Rachel Grossman: Let’s start by just jumping right into the deep-end: what is theatre?

Peter Marks: What I always think of are the ancient masks of comedy and tragedy. It’s at some level first about the heart, and eventually also becomes about the mind. Either something that makes you laugh or cry; the difference for theatre is that you are a live witness for that thing.

At the elemental level, it’s an appeal to the emotions in a way that other forms may not hit you quite as viscerally.

rg: Can you talk more about that last thought? What’s the difference between, say a really good episode of Homeland or Downton Abbey and a really good play?

PM: Movies and television I tend to be swept up in plot, in story, in the linear narrative. With plays I connect psychically with those people, I feel they’re talking to me. That interchange in the room is not replicable in movies and television. In the theatre I feel like it’s me and you up there. The difference is [in the theatre] I wanna make contact with you. I want you to notice me. I want to feel like I’m getting inside you up there. Those two dimensional figures on the screen...I feel that kind of desire to “know you.” Movies don’t give me back anything quite like that.

Would I rather see a great episode of Homeland or a great production of Medea? There’s no comparison. I would go for that “getting freaked out by Medea” any night of the week. I mean, the 100 ways I’ve seen those children killed–God, forgive me–gets me every time. [Theatre] just has that ferocity.... I giggle and laugh more, like, wickedly at the theatre more than I ever do watching something on TV or in the movies.

Highclere Castle, the location for filming Downton Abbey.

rg: How was your definition of theatre shaped?

PM: It’s evolved for me since I started this job [as a theatre critic]. When I started, I had a kinda orthodox sense of the audience separated from the action. I’d been an actor in college, doing some conventional plays, so I had a sense of the theatre as not being collaborative with the people who watched. Over time I’ve been sensitized to that whole aspect of theatre  in everything from seeing The Trojan Women at La Mama done by Serban to things I’ve see that are participatory, whether it’s Michael Rohd’s productions or things done by smaller companies in Washington, that have made me think that maybe the next step for theatre is to acknowledge that the play-makers and play-watchers are one and the same.

My bottom line is wanting to be moved in some way. The first reaction I trust is always my gut, not my head. It’s not out of a desire to escape, in fact I really like the theatre the most that unsettles me. I like theatre that gets me out of my comfort zone.

My love of theatre came from a more passive place. It was active in terms of my emotions, but it wasn’t in terms of my involvement physically. It fills up a part of me that I feel is otherwise not percolating. It’s like a stimulant to me, theatre, so those are the things that matter to me.

rg: What do you see your role is in the theatre community? What’s your relationship within the community?

PM: I think of myself as a professional audience member. I don’t think of myself as a dramaturg or would-be director. I am an expert on my reactions to what I am seeing. I try to have a conversation first and foremost with other people watching, not with the people on the stage. I see it somewhat as a consumer job, but...the least interesting part is “should you go or not?” The part I love the most is taking apart the experience. Analyzing what I am seeing, and writing about it entertainingly. 

rg: So there’s this theatre community in Washington, DC... who are the micro communities that make up the theatre community? And where do you fit in?

PM: Like a venn diagram? [There] are the actors, the writers–the artists–the directors; all those groups are interlocking. On this side are the ticket buyers (who want to be involved), donors (the people who support it in major ways). And then I see myself as a totally unconnected to any of those people.

rg: Just “Peter”? Just out there?

PM: Just... Yes! Absolutely... That’s how I see it. I see it as completely apart, and yet not removed. I can interact. Maybe there would be dotted lines...? It’s permeable but its separate. I don’t think of myself as part of theatre community–

rg: By design?

PM: Because I am a journalist by training. That’s where I come from, even though my passion–if you were going to do a venn diagram of “passion” it would be like me, right in the theatre. I couldn’t love it more. It’s easy to misunderstand that when you read someone who criticizes something you love. The impulse to do this is not “to tear down,” you get into it to express in different ways your affection for it.

But I don’t see myself as being in a community with you. As much as I admire what you do and in another lifetime I might have done it, and maybe in the future I will when I don’t have this job, in some form or another.

rg: Are there qualities that define theatre in this particular city or metro area?  DC theatre is....?

PM: A very high caliber of actor with highly developed stage muscles. I enjoy watching actors perform in Washington more than I do in other cities. Certainly more than New York.

[It’s] defined both by its artists and by its audience. Sometimes it feels like two different definitions. I can sense the audience’s wanting to see what they saw before. They want to be massaged a little bit by what they see, and that happens with conventional work more than unconventional work. There’ some resistance to [unconventional work] in some elements of the audience here. Which is frustrating. It leads to misunderstandings about what theatre is trying to do.

But then again, there’s an incredible intelligent audience [here in DC]. So if they have seen something before they know exactly what they’re looking at; it’s not a foreign substance. It’s part of the reason I think the classics are so produced here.

Zach Appelman as the young King Henry in Folger Theatre's 2013 production of Henry V. Photo by Scott Suchman.

It’s a city of monumental theatre” everyone builds a “shrine” to their company in this town. It’s like you're not a fully fledged member of the gang until you’ve got your own. It’s a function of the fact that the real estate in Washington really doesn’t support small companies. I think that’s why it’s moved to that paradigm, unfortunately. It makes it very hard.... but then you have something like Synetic, you have something like dog & pony dc, like Forum, banished?–there are toeholds here. That’s the other interesting element of theatre here that started happening in the last 10 years, the last 5 years really.

The Circle by Juanita Rockwell presented by banished? productions around Mt. Vernon Square. Photo by Paul Gillis Photography.

rg: If you were going to make a rubric that I was going to take somewhere and use to decide “is this theatre”, what would be on it?

PM: That is a big question. The least important part of it would be the four walls. that’s not theatre. I like it more now when it’s a place I’ve never seen theatre before.

The older I get, the less I think there are definitions. Because what surprises me is discovering that you can sit in car with somebody and that can be a play. That’s where it’s going.

rg: I’ll let you out of the definition that way.

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If I was shaping a rubric based on my conversation with Peter Marks, a “thing” would be considered theatre if:

●     It’s witnessed live.

●     It appeals to the perceiver’s emotions, resulting in a visceral reaction.

●     There is a mutual acknowledgement between actors and audience of each other’s presence--on an energetic level; this stimulates the audience and draws them in emotionally.

●     It’s evolving in how it’s created, framed, and presented.

●     Bonus: It is unsettling.

Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, I work for dog & pony dc. - rg 

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