That said, I continue to be puzzled by the idea that plays should specify problems and work towards answers (or tell us things we didn’t know, or make arguments beginning with facts); objecting to a play on the grounds that it doesn’t do this strikes me as about as sensible as objecting to a scientific paper on the grounds that it doesn’t rhyme.
That said, it’s possible I just have too narrow a scope of what a play is. That’s why I asked for examples of plays that do have this property; if pointed at such a thing I might completely rethink my understanding of what makes a play worthwhile. If you have examples handy, I’d be grateful.
Thanks for clarifying. Of those I’ve only seen Mindwalk but I understand better what you mean now.
And, sure, I agree that there’s a mostly unexplored popular-entertainment niche for this sort of rigorous message film; I originally thought you were supporting a different claim.
(shrug) This reduces to the question “what are plays for”? Whatever they’re for, failing to do that thing is grounds for objection.
I expect “that thing” is a disjunction, and I don’t claim to have a full specification. But in much the same way that one doesn’t have to be able to articulate precisely what a business plan is for in order to be pretty confident that the fact that it isn’t in iambic pentameter isn’t grounds for objecting to one, I don’t think a full specification of the purpose of theatre is necessary to support the claim I’m making.
That said, if I strip out the implicit context and address your question in isolation… “failing to entertain” is probably a generic enough answer to cover most of the bases.
You may be right.
That said, I continue to be puzzled by the idea that plays should specify problems and work towards answers (or tell us things we didn’t know, or make arguments beginning with facts); objecting to a play on the grounds that it doesn’t do this strikes me as about as sensible as objecting to a scientific paper on the grounds that it doesn’t rhyme.
That said, it’s possible I just have too narrow a scope of what a play is. That’s why I asked for examples of plays that do have this property; if pointed at such a thing I might completely rethink my understanding of what makes a play worthwhile. If you have examples handy, I’d be grateful.
.
Thanks for clarifying. Of those I’ve only seen Mindwalk but I understand better what you mean now.
And, sure, I agree that there’s a mostly unexplored popular-entertainment niche for this sort of rigorous message film; I originally thought you were supporting a different claim.
.
(shrug) This reduces to the question “what are plays for”? Whatever they’re for, failing to do that thing is grounds for objection.
I expect “that thing” is a disjunction, and I don’t claim to have a full specification. But in much the same way that one doesn’t have to be able to articulate precisely what a business plan is for in order to be pretty confident that the fact that it isn’t in iambic pentameter isn’t grounds for objecting to one, I don’t think a full specification of the purpose of theatre is necessary to support the claim I’m making.
That said, if I strip out the implicit context and address your question in isolation… “failing to entertain” is probably a generic enough answer to cover most of the bases.