{"id":909,"date":"2014-05-26T14:56:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T13:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=909"},"modified":"2014-05-26T15:07:51","modified_gmt":"2014-05-26T14:07:51","slug":"beyond-the-peter-meter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2014\/05\/beyond-the-peter-meter.html","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the peter meter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rosen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s start with me. Spindly and saggy. Generously beconked, meagrely maned. A cavalcade of design flaws, a factory second at knock down prices. That\u2019s me. And to an extent, that\u2019s most of us. Even among critics there are eye-wateringly scrumptious exceptions (you know who you are), but in general, if they start hiring hacks for their looks, we\u2019re all in trouble.<\/p>\n

Good looks and how to evaluate them has become an issue on stage with the unedifying row over Tara Erraught<\/a>\u2019s appearance as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier<\/em><\/a> at Glyndebourne. It\u2019s a breeches role \u2013 Octavian is the likely lad who over the course of Strauss\u2019 bittersweet opera leaves an older woman for a younger one. The Irish mezzo has been castigated, not for her vocal performance but for her trouser-wearing skills: and as the castigation has come from middle-aged broadsheet chaps, it has been expressed with dismaying clumsiness (detailed on ArtsJournal by Norman Lebrecht<\/a>). \u2018Unbelievable, unsightly and unappealing,\u2019 said Richard Morrison in the Times.<\/em> \u2018A dumpy girl,\u2019 wrote Michael Church in the Independent.<\/em><\/p>\n

Octaviangate conflates two separate issues \u2013 sexism and objectivity. The sexism we can deal with quickly \u2013 it\u2019s vile, especially when expressed with shocking coarseness. Men fat-shaming women \u2013 everyday sexism in Viennese waltztime. It\u2019s a poor attitude to life, let alone to music: nobody should give their review over to the peter meter. It also represents a dismayingly closed imagination. Your own standards of desire, your conventional ideas about what constitutes acceptable attraction \u2013 park them, and see the stage with an open mind.<\/p>\n

\"Tara<\/a>

Tara Erraught and Kate Royal in Der Rosenkavalier. Photo: Tristram Kenton\/Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n

Like most participants in this furore, I haven\u2019t seen Richard Jones\u2019 production. Nor has Dame Kiri te Kanawa<\/a>, who deduced from photos that Erraught was unflatteringly dressed and perhaps poorly directed. Jones\u2019 productions often require a style between naturalism and grotesque \u2013 a kind of 2\u00bdD \u2013 and not every performer embraces it. Otherwise, an ardent but awkward Octavian makes perfect dramatic sense \u2013 there\u2019s a reason the jaded Marschallin fell for him, and his impetuous immaturity is surely more significant than a six-pack and skinny jeans.<\/p>\n

Opera \u2013 in which identikit babeosity is less significant than vocal dazzle \u2013 should be at ease with the fully lumpy, bumpy gamut of body types. If there\u2019s a resistance, either from companies or their audiences, then there is indeed a problem. Pace<\/em> Alice Coote<\/a>, opera is a dramatic medium, not merely a musical one, but there\u2019s no reason why that should limit who gets cast. Dance, meanwhile, has its own problems \u2013 the fashion for an increasingly whittled, elongated silhouette must have an impact on the eating disorders that research exposes as shamefully rife in the profession.<\/p>\n

Susannah Clapp<\/a>, the Observer<\/em> theatre critic, pointedly contrasted opera and theatre reviewing, noting previous flurries around casting that tweaked expectations \u2013 Judi Dench\u2019s Cleopatra (self-described as \u2018a menopausal dwarf\u2019) and Simon Russell Beale\u2019s Hamlet, castigated for his girth. His beautiful performance changed the parameters: subsequent Hamlet have been unexpectedly youthful (Ben Whishaw<\/a>, 23), mature (Michael Sheen<\/a>, 42) or unromantic (Jonathan Slinger<\/a>). In the theatre, as in life, plump doesn\u2019t mean passionless; unconventional doesn\u2019t mean unloveable.<\/p>\n

But but but… here is the second point: objectivity. Does this mean we cannot write about performers\u2019 bodies, as about any other aspect of their performance? Respectfully, yes, but dispassionately? Looking at the epithets slung at Erraught, most are unrelievedly grisly. But take \u2018stocky\u2019 \u2013 is that a slur?<\/p>\n

\"Timothy<\/a>

Timothy Spall in Mr Turner<\/p><\/div>\n

When we watch a performance, we respond to physicality, and to its dramatic use. When I think of the great Timothy Spall<\/a>, crowned this weekend as best actor at Cannes, I immediately see his scrub of hair, poached-egg eyes, full cheeks and beaver chops. It\u2019s a face of compelling magnificence, topping a body that is a squishy repository of kindness, concern, quiddity or despair, as the role demands. His eponymous performance in Mr Turner<\/em> sounds like all of the above.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want to judge performers by their looks (or to have critics writing, in Dan Rebellato<\/a>\u2019s eye-wateringly blunt phrase, \u2018the entire review with your cock in hand\u2019). But we need to be able to describe the unglamorous physicality of performance. Few actors \u2013 few people \u2013 look, as Seth Rogan says of his movie co-star Zac Efron, \u2018like gay scientists designed him in a lab.\u2019 Artists bring their bodies to the stage, every line of beauty or everyday curve. We respond to them not because they are hot, but because they expose the vulnerabilities and anxieties, the desire and self-loathing and fortitude. I couldn\u2019t do it. I\u2019d be too scared. Actors, dancers and singers are putting their bodies out there on behalf of us all, and we need to find a way of honouring them with honesty and respect.<\/p>\n

How do we write candidly but respectfully about performers’ physicality? I’d love to read your favourite frank, evocative reviews and descriptions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David\u00a0here: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, let\u2019s start with me. Spindly and saggy. Generously beconked, meagrely maned. A cavalcade of design flaws, a factory second at knock down prices. That\u2019s me. And to an extent, that\u2019s most of us. Even among critics there are eye-wateringly scrumptious exceptions (you know who you are), but in general, if they start hiring hacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,86,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-hamlet","9":"tag-opera","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}