Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama

by Jordan Tannahill

Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer-gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendence that kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?

A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form.

Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction, Art, Plays, Canada, Canadian Literature, Criticism

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2015

About the author

Jordan Tannahill is a Canadian novelist and playwright based in London.

His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.

Tannahill is the author of several plays, and the book of essays, Theatre of the Unimpressed.

In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this would be more of a manifesto; instead it felt more like an overview of current trends in experimental theatre. While I appreciated Tannahill's condensation of these trends and agreed with most of his points and arguments, I didn't find many new insights. That said, this idea of "failure" in the theatre, if it's not a term you've already heard too much of, is one contemporary theatremakers should know about. I personally take issue with the term (I think it's a bit of a provocative catch-all), and found Tannahill's treatment disappointingly incomplete.

I personally have issue with the word "failure" itself; I think it is a misnomer about half the time, and what those who use it are really talking about is authenticity: a performer's authentic presence in a space. To define that as "failure" (to be perfect / polished / inflexible in the performance / etc) seems both inaccurate and somewhat negative. Tannahill claims that "I believe the Theatre of Failure is a profoundly optimistic and human proposal, one that reconstitutes failure as hopeful iconoclasm," -- but I find his tone and starting proposition both sources of negativity. By contrast, Sarah Ruhl's "100 Essays" (which he spends a lot of ink quoting), has a positive tone through which you can constantly feel Ruhl's passionate love of theatre. Tannahill starts his book from the question (paraphrasing now): why is so much theatre so bad? It's a question I have, too, but it's a negative starting point.

Tannahill also asserts (rather smugly) that Broadway can also benefit from an injection of the Theatre of Failure medicine; and here (as elsewhere), "failure" again seems misused, this time better replaced with "subverted expectations." I would argue that every Broadway hit since HAIR (even CATS!) has been a hit precisely because it subverted expectations, and that most Broadway shows include purposeful moments of authenticity and subversion that would fall nicely into Tannahill's cosmology of "failure."

The book is a slim volume, but I was disappointed that in it he did not delve deeper into a consideration of site-specific theatre, 'immersive' theatre -- nor did he seem to have an awareness of how this depth might contribute to his project. I also wondered if his research included any attempt to seek out companies who might be engaged in a project he would support, rather than simply recounting shows he'd seen, largely limited to those in New York and Toronto. Companies like Sojurn Theatre in Portland, The Rude Mechs in Austin, Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia and even the NeoFuturists (who have franchises at least in NY, Chicago and San Francisco if not elsewhere) are conspicuously absent from his consideration.

If there is an "answer" here to the question of how to avoid creating Theatre of the Unimpressed, Tannahill makes a good case for audience agency, subverting expectations, embracing chance and spontaneity, and a variety of other aesthetic and structural considerations that I can get behind. Similarly, I find it useful to question the placement of theatre in "theatres," and Tannahill often points to theatremakers who have stepped outside of theatres and into "the visual arts world" or "galleries" as a way that these artists have inserted vitality into their work. Undoubtedly they have; and Tannahill stops short of saying that we all should, but does not seem aware that the visual arts and gallery worlds have their own forms of art-killing gatekeeping, commodification and ossification. Another seeming blind spot: Tannahill chides theatremakers for not broadening their artistic palates (and pallettes) with other genres, like opera, dance, etc... but seems woefully unaware of the ways in which his exhortations have been explored deeply in the world of performance art in the decades since the Dada and Fluxus movements (both of which he does identify as ancestors).

Finally, Tannahill ends with the assertion that creating this new "Theatre of Failure" of which he is a proponent entails a level of risk: that the experiment itself will fail; that the constructed failure will not be instructive or productive or enlightening or transcendent. I agree, we should all embrace risk. However, what Tannahill neither admits nor addresses is that the precise risk run by the "Theatre of Failure" is becoming the "Theatre of the Unimpressed" when it does fail.

So as I finished his last paragraphs, I found myself disappointed. It seemed that Tannahill had purported to set out some features of a theatre that would prevent the "boredom" and "bad theatre" inherent in the Theatre of the Unimpressed -- or even a few elements of a rubric for determining when 'unimpressive' theatre is a failed experiment that, run again, might result in something lovely. Instead, he seemed to end up where he began, with an invitation to an experimental 'theatre of failure' that might result in supreme disappointment, the sort that can turn one off theatre forever.

