"It sounds arrogant, high-handed, even undemocratic... Yet it’s worth speculating on Mamet’s motives and asking ourselves whether he has a point.... If Mamet wants to ban post-play discussions of his work, it might be because he feels a play should usher us into an imagined world rather than simply air hot topics in the manner of a newspaper editorial. You get a clue to his thinking from an interview he gave in 1985 where he said: 'The purpose of the theatre is not primarily to deal with social issues, it’s to deal with spiritual issues ... to celebrate the mysteries of life.'"
Writes Michael Billington, who nevertheless finds it "absurd" to threaten theaters with "punitive financial sanctions." I think Billington is being overdramatic. Mamet grants permission to stage his plays and he imposes conditions. If theaters don't like the conditions, they can pick another play. The cost of violating the conditions needs to be adequate to deter flouting them.
Billington says, "Mamet’s status and integrity as a writer is not being undermined with post-show talks."
First, Mamet doesn't need to prove that there's something objectively wrong with post-show talks. He's the artist, and he's determining how he wants his play shown. He could even have a preference for something that
would undercut his "status and integrity." For example, he could say you must perform the entire text, even if the play has a long boring speech in the middle that doesn't advance the plot.
Second, it's actually easy to see how a post-show talk could undermine his status and integrity. The playwright could prefer that the members of the audience exit the theater with
his words and his words alone gestating in their heads. The discussion session is another performance after the play, and
its words — more pedestrian and outside of the playwright's control — will crowd his carefully chosen words. Worse, the discussion purports to explain and interpret the playwright's words, so it will change how they grow and flourish in the mind of the playgoer. It's also likely — as the 1985 quote indicates — that the discussion will fixate on some issue, and the play will be reduced to an example of a current social problem. It's a diminishment masquerading as an expansion.
By the way, I once participated in an after-play discussion. It wasn't my idea, but I was invited to do it because of my status as a law professor and the play had a legal theme. The play was
"Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde." I hated the assumption that I was there only to supply
legal analysis, and I got myself extremely well informed about Oscar Wilde before doing it. Watching the play, I had loads of things to talk about, but the actual discussion, in my view, was unsatisfying. There's far too much going on in a work of art to discuss on a level that belongs on the very stage where the play just happened.
In this view, I could see a playwright demanding that there be no curtain call.
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