Here's another Peter Hall quote: "For forty years, I have observed a very simple rule: as the director I can say anything I like about the text, but it remains the playwright's perogative to make the final decision. In exchange, the playwright can make any comment about the production but the final decision rests with me."
If only film directors collaborated this eminently sensible way, I would be a very happy man.
When I am writing, the only audience I listen to me. It is the only audience I can listen to. I cannot anticipate what the audience will think, so I do not think about what the audience wants, only what I want. I write to please myself. I don't know how any writer can write any other way.
After all, I think that it is the job of the artist...not to give the audience what it wants, but to make the audience want what he gives.
The artist tells the audience, the audience doesn't tell the artist.
That's why I hate the studio preview screenings and their little cards they have audiences fill out. It's asking amateurs to do the work of professionals. I once heard the late Peter Stone speak (he wrote books for 1776, KEAN, Will Rogers, so many others) and I wrote down something he said:
"Together the audience is always right; individually they're always wrong." Very wise.
Yes, observing the audience during previews can be very valuable but the danger comes in trusting the audience's opinion. They may get restless in the second act, but it may be because of something you did or didn't do in the first act. They may not like a character, but don't trust what they tell you about why.
That is the job of the professional. To read the audience, gauge their reaction, and figure out what specifically is wrong. An audience may know something's wrong, but they rarely know why.
I have no use for audience participation in the theatre.
I also spurn writer's groups. I find when you invite someone to critique your work, that means to most people to find the faults. They'll look for negatives, rather than positives. What is particularly amusing is all these groups of aspiring writers who get together to critique each other. Amateurs who haven't broken in yet, critiquing other amateurs.
I prefer to trust my own instincts. I firmly believe a professional knows when he's done good work. That's what being a professional is all about. That doesn't mean the work is perfect or can't be changed or tweaked or improved, but it means he understands what he's written, why he's written it the way it is, he's covered all his bases and can defend it passionately.
I think the goal of the artist is to say here is something I'm passionate about, that I think has meaning, that will resonate with others...and he exposes it to an audience to see if he's right. It's at that point the audience responds. And the artist either succeeds or fails.
But if he starts to tailor or re-fashion something he is passionate about to serve the whims and desires of the audience, he is not serving his voice or his art. He should only alter his work to make his voice clearer to the audience...but not even then if he feels it compromises and does not serve the work.
Audiences will change, but art remains art. There have been many failed or neglected pieces of art that were later re-assessed with new eyes. Van Gogh only sold one painting during his life time.
Author Dennis Brown in a lovely book called SHOPTALK, about various practitioners of the theatre, mentions a visit to Harold Clurman to discuss William Inge.
"As I prepared to leave Harold Clurman's apartment, he insisted on giving me a book...MR. GEORGE JEAN NATHAN PRESENTS, a collection of theatre essays by the eminent drama critic, published and purchased in 1917. That evening, I perused my gift and discovered that Clurman had underlined only one sentence in the entire volume:
"The artist is contemptuous of the crowd."
I keep that Nathan quote close to my heart just like the Peter Hall quotes.
A writer must never be a slave to the audience. He must write for himself.
