Scented Candle Dramaturgy
A dramaturg might be invited into the rehearsal room for any number of reasons. The most obvious one is because they’ve worked on the project for a long time, have a strong relationship with the playwright, and the writer wants them in the room to experience how the scenes play out in three dimensions. The dramaturg gives more notes and rewrites continue. But I have also been brought into rehearsal rooms because the director wanted to discuss the rhythm of the play, the pace of dialogue. I have sat down in production meetings with the design team and talked about what dramaturgical story the lighting is telling (which is often a major one!). I have been brought into rehearsal rooms to help resolve conflict – to talk collaborators through artistic disagreement, personality issues or just good old “it’s the last week of rehearsal before and this play still isn’t working!!” stress. Dramaturgs are water flowing with gravity. They go where they are called. And it’s smart to have a person in the room who has no jobs but can do many jobs. Having said that, something I do detest is what I call Scented Candle Dramaturgy. This is when the lead artists bring a dramaturg into the room with no intention of asking them for notes or letting them into the process – in their eyes there is nothing to be examined, there is no problem to be resolved. The play is baked. They’ve brought the dramaturg in, essentially, to sit there. As if by their very presence the dramaturg will make the play better. Like a scented candle, the dramaturg idles. The reason for this might be any number of things from thinking that the dramaturgs reputation will make people believe the work is better to not wanting to fully explore a matter of race and deciding that if you bring in a black dramaturg, they can infuse the room with equity. The reasons don’t matter because Scented Candle Dramaturgy never works. Though a scented candle may smell pleasant, you can still always smell the original scent lingering just below the surface.