At the end of the read, I had enjoyed engaging with Tannahill's thoughts with my own notes in the margins. I agreed with many of his assertions and appreciated them laid out in one spot; but I didn't find much -- if anything -- that was new to me. The book made me think and rethink and argue. So two stars for intellectual engagement. One star for the survey of a trend in contemporary performance. Well worth a read if the aesthetics of contemporary experimental performance is a topic that occupies much of your brainspace.

[Jack Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Her gaze lands on an audience member. She holds their gaze until they look away. This moment should feel (special crossed out) surprising. It should remind the audience member that they are in a theatre watching a play. And that anything (can happen crossed out) is possible." (pg. 149)

Tannahill argues that 21st-century vital drama should be surprising and that audiences should hope to feel responsible for being there just as much as the actors on stage.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast read and a must-read for practitioners of theatre in the 21st century. Lots of thought-provoking contentions about what will revitalize the art. I'm not one of those ppl who thinks theatre is dying (or even in danger of it) and i don't have the kind of disdain that seems prevalent in this volume for big-spectacle shows like Cirque and Disneyfied-Broadway. AND i'm also fairly disinterested in hyper-experimental performance-art Happenings, but i do appreciate a lot of Tannahill's points about how we need to reconsider the writing, developing, and making of plays in the era of hyperconnectivity. I particularly loved his description of a play (Rihannaboi95) streamed live on a webcam, performed by an actor in front of his laptop for an unseen audience of however many people chose to connect and watch. I'd watch that in a hot second.

[Tyler Crumrine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most critical, hopeful, and necessary theatre texts I've read.

[Theo Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking, expansive, incredible - this is a book I want to photocopy just so I can write and highlight and think in its margins. Wow! A very great setup for my continued research and interest into different ways of thinking about theatre. Loved this wholeheartedly. I think I’m 10 books away from my reading goals... here’s hoping...

[Romeo Channer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, provocative, relatable, inspiring. I felt confronted, recognized, inspired, and set off-balance by every page of this book. Might just turn back to page one and start over. What an insightful call and guide towards electrifying, truly living theatre.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something important about this book that I did not discover until the literal last page is that it is part of a series of essays "[l]onger than a typical magazine article but shorter than a full-length book." That context really helped me understand the purpose of this book because, as it is, it does not feel entirely complete.
Tannahill is vague with his terms here. He's interested in the "theatre of failure," which is this kind of shifty-swirly idea that the value of live theater lives in the ways it can become a failure at any moment. Whether that failure be a performer coughing in the middle of a monologue, or a moment of audience engagement falling flat on its face, failure means that something is being attempted. This stands in opposition to what most theater has become in the 21st century: well-made plays performed for the wealthy.
I love the ideas here. My book is dense with underlines and flags. I'll absolutely be sharing lots of this information with my collaborators on my theatrical projects, and I want to spend time trying to find archival recordings of the productions that Tannahill mentions in his survey of contemporary theater.
But this book needed more time in the oven. Tannahill is clearly still trying to uncover the ideas he's writing about. Knowing it isn't meant to be a full-fledged book on the subject makes sense and explains the sketchiness.
I think the bigger criticism I have is the way that this man loves the smell of his own farts. He proudly extolse the virtue of his own plays and his defunct venue videofag. I don't mean to imply that you shouldn't take pride in your work, but I think it's pride that's blind to the immense privilege that comes along with it. He's encouraging folks to create art that is proudly counter-cultural but not realizing that he's propped up by that very same culture of stuffy people in regional theaters.
It becomes most transparent at the end when he talks about the play he wrote when he was 13. He took it to his lawyer mother and asked her to finance its production, which she does. In his telling, she sacrificed money she didn't have for him. But that reads as fishy to me. It shows what I suspect to be a twisting of reality to make him seem more "authentic." Dude, just admit you come from wealth and can do what you do because of it!
Some of the most lively plays I've ever seen and read have been everything that Tannahill criticizes here, and some of the most deadly things I've ever seen were from his theater of failure, and I think Tannahill misses the mark by proposing that there's only one way forward.

