New Poll - Aussie Theatre (New Works)

I think that alot depends on how you classify what theatre is. Certainly i think some forms of theatre are dying and others are growing as has always been the case throughout history. It seems to me that here, in perth, non-musical theatre is unfortunately dying a slow death. Though to contradict my last statement this year there seems to be an above average amount of plays on at the PIAF. Though we have to look at the audiences attending these plays, very few are members of my generation (the Y generation) and very few are from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. I believe that theatre is a fundementally important human experience and as such a greater theatre culture should be encouraged to grow amongst the members of my generation and the generations which come after. Unfortunately it will not because theatre has come to have the stigma attatched to it that it is a highbrow event reserved for the upper class, this due to in no small way to the cost of tickets. $70 or $80 for a ticket to a play is well out of the budget for many people.

Then you have to look at the treatment of theatre in our schools, i know throughout my highschool life whenever shakespeare was done in class it was always badly taught and left a bitter taste in every students mouth. English teachers love to expound the fact that theatre is written to be "seen and not read", but due to a number of factors many students are not exposed to the play they are studying in performance, lest it be a video which still is a poor second to a live performance. As the older generation gradually comes into retirement they will find more time for theatre and so for awhile at least it will continue to flourish. Unless something is done however to instill a theatre going culture in Australia by the time i get to retire it is possible that live performance will exist only in the form of the large scale musical production and plays reserved as a study of a dead art form and occasionally revived for small venues by abid practitioners like myself.

This is a very watered down version of a lengthy arguement and one which deserves to be looked at seriously, however i will be interested to hear the opinion of other people of the forum and maybe how they best think to remedy the situation.

One last thing, i would be skeptical of taking the polling on this site as a serious reflection of the community at large, because rightly the people who vote are biased. If it were to be taken to the wider community i wonder how much the figures would change.