The Features Editor of The Stage has gone mad. Either that or the team was so desperate to drum up interest in the publication that they sank to the depths of lowest common denominator journalism, launching a ten-part series called - I kid you not - "The Greatest Stage Actor". An attempt to discover "the greatest theatre performer (male or female) of all time", this seemed to me to be an incredibly vacuous and wholly ridiculous waste of time and energy. Narrowing down the list to ten performers chosen by "a selection of industry experts", the public was asked to vote for who it believed to be worthy of such a prestigious honour over ten weeks, each entry being supported by a statement from an academic, journalist or other enlightened individual.
Firstly, can anyone define what criteria would be suitable for the term "greatest stage actor"? Of course, a certain amount of technical prowess coupled with performative truth ought to be enough, but anything beyond that would delve straight into the realm of personal preference. Even then, anyone with a good knowledge of the British theatre industry and its heritage would be hard pressed to narrow it down to just ten people.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the choices were old (or dead) white men. Despite the winner being Dame Judi Dench, she was one of three female options, all aged over 60; and the youngest contender was Mark Rylance, aged 50. Also, they were all to be British, yet another display of cultural arrogance which buys into the “British actors are the best in the world” jingoism which I admittedly engage in before reminding myself that France has several national theatre companies and Germany fully subsidises over 2000 regional theatre companies.Ah well, it’s a good thing The Stage is only really good for reviews and job adverts.
3 comments:
I have only ever seen Maggie Smith in one play. It was written by Edward Albee and bored me to tears but she good in it so I'm glad she won.
All surveys and collection of stats show a certain amount of bias one way or another. That's just the nature of things. Had this been done 40 years ago, Laurence Olivier might have won it. If it had been done to include the preferences of American audiences, Helen Hayes might have won it. If it had been done to include the rest if the world, who knows who would have won it.
As with all surveys it should be taken for it's worth and nothing more, a harmless bit of fluff just there to take your mind off the important things.
I would have to assume these would be the ten people who suck the least and are the least likely to put you to sleep if ever *shudder* forced to watch an actual play as opposed to something far more urbane like youtube videos fraught with the titillating scintillating promise of blatant copy wright infringement.
CORRECTION: Dame Judi Dench won the poll, and not Dame Maggie Smith.
Curious - I completely agree with you. It is definitely nothing more than "fluff", but not all that harmless. The criteria for this poll was that any actor from any period of time was eligble. What we got, however, was a list of ten famous British actors who are popular in the UK and overseas for conforming to a "typically British actor" stereotype (whatever that means). As much as I respect the work of each of these people, they are and are voted for their personalities rather than as artists. Furthermore, the whole thing was masquerading under the guise of a light experiment of who is gonsidered to be the greates stage actor ever! You're also riught to focus on who thepoll was aimed at. It annoys me to think that British voters have the arrogance to immediately assume that "our" theatre is the best in the world. There is no such thing as a Best or Number One Actor in the same sense that there can be a Number One Golfer or Tennis Seed. It's all such irritating, twee nonsense! Rant over.
Cogent - I won't take any offence at all by your suggestion that the theatre could EVER be boring and assume that you are merely resorting to your default setting of crude facetious troublemaker. A position you hold dearly in all our hearts...
PS: Most of YouTube is SO dull!
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