[D.J. Sylvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are some arguments in here I might take issue with, the important thing is having the discussion - thinking big thoughts and re-examining the ways we make and present theatre. For this, everyone who dips their toes into the art form should read and consider what Jordan has to say.

[Benjamin]

This short, anecdotal book revolves around one question:

Why do we go to the theater?

Or maybe it really revolves around the opposite question: Why don’t we go to the theater? Why is so much theater so boring? And why does it still matter?

The author, Jordan Tannahill, has dedicated his life -- and his apartment -- to theater, so he’s invested in that question. I, meanwhile, do improv as a hobby and like filmed pieces. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw music live -- probably They Might Be Giants, just playing the odds -- or other live arts events. (Have I ever been to the ballet?) I also tend to read polemics like this with a contrarian squint.

But Tannahill, even with some repetition and anecdotalism, gets his points across, which are

(a) failure and unpredictability is an important aspect of seeing live performance -- the fact that it exposes human beings to others, both the performers and the audience.

(b) the institutional theater space is dominated by boring plays that are designed to please everyone -- the sponsors, the season ticket holders, the audience, the actors -- but if we challenge that audience, we can even grow the theater.

(c) theater is dominated by a “well-made play” formula where some tragedy or secret has occurred before the play begins, and then we watch a bunch of characters deal with that secret, until the end when it’s revealed. It’s psychologically pat and answers all questions -- but theater should embrace dream and thematic logic.

(d) theater is not the place for verisimilitude over all -- that’s the realm of screens and filmic entertainment (or games, I’d add). Theater leaves gaps that we shouldn’t paper over and, in fact, frees us to explore styles other than the “life-like” and “realistic.”

(e) good theater comes from experimentation and failure, which includes time to rework the work without fear of failure.

Now, Tannahill’s examples of good theater are thrilling and interesting -- and useful up to a point. (For instance, the play that’s told by Rwandan survivors about their experience is not something that just anyone could put on.) It’s also interesting because, for all of his talk of failure, a lot of his examples are rehearsed and noted, but not to make them bland, polished, or pleasing, but to make them more specific and more themselves. This is a hole in his polemic -- a survivorship bias -- and I wish Tannahill had included examples of plays that were actually failures or misfires. (There’s really only one and not a lot of unpacking about what that failure meant.)

And now, some particularly interesting quotes:

On the deep meaning of failure:
“Perhaps all creative failure reminds us of our mortality: of the fact that we all die in the end, and that ultimately none of us, to put it bluntly, gets it right.”

On timelessness:
Why? What did this play have to say about Vancouver’s very real problems with race and class? Some might argue that it’s a timeless story. But for a work to be timeless it must also reflect meaningfully on present circumstance; a work’s timelessness is, in fact, activated by its timeliness.

On the mistakes theatrical institutions/writers/directors make:
…the play either underestimates an audience’s capacity for complex argument, innovation and abstraction (in other words, it plays it safe); it lacks specificity of creative choices (it is lazy); or lacks awareness of its context, both socio-politically and in relation to broader contemporary culture (it feels irrelevant).

On dream logic over “psychological realism”:
What I am advocating for is a little more impulse and mystery in place of reason and structure. … Perhaps a few more storms and demons over shouting matches at the dinner table.

On the importance of ignorance
The playwright and their dramaturge will never have all of the answers, nor should they try to.

On his hopes:
This is the Theatre of Failure, and it is the most vibrant pulse I have yet to detect in the English theatrical body. It’s a theatre in which artistic risk and its attendant failures dismantle the status quo of artistic and political thought.

On the politics of failure and queerness:
As Jack Halberstam explores in The Queer Art of Failure, failure can be a powerful form of pacifist resistance to capitalism, where failure, as embodied by queerness, can exist outside of the market and other hierarchal understandings of success within a heteronormative society

On failure and confidence:
Compelling failure requires confidence, intention and craft to be truly dynamic. The failure of our opening night wasn’t interesting because it wasn’t confident.

[Alexander L. Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never heard someone dislike all movies because "they saw a bad movie once," but one bad experience seems to turn people off of theatre for a lifetime. Jordan Tannahill invites us to consider two problems: why does theatre have this attribute, and how does theatre stay relevant in an age of seemingly endless content?

