On fraudulent theater

Fraud is an actionable crime in the world, but in the theater, what satisfaction can the spectator or critic seek after being hornswoggled—to use the technical term—by an inferior artist pretending to possess greater significance?

As a critic, I can declare the Emperor or Empress shoeless, shirtless, blouseless, skirtless, pantsless, sockless, hatless, spatless, bloomersless, breechesless (I’m speechless) and ultimately even necklaceless. The spectator can gavel down judgment by fleeing at intermission and never looking back. How often in the public arena—or in the dank alleyway off the public arena that cares about the arts—is anyone branded a fraud? Especially when great sums of money have not been exchanged, but only the audience trust has been abused? (Money does play its part, especially if you consider subsidies.)

Is bad art fraudulent art? What is art fraud (and I don’t mean forgery)? Is fakery the same as illusion? And isn’t illusion—the fashioning of words and actions in fabricated, unrealistic patterns (especially in naturalism)—the basis of theatrical craft? If we accept that the artist is fraud to nature and to the way humans actually behave, what does it mean to dismiss an artist as a fraud? Does it even matter if we identify the phony as such? Is the true artist a fraud unto himself—a splendid liar?

“I do not know what poetry is,” says goatherd Audrey in Act III, scene 3 of As You Like It. “Is it honest in deed and word? Is it true?” To which her pretzel-logicked suitor, the court clown Touchstone replies, “No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry it must be said, as lovers, they do feign.”  But then, he's just trying to get laid.

Can any art be said to be pseudoart? Can an artist be denounced a pseudoartist? Could it be these terms are oxymoronic and redundant all at once? Since you and I have nothing better to do at the moment, I’ll try to answer these questions for myself and end with my Five Keys to Authenticity.

First, a quick explanation why the subject has come up: Ever since I came to New York in 1992 and began to hobnob with the avant-garderati below 14th Street, I’ve met people with strong feelings about various artists, who were pleased to put them down as “frauds.” A certain flamboyant Persian auteur I worked with would flatly declare Richard Foreman a fraud. Others would cry fraud at the mention of Anne Bogart and her SITI company of Viewpoints-practicing performers. Most recently, the F-bomb was dropped in regard to Jan Fabre, the love-him-or-hate-him Belgian provocateur whose career has spanned art vandalism, solo performance that involved bloodletting (and blood-inscribing), and in recent years a mix of art installation, dance-theater and painterly compositions that emphasize sexuality, violence and bodily functions. At TONY, a staffer who was investigating Fabre’s work tartly came to the conclusion that he was “a bit of a fraud.” And that this status was fairly accepted among right-thinking individuals in Europe’s art circles. I, being somewhat intrigued by Fabre’s multivalent images (okay, maybe bivalent), found myself immediately put on the defensive: If everyone thinks this guy’s a fraud, what does that make me, the schmuck who kinda likes the work?

Later, I posted about some arguments that ensued after one of Fabre’s dance-theater pieces, and the estimable playwright and essayist Jeffrey Jones posted a comment that made Fabre sound like a bit of a huckster and worse, style plagiarist. (The huckster and the fraud are not the same, as we’ll see below.)

So, the question has been gnawing at me: What the hell does it mean to be an art fraud?

Is bad art fraudulent? Although it didn’t rock my world to its foundations, the Jan Fabre work I’ve seen (Quando l’umo principal e una donna and Je Suis Sang) is not bad. It conforms to a certain stereotype of well-funded Euro multidisciplinary art still best exemplified by Robert Wilson and Pina Bausch. Whereas those two are unmistakable originals, one can see how Fabre’s stage work (let’s leave out his solo performance art) is heavily indebted to them and the last 30 years of European deconstructive and imagistic theater, and the major contributions of the American avant-garde (Foreman, the Wooster Group). Fabre’s work is a mélange of visual art, dance, theater, body art, installation, even rock music, and it contributes to that tradition quite respectably I’d say. Fabre has carved out a little niche for himself: he displays his actor-dancers’ bodies for their beauty and plasticity; you get to ogle a parade of well-toned male and female physiques, and then see them subjected to various simulations of mutilation and torture. What more could one want? The formula certainly works for Hollywood. You can call Fabre’s work bad, but that’s not the same as fraud, is it? Fraud demands some sort of misrepresentation, deceit, proffering a bum bill of goods. At worst, you could say that the work of Fabre, or an artist just like him, is irredeemably derivative.

