RAT Good Art Vs. Bad Art

[kafclown@well.com]

I definitely think there's a difference.  Unfortunately (or fortunately,
depending on how you look at it)  the difference is subjective for each
person.  And each viewpoint is (sad to say) equally valid.

No one tries to create bad art.  Everyone is working towards their own
aesthetic ideals, doing what they think is the best thing for the play, for
the production, for the theatre, for the audience, for whoever.  Everybody
wants to be acclaimed as a genius.

One of the hardest things about watching theatre for me is seeing great
possibilities that the artists didn't take, the one's I might have taken
had I been presented with this problem.  Trying to eliminate my personal
aesthetic from what I see, putting myself in their shoes as the artist.
It's not so much that I say "I would have been great in that role" but
"Damn, look at all the meat on the bones that they left behind."  And it's
easy to see , because plays have to make choices, and there's always meat
on the bones left behind (as well as gristle and fat, and sometimes this
weird icky stuff that's oozing out and you probably are going to be sorry
you ever decided to club that lake duck and eat it.  Vegetables are much
nicer!)

One of my acting teachers would (after viewing a scene) say "Okay:  Now
what was good about that?"

Which is the perfect question an informed audience member/artist viewing
other people's artwork should ask.

 Because it's easy to see flaws in something, and be witty and clever and
make disparaging remarks with a cutting tone.  Cattiness is fun!  It's much
harder to __Actually__ see the good that people do and let them know in a
way that is not "You were so on that stage!" and not filled with your ideas
and your concepts of what should or shouldn't have been done according to
your own aesthetic principles and philosophy.

At least, that's what's easy and hard for me.


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