Thursday, 13 July, 2023
7 Minute Read
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Recently, I encountered an article warning of the ‘waterloo sized’, ‘lengthy’ run time of director Ridley Scott’s upcoming epic, Napoleon.

‘Waterloo sized’, ‘lengthy’…  Sounds long, I thought, and I wondered, what is this beast of a run time? 

A few keystrokes and I discovered that Napoleon clocks in at two hours, and thirty-eight minutes.  And that, my friend, that sent me into a tizzy.  My knee-jerk reaction:

Why is that considered long?

My frustration wasn’t really about Napoleon.  It’s about theatre. 

It is hardly news that plays are getting shorter, and have been for some time.  But, why are plays becoming shorter, and leaner?  And, is it a good thing?

. . .

I remember how inspired I felt when I first learnt, when I was about twenty, of Peter Brook’s 1985 staging of The Mahabharata.  Presented together, the three-part epic lasted nine hours, (or eleven with intermissions), and toured the world for four years, before being adapted into a six-hour film for television.

I felt a similar inspiration more recently, when I learnt of Jan Fabre’s twenty-four-hour piece, Mount Olympus.

Until recently, the plays I’d directed ran the gamut from nearly four hours to single swallow, thirty-minute bites.  It was not until this year that I had my first encounters directing ten-minute plays.  First with Ditched by William Thomas Berk for Chapel Theater’s new play festival, and then with Hellscape by Mishelle Apalategui for Playwrite Inc.’s twenty-four hour Write On festival.  (Plays written, rehearsed, and performed within a single day.  A wild, creative obstacle course.)

Ten-minute plays aren’t a new experiment.  And, like it is for the 30-40 minute ‘One Act Play’ form, it’s difficult for these plays to stand in isolation, and be produced on their own.  They are too short.  They need the company of others.  Hence the festival configuration…

My experience of the ten-minute form is that in some ways, they are more difficult than their longer cousins.

A play wants various investments from its audience, like interest, and the suspension of disbelief.  Whether as director or playgoer, I do not want those investments to feel like investment-making.  I want that interest to be coaxed in such a way that it isn’t even noticed. 

Working on that first ten-minute play, I often wondered if, within that boundary of ten minutes, an audience would have enough time for that coaxing to occur…  for them to grow interested in the situation and characters, and care about what would happen. 

. . .

Most of the new plays that float into the radar are plays that get produced.  While theatre practitioners still study long-form scripts from the classical shelves, today’s produced offerings aim increasingly for a run time of ninety minutes, without an intermission.

Since 1994, American Theatre Magazine has published an annual list of the top ten most-produced plays of the American regional theatre scene.  As they preface, their list excludes Shakespeare, and seasonal staples like A Christmas Carol.  The list for 2022-2023 is as follows, and is actually fourteen titles due to ties.

1. Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage (with 11 productions).
2. Chicken & Biscuits, by Douglas Lyons (8 productions).
3. Clue, adapted by Sandy Rustin from the film by Jonathan Lynn (7 productions).
4. Once, by Enda Walsh, Glen Hansard, and Markéta Irglová (7 productions).
5. Sweat, by Lynn Nottage (7 productions).
6. The Chinese Lady, by Lloyd Suh (6 productions).
7. Fairview, by Jackie Sibblies Drury (6 productions).
8. Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine (6 productions).
9. The Lifespan of a Fact, by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell & Gordon Farrell (6 productions).
10. Little Shop of Horrors, by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (6 productions).
11. Native Gardens, by Karen Zacarias (6 productions).
12. The Play That Goes Wrong, by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields (6 productions).
13. Steel Magnolias, by Robert Harling (6 productions).
14. Trouble in Mind, by Alice Childress (6 productions).

Of these fourteen, seven clock a run time of 90 minutes.  Of the remaining half with run times greater than two hours, three are musicals.

Twenty years ago, their list of eleven titles from the 2002-2003 season was similarly split, with six titles clocking in as full length plays of two hours or more, and five of approximately 90 minutes to 105 minutes.  Three were musicals.

