's -- and I immediately wrote computers into the stage directions for
the revised script I brought east.)
Many comments I dismissed as simply obtuse, and others I discarded because
they were obviously made by someone who simply wanted a different kind of play
from the kind I wanted to write.
Allowing unexpected unfavorable reactions of viewers to prompt one to revise
neither "IS" nor "IS NOT" a contemptible catering to the groundlings.
Platonic ontology just doesn't apply. We may CALL it what we want, just as some
may
call a stand-up comic contemptible if what's primarily on his mind is making
the audience laugh. I myself would not praise the "integrity" of a comic who
held himself out as a great humorist who stuck tenaciously to his chosen
repertoire despite its never, ever, making anyone else laugh.
It is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that a work "is" neither good
nor bad. We variously call it one or the other according to its effect on the
audience, or some personal standard of our own. A "serious" author who has
written a "message" play may find it called "excellent" by one observer because
it
embodies the message-argument so clearly, and called "awful" by the next
observer because the play was obviously boring everyone in the hall, and they
were
all hating this compulsory lecture. "But the point of this play was not
entertainment!" cries the first observer.
I liked the play we finally brought into New York much more than I did the
tryout version we mounted in California. Yes, the final script pleased me
personally more, but there's no doubt much of my greater liking of the play
stemmed from seeing its more favorable reception by the audience.
In sum, as I wrote each bit, I put it in the play both because it satisfied
my desire to get it in a form that I personally felt was "right", and because I
simultaneously pictured it "landing" in the audience in a gratifying way.
(Strangely, for all I've said about the justification of a focus on audience
reaction, I'm vaguely embarrassed to admit feeling pleasure from evidence that
a bit did so. The opening seconds of any play can be very important. For
example, it's usually obvious to the audience when the writer is hoping to set
the
mood by getting a laugh right at the outset, and if he doesn't, their
expectations can tilt downward immediately. They want to believe they are in
good
hands. So I worked on getting it right in ENDPAPERS. As it happened the
audience
did laugh, and thus their readiness to laugh thereafter was enhanced. An
important New York reviewer revealed it "landed" for him too.
The play begins with a lone editor sitting at his desk in a spot on a dark
stage. The reviewer wrote, "His play rings true from the confident opening
moments when an amiable editor named Griff is reading a letter of complaint:
"To
the one who signs himself 'G' I am writing to say I am tired and sick of
getting
these rejection letters from you. You are not a nice person. So fuck you and
all your household pets."" I liked reading that, but I was sheepish about
liking it, because, despite what I said about Van Gogh, I think I still harbor
some of my youthful delusion that artists are loftily above caring about such
approval.)
So the response to the quote from Chris above is this: In general, writers
will "please themselves" the most when a bit works for BOTH themselves and the
audience.
(Note I say "in general". I'm aware there are exceptions -- artists
determined to do it "their way" and don't care in the least what others think
-- to the
point of even dismissing the approval of others as irrelevant.)
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