Jordan Tannahill describes the anatomy of "the boring play," as a production that is either lazy, risk averse, or doesn't cause the audience to reflect on something about their lives. He then suggests that the proliferation of the boring play is driven by (1) inaccessibility of theatre for people living outside of cities, (2) repetitiveness of the standard "Well-Made Play," (3) constraints of catering to audience expectations, and that (4) creating authentic experiences is difficult when the human infrastructure (actors wanting to play roles, cost of facilities) are built around one standard model in the English-speaking world.

Now for the bad parts: the author spends a lot of time on data collection through interviews, reviewing criticism, and reviewing opinions on this topic. It was disappointing not to have footnotes or a paper trail to follow, despite him referencing numerous articles. But he spends relatively little time on synthesis for how to resolve these things. He does point to a handful of examples that do something unique or different, but it was unclear how these individual cases should be translated into general advice for "The Tannahill School of Theatre."

I'll try to summarize what it felt like the conclusion should be: "For theatre to remain relevant in the twenty-first centry, it needs to lean further into the qualities that already set it apart from recorded entertainment (movies, serialized shows, and short-form video content on YouTube or TikTok). It should be clear why the audience shares a space with the performers, and each should contribute to theatre's timeless ability to present and deal with societal problems. Theatre is still the dominant medium where artists can create legitimate participatory entertainment with an audience, otherwise the story could be recorded and distributed to the masses on Netflix."

To add my own two cents: a few of Tannahill's ideas reminded me of a plotline in Neal Stephenson's " The Diamond Age ." Stephenson was writing science fiction, but one of his plotlines (no spoilers) involved a class of people called "Ractors" who worked in "Ractives" (I recall this being a noun form of the adjective "Interactive"), which he presented as mixed-reality experiences where ractors interacted with audience members and bots in a variety of environments (text chat, virtual reality, and in one case a mixed reality venue akin to a theatre). As a computer scientist I'm highly biased toward ideas on how technology and human society will continue to shape each other. Tannehill's chapter "@ the Theatre" was probably my favorite for this reason, where he presented the development and implementation of a YouTube livestream with audience chatter as a form of theatre. I'd love to see artists that work at this intersection, and maybe they'll be the ones who turn science fiction into science fact along the way.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a lot of convoluted thoughts about this one. This past year has only confirmed an already prevalent apathy that I now feel toward an art form I once loved deeply. Like Tannahill, I too had started to question: “Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces?” First of all this book was not successful at re-igniting any flame and if anything it only confirmed my pessimism toward the industry. The format was a little repetitive; he would identify a concern and then provide a very specific example of a successful production that subverted this problem. But if we aren’t all as privileged and in-the-know as him to travel the world seeing unique, brilliant productions it can be challenging at times to distill a universal call-to-action from the examples. Ultimately I just don’t have faith that when my local companies are able to re-open they will be keen to produce timely, subversive, risk-taking productions instead of something safe. And as someone who is not involved in creating theatre myself I feel powerless to the whims of out-of-touch artistic directors. In the book Tannahill discusses how one bad play can turn a person off theatre forever and proceeds to encourage creators and theatre companies to take risks and embrace the possibility of failure which may only alienate more people from the theatre if it misses the mark. Ultimately he was right and some of the productions he talked about sounded vital and exciting which is something I have been missing as of late. I hope that I can dig myself out of this rut and be reunited with my first love soon and this book can be of value to anyone interested in contemporary theatre.

[Julia Rap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this are fantastic, other parts I struggled with.
I think the biggest issue I had was that Tannahill very loosely defines his terms- “theatre of failure”, especially, carries immense weight but seems like a broad term I couldn’t pin down. Another reviewer points out Tannahill’s concept of failure is perhaps more aptly called authenticity, especially because he delineates positive and negative failure at the end of the book, which I definitely wanted to come earlier.
I was really moved by the fleeting discussion of vulnerability in watching someone you know and love perform, and I wish we had spent more time there. I think it would relate excellently to his great conversations about theatre as invitation.
Tannahill is quick to dismiss mainstream regional theatre as trite, without fully considering how legitimately culturally barren most of suburban America is. There is certainly a conversation to be had in this section, but I don’t think we had it.
Also notable that some of the cutting edge and provocative theatre Tannahill references comes across as kind of cliche only 10 years after the book was published. I actually don’t think this is a shortcoming, but actually emboldens Tannahill’s argument that our theatrical landscape is shifting incredibly rapidly, and most places can’t keep up.
The shining moment for me was Tannahill’s discussion of arts boards and small government, and the fact that many productions are forced to make safe and boring theatrical choices in order to ensure money flows in from either the private or public sector. I think that, more than anything, spoke to his central question of why so much theatre is bad.

