A Terry Teachout Reader, my self-anthology, came out sixteen years ago. I’ve published hundreds of pieces on various subjects since then, and I have no plans to put together a sequel to the Teachout Reader, so I’ve launched a series of occasional posts drawn from my fugitive essays, articles, and reviews. I hope you like this one, which came from a 2006 Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column called “Unrisky Business.”
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One of the occupational hazards of being a drama critic is that strangers are forever asking you what shows they should see. Experience has taught me that what most of them really want to know is which Broadway musical they should see. A friend of mine whose sister lives in New Jersey once put it even more bluntly. “My sister and her husband want to go to a Broadway show,” she asked me. “What would you recommend?”
“What kind of show do they have in mind?”
“Oh, you know. Something safe.”
I knew what she meant, but I decided to probe more deeply. “What do you mean by safe?” I asked.
“Nothing too serious,” she replied. “A musical, maybe. Nothing that’ll make her cry.”
I know plenty of snobs whose response would have been to roll their eyes. Not me. I’m a firm believer in what Arnold Bennett called “the great cause of cheering us all up.” What’s more, I don’t have much patience with intellectuals who sneer reflexively at “safe” art. Ask them what they mean by “safe” and you’ll find that they have in mind everything from “Spamalot” to Shakespeare. To such folk the only art worth seeing is that which has the power to shock—and then only if it does so in a way that suits their own preconceptions. I’m especially amused by their insistence that the classics are too “safe” to bother with nowadays. What could be more shocking than “Hamlet,” in which, as Howard Dietz so neatly put it, “a ghost and a prince meet/And everyone ends in mincemeat”? As for “Oedipus Rex,” let’s not even go there.
The American Symphony Orchestra League just issued a list of the pieces of classical music most frequently played by North American orchestras during the 2005-06 season. The top five, in descending order: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Mozart’s “Jupiter,” Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, Beethoven’s Ninth and Brahms’ First. Need I point out that all five are as deadly serious as it gets? Or that each one can still reduce a receptive listener to tears?
Of course I don’t think all art should play it safe. Much of the greatest art, after all, is challenging, even shocking. As Clement Greenberg, the critic who put Jackson Pollock on the map, so wisely pointed out, “All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.” It’s important not to be scared away by art that doesn’t look the way you expect, or tell you what you want to hear. But it’s no less important to appreciate the permanent value of realistically painted landscapes and comedies with happy endings. If you think you’re too good for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I suggest you consider the alternative possibility that it might be too good for you.