With the publication’s original list from the 1994-1995 season, only three of the ten titles clocked in at under two hours. 

. . .

Contrary to what we may be conditioned to believe, humans have an enormous capacity for attention, and story is one highly successful way to access it.  Have you never reached the end of a book and thought, oh no, it’s over?  Have you never felt yourself pulled out from a film by a random noise around you?

Good storytelling can draw our attention like little else.

But there’s the rub, as Hamlet (three-plus hours) would say.  If a production expects us to stay with it, it needs to be effective enough to keep us.

Programming short, small-cast plays is practical considering the financial challenges of making theatre.  Longer scripts often have more characters, which can imply more performers, which means more people to pay, more understudies, more needed from the design departments, and so on.  It’s expensive.

Part of the conundrum may also be fear-based.  If you give your audience an intermission, you are giving them a chance to leave.  My partner, a playwright, has been so cautioned by some of her mentors.

If people leave, that may be less about the exhaustion of their attention span, and more about a failure of the work to resonate.  I’ve witnessed playgoers leave theatres because they were disturbed by the content.  I’ve also witnessed playgoers leave because they were unimpressed by mediocrity on display. 

And of course, it could be about toilets.  There is a tradition of theatres not allowing patrons to return to their seats if they need to step away during a performance.  In a cinema it’s not uncommon for a movie-goer to get up, run to the loo, and return.  While I sympathize with the desire of theatre makers to control as much as possible of the environment in which their carefully crafted illusion unfolds, theatre, I think, has some catching up to do here.  Some people have tiny bladders.

Whatever piece of the puzzle is about attention-span, I wonder why we aren’t fighting collaboratively to build it up, one sixty-second windmill at a time?

I’ve witnessed moments in theatres when the audience was so rapt, they sat forward, seemingly breathless, and you could hear a pin drop.  I’ve also witnessed moments when I could hear enthralled audiences chortle, gasp, and even vocalize in response to what was happening on stage, like sports fanatics shouting at the team on their television screen. 

Good theatre can hold attention. 

Theatre’s job is to serve us a good story, well told. 

Stories prompt the imagination to go on a journey.  To escape the laundry bin, the grocery list, and other staples of daily drudgery—if only for a little while.  At its best, theatre shines healing light on what it means to be human, what it means to be oneself, and at the same time, it helps us feel better.

Good theatre is its own reward.

. . .

I worry about conditioning aspiring playwrights to force their best hopes, their most urgent questions, and unique observations into ever shorter and leaner parameters.  I worry about more new plays becoming overly formulaic. I tip my hat to actors, too, as so much of their work relies on what the script gives them. 

Playwrights deserve room to maneuver, and weave something compelling.  Actors deserve nuance, and well-developed character arcs.

Not every great story demands two, or three, or nine hours to be told well.  But many deserve the grace and space that only a more robust theatre could give them.

Then there’s us.

The less frequently we playgoers are asked—or dared, seduced, or compelled—to embark on long-form theatrical adventures and keep practicing with our attention, the more swiftly this corner of our attention span will erode, too.  It will erode because it’s enabled to erode.  We—the writers, directors, producers—we are choosing it, when we choose not to challenge stamina.

As more corners of our multi-cornered attention span slip, the more pressure will build for any kind of encounter or exchange to keep brief, and then briefer.

Where does that leave us for each other?

Theatre in America is not the robust, popular artform that it could be.  But then, we are not the robust versions of ourselves that we could be, either.

So, Dear Playwright:

Don’t try to make it long, don’t try to make it short, just write the amazing, unique, life-changing script you have the stuff in you to write.  That’s the place to start.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, we need to learn again why only theatre can do what theatre can do.

The spark could come from you.

-J.P.

. . .

Things we can do to build the stamina of our attention span?

1. Stay hydrated.
2. Practice meditation daily.
3. Take breaks throughout your day.
4. Reduce screen time.
5. Read.

© Jeffrey Puukka, 2023.

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