What is art fraud (and I don’t mean forgery)? To be derivative is not the same as being a forger, of course. As fledgling artists supposedly imitate the work of old masters, or as scientists reproduce the experiments of predecessors, so a playwright or auteur, in early work, might intentionally blur the line between appropriation and inspiration. Collage dramatist Charles L. Mee, of course, makes no secret of his cut-and-paste methodology. I suppose you could say, by way of derogation, that a certain artist is nothing but the sum of his or her influences. Unacknowledged plagiarism (as in the case of Bryony Lavery’s intellectual property squatting for Frozen), is indefensible and probably as close to simple fraudulence as we’ll get: passing off someone else’s work as your own. But to judge a writer or theater maker merely old hat and derivative is not the same as uncovering a fraud. In fact, I think, a fraud requires a certain level of originality. To set oneself up a True Original, a Revolutionary, the Lead Exponent of the Pure Style—ah, that requires a flair for imposture beyond the abilities of the merely lousy or derivative hack. It takes great effort, cultivating the aura of talent. Any fool can fake; few fools fool fools fully.

Is fakery the same as illusion? Let’s say you have little talent but many books. You can rationally understand why great art has made such an impression on you, but damned if you can force such genius out of yourself. For some, lacking the “divine spark” is no impediment; all the energy that might normally go into the discipline of true talent goes into creating all the appurtenances thereof. Thus the fraud will promulgate theories and manifestos from morning till night; will hone cocktail-party chatter about plans and projects; will always be available after performances to rationally explain the themes and structure of a given work; or, using another tactic, the shrewd fraud will shun any exegetical activity, seeing them as traps, and surround the work with a shroud of mystery and delicious inaccessibility. The fraud, unable to achieve the sublimity of illusion in the work, directs the mystery to his or her own person and the conditions for the reception of the work. Thus the work is the last thing to worry about; it’s not about the rabbit in the hat, but the patter before and after you pull it out.

Isn’t illusion the basis of theatrical craft? Illusion in art production is unavoidable. Whether a pungent phrase or a pretty backdrop of diminishing perspective, the raw materials of the world, and our expectations of them, are twisted into new forms in order to keep the senses off-balance and yet engaged. Thus Picasso’s “Art is the lie that tells the truth.”

If we accept that the artist is fraud to nature and to the way humans actually behave, what does it then mean to dismiss such-and-such an artist as a fraud? Yeah, what’s that about? A fraud works hard to get work produced, fills out grant applications, hustles for an audience, and then gets slapped with the F-word. A poseur is no less real than an authentic practitioner, just less interesting. Let’s go to Miriam-Webster’s, which we should have done from the start:

Pronunciation: 'frod Function: noun Etymology: Middle English fraude, from Anglo-French, from Latin fraud-, fraus 1 a : DECEIT, TRICKERY; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : TRICK 2 a : a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : IMPOSTOR; also : one who defrauds : CHEAT b : one that is not what it seems or is represented to be synonym see DECEPTION, IMPOSTURE

Alright, let’s see. Intentionally perverting truth to get someone to surrender something … You charge money for someone to see your play? You’re a fraud, buddy. Act of deceiving or misrepresenting? Ditto. What else does the poet, playwright or sculptor do but manufacture calculated misrepresentation, forgeries of natural states that never were nor never will be. What else does the definition tell us… “a person who is not what he or she pretends to be.” That’s a stumper. Not just anyone can buy a stethoscope and call him or herself a gastroenterologist. Not just anyone can grab a pad and pen and profess to be a theater critic (okay, bad example). But anyone with a concept and the will to not crack up laughing can assume the august mantle of artist. Being an artist is as simple as lying.

