New Plays vs. New Books
As I was watching the 2009 Tony Awards Sunday night, an odd question came to mind. I don't know the answer, so I thought I'd turn to my fellow Read Streetians for help:
Why are there so many more terrific new books than there are new plays?
It seems that I can almost always find some new book that I'm pushing on my unwilling friends and family. It's rarer for me to be as strongly enthusiastic about a new play (though there are exceptions -- for instance, I'd nominate Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" as the best play of our generation and will urge you all personally to see it when you have the chance.)
There are, of course, a gazillion new books published every year, while the number of new plays staged annually in the U.S. must be in the low three figures, if that. So, maybe it's just a numbers game: the more of a genre that sees the light of day, the easier it will be for any one of us to find specific examples we like. And, because theater tickets are considerably pricier than the average novel, most of us probably read more books than we see shows.
But, I'm not sure if that's the whole story. I wonder whether there might be something in the constraints of playwriting (i.e., all dialogue, no omniscent narrator, except for Thornton Wilder) that makes that form a riskier proposition, and tougher to pull off.
And this, in its turn, lead me to another question, about consumer habits: When it comes to books, the new is more desirable than the old. But when it comes to plays, the opposite is true. Audiences will sit through a thousand productions of "A Christmas Carol" while new plays generally are considered to be box office poison. But, though there may be one or two well-loved classics that some of us will read all our lives, it's the hot new novel that flys off the shelves.
What do you guys think?
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
Comments
Greetings from Michigan! I read your blog, & as a writer / blogger myself, (blogging IS writing!) I have to agree. Writing is for me a way to vent, and a one - person enterprize. I must confess I haven't been to a play since "Cats", which was a Christmas present for my wife. I'm usually interested in the writing end, although I haven't actually published anything outside of church. My blogs seem to be partly commentary, and partly poetry. Have a good day! SW
Posted by: seldon wright | June 10, 2009 7:54 AM
I never thought about it before, but you're right - the most successful plays seem to be revivals. Maybe plays are more difficult to write.
Posted by: Kathy | June 10, 2009 8:24 AM
Hm. People seem to churn out screenplays at an alarming rate, so I don't know if it's that plays are more difficult to write. Perhaps it's that writing for the screen is more lucrative, and so people who would be writing for the stage are moving westward instead?
I've been to a few small-budget plays both in Boston and here in Baltimore, and I was pleasantly surprised almost every time. I say "surprised" because I expected to be bored for 1.5 hours each time and found myself laughing or (near-)crying instead. (Have to defend that manliness, just as Dave does.) These were plays by unknowns or soon-to-be-knowns... people who probably can't pitch their work to Broadway, Off-Broadway, or even Off-off-Broadway stages without a large number of successes behind them. I wouldn't say that the stage is dead or dying; it's just getting smaller and more DIY.
Posted by: Thomas Bechtold | June 11, 2009 4:20 PM
Thomas, SW and Kathy, thanks for your comments. I certainly don't think the theater is dying. I'd guess that the proportion of good plays to bad ones has been pretty much unchanged for centuries. We revive Shakespeare and Moliere all the time, while the clunkers written by their contemporaries has blessedly faded into oblivion. Plays and novels do seem to me to be distinctly different writing (and reading) experiences. Novels are taken in by the eye, while plays (like poems) are meant to be heard. I'd argue that a play that it's fun to read will almost always be superior when it's staged to one that isn't. One of my earliest and most vivid memories is reading "A Long Day's Journey Into Night" at the public library with my friend Lesley when we were both 14. We were lying stomach down on the carpet, and we wouldn't flip a page until we both had finished reading. We were mesmerized. At the same time, no one pretends that reading the play is the equal of experiencing it on stage, with costumes, sets, and skilled actors.
Posted by: Mary McCauley | June 12, 2009 6:12 PM