The Five Keys to Authenticity

Here's the sequel to On fraudulent theater. Now, as I admitted in the comments to that post, I feel more comfortable anatomizing fraudulence in art than trying to say what makes a given work authentic. I think we can all agree that "authentic" is already a suspect term. Aesthetics are not so Manichean: there's no such thing as a perfect work of art, just as there's no such thing as total failure. A bad work of art is as ontologically present as a great one. It is authentic to its own lousiness. Following, in no particular order, are my five keys—or criteria—to authenticity. Here, authenticity means the extent to which the artist realizes a vision by manifesting it in material which can be appraised by others, professional or not.

Originality

This is the category where issues of plagiarism or influence come into play. James Joyce's Ulysses is awesomely original, but it never would have existed without Homer, Shakespeare, the Bible and scores of other sources of inspiration. We can all acknowledge and celebrate the echoic tradition in poetry and literature—writers calling to writers across gulfs of time and all that—but still demand that writers be more than allusive and clubby. Originality is the way the writer creates new configurations of old elements. It can come in the form of heterodox scene structure, highly stylized language, unpredictable characterization, juxtaposition of fantasy with naturalism, anachronism, metatheatrical disruption, absurdist manipulation of time and space, and so forth. Or it can simply come in a very traditional depiction of a fresh, engaging story. We are all so used to postmodern dramatics; it’s almost more shocking to write a formally conservative new drama. See: Caryl Churchill, Harold Pinter, Tony Kushner

Profundity

It’s the old yes-but-what-is-it-saying issue. Did the artist get at a given subject in a way that really made me think, did it send me scuttling to a book or website to learn more, to look up an obscure reference, or go back and read a play that it reminded me of? Did the work leave me emotionally devastated, intellectually abuzz, sensually stimulated? Did it make me look at my neighbor not as a jolly balding businessman, but a potential serial killer? Or, did it give me a warm feeling of oneness with the rest of the audience? Did it make me think about Death, Love, God, Politics, Property, Morality, Forgiveness, Identity, Progress, Violence, Pain, Ecstasy and/or Language? See: Eugene O’Neill, Samuel Beckett, William Shakespeare

Surprise

An alternate name for this key could be “Courage.” In other words, how much courage did it take the creator to put forth this work? And how much courage does the spectator need to fully embrace it? We’re not talking about pedophile rape or torturing political prisoners or defecating on the Bible, Torah or Koran onstage. (Although those sorts of blasphemies, if depicted, should be depicted with purpose and boldness.) Also, inured as we are to outrageous theater, how much surprise do we genuinely feel when watching a provocative image or hearing incendiary language? The really effective, savage theater artist will both astonish you with the presentation of a radical world, but also succeed in normalizing that world in your consciousness, temporarily. They ought to be terrifying devil’s advocates and connoisseurs of extreme states of corruption and perversion. See: Richard Foreman, Bertolt Brecht, Wallace Shawn

Intimacy

The previous category is often dependent on this one. How much is the creative type putting him or herself on the line? How personal is the work of art? This is a tough one for anyone but the artist to evaluate, but we can still ask it. I think we’ve all seen a play where it feels like the writer had very little personal investment in the subject matter, perhaps only a passing intellectual or formal curiosity. This is not to be confused with confessional or biographical content; it is always my assumption that the work of an artist is personal, even if that person is dull or shallow. But there’s a limit to how interesting the work of a largely conceptual, detached, intellectualized and mediated individual can be. Did the artist risk something? Did he ask me to risk something? See: Anton Chekhov, August Wilson, Edward Albee

Craft

The last, and maybe least crucial of keys. If an artist flops in the previous four categories but scores high here, you may have gold-plated tin on your hands. The crafty artist can turn a beautiful phrase that sounds clever and deep, or spew hundreds that might make a lovely essay but poor dialog. Or they know how to entertain with crackling plots, smart characters, neat thematic schema and ancillary subplots, but you forget the work the moment you leave the theater. Avant-gardists are particularly susceptible to being good at craft and little else. With enough money and loyalty from your actors and the critical establishment, the most shallow artist can produce glittering, dynamic, even astounding work that is utterly superficial and dead. But craft is still very important: Obviously, it is what enables the artists to transmute all those inchoate hopes and fears into work. See: Noël Coward, Molière, George Bernard Shaw

Nothing scores a 10 in all these criteria. Most art scores in various keys at various levels, depending on who’s doing the scoring. A play may be highly original but require no courage or surprise on the creator's part, and it may be shoddily crafted. Another play may be fiendishly well crafted, but extremely derivative and utterly impersonal. Last word: much as I like this way of evaluating art, believe me, I don't approach my job with a checklist of these keys (heck, I just made ‘em up!). But they are a way of framing the mental process of separating “good” theater from “bad.” And if you can tally up your responses to a particular piece of much ballyhooed art and find it wanting in almost all categories then, yes, maybe you can call the art fraudulent. But now I turn it over to my ever-contrarian readers: What are your keys to authenticity?

Comments

[Alison Croggon]

You negotiated the minefields well, Mr Cote. I can't really argue with your criteria...

I guess there is one thing, underneath all those criteria, that I look for, an indefinable quality that makes me involuntarily pay attention. I've had rare and interesting experiences where something might seem to fail all my intellectual and aesthetic criteria and yet keeps me there, and leaves me with (again) an odd indefinable feeling of joy. In such circumstances, I'm prepared to throw everything I know out of the window and start again.

[George Hunka]

Well done, Mr. Cote, and it could not have been easy.

And (although this might be covered by your "Intimacy" and "Courage") I would only add, as being necessary and not sufficient, like the other Keys, "Passion". Whatever is expressed in a play, what's important to a good authentic play is that this expression is necessary, urgent, essential. Passion is the dividing line between a play which is written well and a play which had to be written. It's possible to have a play which is intimate and courageous, but without the feeling that this play is necessary, it may remain bloodless and cold.

[David]

Alison & George: Thanks for mentioning Joy and Passion, two very important qualities to feel and have, indeed.

[Joshua James]

Passion and joy?

They are important feelings to have when doing anything, but I don't know that they're necessarily keys to authenticity, do you? I've known many a passionate shyster who takes great joy in scamming folks (I think of Jim and Tammy Baker) and really, the feelings one has from the work is usually the end-product of the work, right?

[David Cote]

Oh goodness, no. The Five Keys are inviolate and frozen. Passion is a subset of Intimacy and joy is a given—a desired reaction in the audience. There will be no abridgment or attenuation of the Keys!

[Alison Croggon]

Well, the joy I mentioned was a very particular thing, not a Signifier floating out in the universe all on its ownsome...and no one was arguing with craft, intimacy, surprise, intimacy and profundity - so one can only assume that these Five Frozen Attributes play in these responses somewhere.

And me, I was speaking purely as an audience member. So yes, I guess it has to come out of the work. (Shysters are not passionate, they're just noisy.)