“Why can’t theatre be abstract?†Yoo asks. What, after all, is the definition of clarity? “There’s clarity of the body, there’s clarity of an image—something visual. There’s clarity of emotion. Clarity doesn’t just equal narrative storytelling.â€
Playwright Sarah Ruhl, addressing dramaturges in one of the essays in her book 100 Essays, writes:
"We need you to fight the mania for clarity, and help create a mania for beauty instead. We need you to ask: Is the play too clear?....We need you to remind audiences that plays are irreducible in meaning, the way that poetry is."
Even some of the hippest TV shows (Twin Peaks, Lost) have asked their viewers to rid themselves of the need for narrative coherence.
All this makes sense to me (or should I say I respond to it beautifully?) And yet, I rarely leave the theatre completely satisfied whenever some wonder-filled stagecraft has not been paired with a clear sense of lives unfolding, of a discernible story. I don’t feel similarly deprived when leaving museums or concert halls.
I can’t help being suspicious of works for the stage that feel deliberately unfathomable; I question whether this is the result of an honest artistic vision, of genuine artistic inquiry, or just a self-aggrandizing pose. I was struck by the claim made several years ago that Claude Monet painted the water lilies the way he did because that’s the way he saw them—he had cataracts that blurred his vision. I sometimes flatter myself into thinking I can tell which so-called cutting-edge theatre artists actually see the world the way they’re presenting it on stage.