Does it matter if we identify the phony as such? Inasmuch as we care whether the art we consume is good for us, yes. It is important for me to say, “No, David, the deep-fried Twinkie is tasty, but it is not real food; it contains no nutritional value and will only make you fatter.” In fact, abominating addictive and seductive foodstuffs should be our duty, as health-valuing people. But from my vantage point, as a critic, it would be the height of arrogance to cry “Fraud!” at any one, even under the pretext of public service. Who am I to do so? I’d be laughed out of this town. You can heap righteous scorn on the head of some poor writer, director or performer, but ultimately they have the right to hoodwink the ignorant and amaze the masses with their shoddy project or spurious intellectual claims. From an audience standpoint, what are their rights as consumers? There’s no Better Business Bureau for bad art, except, I suppose, demanding your money back. But how many people march to the box office with the explanation: “It wasn’t as brilliant as I was led to believe.” Again, it takes a real fraud to serve you boiled rocks and make you think you’re having the most savory consommé in the world.

What’s the difference between a huckster and a fraud? It’s like the joke about the difference between a flautist and a flute player: about $100 a week. I think of the huckster as more entertainment-oriented, the gap between the hype and the product is not so great and the promise of quality not so meretricious. When I get excited over a trailer for a summer movie, no one’s fooling anyone—we know I’ll go to see the epilepsy-inducing special effects; the rush of simulated destruction and speed and power; the fantasy of victimless worldwide carnage; or just a flash of nudity, about which I’ll feel most guilty. But the art fraud is a higher order of huckster, one who has gone to great pains to convince him or herself of the merits of the work.

Is the true artist a fraud unto himself—a splendid liar? Is there some rarefied, divine state of being in which these petty concerns of fraudulence, authenticity, truth, misrepresentation, bullshittery, lies, honesty, cheating, forgery and all the rest melt into a blinding continuum of self and artifice, interchangeable and inseparable?

How should I know? Being a critic, I’m the greatest fraud of all.

Perhaps creating art requires great truthfulness, but selling art takes a mountain of lies.

I’m not quite sure what I did or didn’t argue here, but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I suspect that it doesn’t really matter whether you think a given artist is the real thing or a goddamned phony; even a congenital mediocrity can produce a single work of lasting value. Isn't that what we call a one-hit wonder? Perhaps my time would be better squandered in search of criteria to valuate art that does exist, rather than the bona fides of the person who made it.

To that end…

NEXT: THE FIVE KEYS TO AUTHENTICITY

Comments

[Alison Croggon]

Heh. Interesting and provocative post. I look forward to your piece on authenticity, a concept I have a few problems with (it's usually linked to the "authenticity" of the artist him/herself, and I never heard of a more fraudulent idea...) The only fraudulence that causes a red mist to descend over my eyes (and maybe not so much these days, being older and more tired) is that which posits dead theatre as a living thing. That's because I think it teaches people that inner boredom is the same as being profound. But that of course is in my subjective judgement, which is of course highly arguable. Mind you, I'll argue hard...

One thing - being interested, I followed that link to the article on Frozen (a play that I can't say I especially enjoyed, but there we are). And far from being portrayed as "inexcusable" plagiarism, that article - rather interestingly - was sympathetic to the playwright, and in fact looked at some of the complexities of the issues of artistic influence. Which are very complex. I find the current hue and cry over plagiaristic work rather worrying, myself.

I use other writers' words all the time, and every text I make - perhaps especially my criticism - is larded with intertextuality. And I'd be mightily upset if it was taken to be plagiarism, because I don't believe it is. (When Bertie Wooster misquotes Shakespeare or Milton without attributing it, is he plagiarising?) Worse, having cunningly sewn into my first fantasy book a few tributes to my favourite authors, I find that some readers accuse me of plagiarising these authors. It's the only criticism I take exception to - I want to sit these naifs down and give them a long lecture on the Tree of Tales (Tolkien's phrase, don't you know) and how those those allusions are there _on purpose_ and how Catullus "plagiarised" Sappho and Joyce "plagiarised" Homer and how Tolkien himself "plagiarised" whole canons of ancient epic poetry. Naive readers, I know, go with the territory, but what bothers me with this whole issue is that there are naive readers who are older than 15. And the whole issue seems to me profoundly anti-art. Actual plagiarism - as in copying whole passages and passing them off as one's own original work - seems to me another issue altogether.

