I recently went with a friend, Bianca, to see a reading of a terrible, no-good, very-bad play. The actual writing wasn’t terrible, no-good, very-bad, although it left a great deal to be desired. Technically, it felt like a draft. The playwright might have been able to hear how those monologues didn’t work well, or notice that her characters didn’t seem internally motivated. That is possible.
What isn’t possible is for the play to be anything other than a horror, a horror, a nightmarish horror – irresponsible storytelling at its worst, so far as I’m concerned. Here is an overview: a couple’s daughter disappears at the age of 15 (or 16?) The parents are concerned, they miss her – well, the mother does. The father actually knows exactly where the daughter is – locked in a little room in the basement of their building, where he keeps her as his sex slave. She has four children by him, only one of whom she is allowed to keep – the others, he “finds” on the doorstep and arranges to raise them with his wife – the childrens’ grandmother. Kidnapped mother and her oldest daughter live in the tiny room for 20 years – the daughter has never seen outside, something happens, they are freed, everything is terrible.
I have never twitched so much during a play. I have been to terribly written works that drain all energy out of the body, and I have been to ghastly horrors that are well-written and give you some understanding of the world the characters inhabit. This was neither – it was a poorly developed horror that forced my face into a disbelieving scowl. I wasn’t drained, and it didn’t provoke any thoughts – other than “I wish this would end” and “I see what you’re trying to do and it’s not working.”
There was a talk-back at the end. I asked Bianca if she wanted to stay because I REALLY DID NOT and she said “I kind of really want to leave this room.” So we went across the street and had a beer and talked about politics. It’s true, this play was actually more enraging than politics. And it got my mind back on the track of thinking about this term I use so freely – irresponsible storytelling.
There is a portion of my brain where I fear I am perhaps too conservative. As a liberal left-wing hippie, this is one of the worst things to happen in my brain. But time and again, I find myself watching violence, as it is portrayed in our culture, and alarms go off in the back of my brain. Irresponsible! Irresponsible! Irresponsible! I picture the arguments I could have with myself about it – perhaps it is irresponsible, but don’t our first amendment rights fundamentally protect our right to be irresponsible in that fashion? They do, but does that mean we should USE that protection? The circles I’ve trod in my brain about this topic are deep and worn.
And yet I always come back to the same place: perhaps I am some sort of repressive harpy, perhaps I am a fascist at heart, but I just don’t think these stories need to be told. Not the most violent ones, the ones with no redeeming value. Violence is real, and has a place, and is something everyone must learn to grapple with and understand on some level. But in my mind, there is no reason to understand the acts of monsters, if those monsters go unredeemed.
I agree with you. I am very careful about what I allow in via any medium. It’s hard to know until you’re there but usually your gut will tell you “get me out of here” and you should listen. Life is too short too take in disturbing, ugly, unredeemable crap.