Anyway, enough of that.

[David]

Hi Alison: Thanks for the close reading & literary gloss. You're right, "l'affaire Lavery" was more complicated than a simple case of schoolroom theft, as the Gladwell article indicates. However, she did initially pass off whole lines as her own, thus, well, plagiarism. More, she appropriated another person's research into brain chemistry without giving credit. But then we get into intellectual property, a more fuzzy area. Is it okay for me to create a character who talks about the laws of gravity sans Newton but not okay to reproduce cutting-edge ideas from a scientific paper published the month before? Jonathan Lethem offers a bracingly contrarian essay in the new Harper's (http://harpers.org/TheEcstasyOfInfluence.html) celebrating appropriation and extolling the "beauty of second use." I wasn't trying to freshly denounce Lavery (the woman suffered enough). I accept that echo, appropriation and influence are part of the creative process (and the critical process, for that matter). But, still, are we to abolish the charge of plagiarism, outside of the term paper or thesis?

[George Hunka]

I'm more looking forward to your comments on "authenticity" myself, David, but in terms of plagiarism (style and otherwise), it's interesting that your post on this issue comes at the same time as there's a small swirl in the classical music world about the same thing. I've written about it today, here:

http://www.ghunka.com/index.cgi/Theater/Blogs/cote_fraud.html

(Oh, and that file name is just a file name -- I don't mean to suggest that you ... well, you know.)

[David]

Don't get your hopes up, George: I'm more comfortable anatomizing the negative than hosannahing the positive. I'll have much less to say on the subject of authenticity (or some other term, since that one is so wobbly). I could describe pornography in photorealistic detail, but about love itself, I'd have fewer words. As a professional borderline fraud (critic), I am more intimately familiar with the elaborate rituals required to disguise ego-stroking as insight. But I'll lay out five qualities one can, hypothetically, look for in genuine work.

[Joshua James]

What an interesting discussion . . .

I guess I'm simplistic, but to me, people can be frauds, but I don't ever view work as fraud . . . for example, the artist who claims that the important thing is the work, when in reality it's obvious the work is less important than the artist's ego . . . in other words, a hypocrite masquerading as a director, writer, essayist, what have you . . .

We've all met the actor who claims that the work is what is important . . . the writer, the director, etc . . . whose actions bely their words . . . I've always viewed folks like this as frauds . . .

When I was in college, back in the day, we had a rather famous monologist (who shall go unnamed) arrive to perform at our school and also talk to all of us theatre folk about the work . . . it became soon apparent, however, that the person in question was more interested in chasing young girls than talking about the work or even really doing the work . . . the word "fraud" was bandied about (not by me) even though the person's work was admired.

I guess up until today, to me, if work was bad, it ain't art. If it's good, it is. I've never thought about the work, in terms of fiction or art or plays, as fraudulent. Misguided, maybe (I'm thinking of the Passion of Christ) or just plain factually wrong (Path to 9/11), which, I guess, qualifies as fraudulent if it's deliberately factually wrong, now that I think about it (but can a fictionized drama be fraud, since it's already fiction?) . . . You've certainly given me cause to rethink my views on the matter.

But here's a loaded question for you, David.

Is Triumph of Will a fraudulent piece of work? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025913/

Certainly Leni Reifenstahl was a director with a lot of baggage in that way.

[Alison Croggon]

Straight-out plagiarism is, I believe, pretty easy to pick. That's when something is straight-out copied. Having one phrase or one allusion in a passage/work which is otherwise quite different, or which uses those tropes to transform them into something else, doesn't strike me as plagiarism. But obviously, there are no clear lines. Me, I'd rather err on the liberal side, since this kind of application of intellectual copyright is something that only benefits large corporations (Disney, for instance, legally threatening an experimental artist for using the image of Mickey Mouse, as happened to a friend of mine).

I am obviously all for intellectual copyright per se, since that's how I make my living: if someone, as happened once, set one of my poems to music and had it performed and recorded without permission, I get pissed off; same if they say they wrote a poem that I did. I saw someone claim that they had written Whitman's poem "I think I could turn and live with the animals", only instead of "animals" they had written "cats": that's plagiarism. On the other hand, I had a poet accuse me of pinching one of her lines. Luckily, my poem predated hers...but the image she accused me of pinching was, well, part of the common pot. I'm sure I pinched it from somewhere else. It all gets a bit precious. And from whence did this idea come that art springs all ahistorical and sparkling from the artist's forehead, an immaculate conception having nothing to do with any previous art?

[David Cote]

When does a poetic (prosaic) trope or meme cross over into intellectual property? Good question. Perhaps when a writer gets his or hands on a centuries-old cliche, then adjusts it ever so slightly with a twist & signature. I have no idea. Let the courts decide. Wait, don't!

[Jeff Lewonczyk]

Hi, David – I’m finally commenting on your stupid blog! (And hi everybody else – it’s been entertaining and enlightening to read your comments over the past few months.)

To jump right in, I think a lot of the issues of “fraudulence” and “authenticity” are very contextual. A big empty spectacle that might read as horribly derivative in Manhattan might be seen as dazzling to a community that isn’t so inured to live performance. Likewise, a show that has genuine integrity and originality for a rarefied audience of new Yorkers will read as pointlessly pretentious in, oh, let’s say Peoria.

I also think fellow artists – or at the very least “insiders” – are more likely to cry “Fraud!” than a hypothetical “average” viewer. Since members of a community as claustrophobic as ours can be tend to share a reservoir of education, influence, acquaintance and gossip, we’re far more discerning, sometimes too much so.

And we also all have our own personal foibles. Speaking from my own petty experience, if I start perceiving that an artist is getting a “free ride” (i.e. massive amounts of positive publicity, sold out houses, gushing word-of-mouth) for a show that seems predicated on a hackneyed or gimmicky premise, my nervous system sends jealous impulses to my brain that closely resemble intimations of fraudulence. Of course, if I don’t see the show, how will I know if these feelings are justified? But paying for a ticket will just play right into their greasy hands!

As you can see, I feel that this is a rather subjective issue. I think David is right in that there is not, in art, any infallible yardstick for fraud. Artists are neither doctors nor snake-oil salesmen; generally, they’re a little bit of each, offering from the back of their rickety wagons not a product you can hold in your hands, but rather an ephemeral experience, which will prove more efficacious to some constitutions than to others. And whether it’s brewed in bad faith or in painful sincerity, experience is ultimately the province of the experiencer.

[David Cote]

Hi Jeff! Thanks for posting! Now get your own god-damned blog. I know you could post at elephantine lengths like the best of 'em.

[J.J.]

Dear God! Lose the blogs and get some hobbies. Better yet go volunteer for some worthwhile charities… Ones that aren’t fraudulent.

[Shane]

just a thought: doesn't the hucksucker think his work is really important too, only that he's referring to a different canon than the one you like to call art? a bit fuzzy and ivory tower if i may say so myself. not that that's a huge problem, but it seems this is rather pretentious and presumptuous.
it also seems to me that these questions are rather new, due, in part, to copyright laws and intellectual property.
a conundrum: is rauschenberg's 'erasing de koonig' fraudulent? or is it because he's honest about what he's referring to that it's ok. so if i write a large work with footnotes explaining everything i take (and mind you, we'll regard the work as 'commenting upon' the work it 'steals' from), is this ok?

[PatrickKelley]

even a congenital mediocrity can produce a single work of lasting value.

Bram Stoker came immediately to mind here, before Dracula (and later, Lair Of The White Worm) his work was on the level of Victorian Era Harlequin romance novels (though I have personally never read one of them).

Great post.