[MÉYO · Rating 2 out of 5]

I approached this book knowing nothing of the author or the subject matter but I was willing to entertain arguments as to why people don’t bother anymore to attend theatrical productions. I too have had my “bored to death/never again” moment with a theatrical production and I appreciate how Tannahill used persuasive arguments to challenge this mindset. But once Tannahill started to take every opportunity to proclaim that he was a flamboyant gay man who loves casual gay escapades and who was also the proprietor of the Videofag store, I couldn’t help but get distracted by the hypocrisy and absurdity of his arguments.

When you’ve aligned your identity and your perception of the world within a cult that defines everything as offensive, triggering, aggressive, insulting, conspiratorial, racist, sexist, phobic etc. and where you also champion the idea of censorship for everyone and everything outside your bubble, how can you then bemoan your fellow cult members and the public at large for being closed minded and unwilling to enter an environment where they might be exposed to “inappropriate thoughts and concepts.” At no point throughout this book did Tannahill reflect on the possibility that his personal tastes are off-putting and that he himself could be regarded as an annoying attention whore? Did I forget to mention he was the proprietor of the “inclusive” Videofag store?

And since when did it become necessary to harp on and on about your sexual proclivities when trying to engage/educate the public at large with regard to theatrical criticism; this ignorant “cis-gendered thing” fails to see the relevance nor can I muster the energy to care.

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A while back, a professor of mine sat down at a production table and said "We're doing Sweeney Todd." What he meant was, "We will be taking no creative liberties, and instead performing the exact same version of Sweeney Todd that everyone else always does." Unsurprisingly, the show didn't seem very alive by the end-- Actors trying their best to be the perfectly polished recording of whichever Broadway star they were asked to refer to.

The performance I most remember, is when Jonas Fogg got incredibly sick halfway through the prologue and we had to replace him mid-show. The replacement actor didn't say a single one of his new lines correctly, and Johanna had a painfully real hesitation before shooting that truly captured her very real desperation, fear, and uncertainty. It was probably the best performance that Johanna ever gave.

This is the exact concept of "Theatre of Failure" Jordan Tannahill proposes in his novel. He step by step breaks down the flaws of the current commercialized realistic theatre industry that creates stale and unimpressive performances, and proposes a number of wonderfully creative solutions that all boil down to one thing: Invite Failure In.

I will definitely be keeping this book on hand while creating in the future, and anytime I need a reminder that sometimes, sometimes, when the whole of the Urine Good Company staff confuses their responses and blankly shouts " ..... BOSS" at Cladwell, it could be, just maybe, a beautiful moment of spontaneity and vitality seeping through the performance.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to warm up to this, mostly because I enjoy popular theatre (Book of Mormon, Sleep No More) and I felt Tannahill was unimpressed with people who are daily impressed. The first part felt a bit pretentious as, I admit, I made assumptions about the kind of "Failure Theatre" he'd hold up as examples of good theatre. His early example of a six hour performance where kings and queens improv'd a story is not my kind of theatre.

But the book slowly won me over. I saw his point about the appeal of errors / roughness in performance as it reminds us that we're watching something live. I like his examples of the Youtube play, Ravi Jain's Brimful of Asha, and the plays he described in the last couple of chapters.

I don't necessarily agree with him on everything, as I still see the appeal of a slick musical, but I do agree that recent theatre I loved were productions I enjoyed because they brought something new and risky (e.g. Why Not Theatre's ASL/English Hamlet, Canadian Stage's King Lear in High Park with a female Lear and creepy/mournful Fool). And the stuff I like even with polished productions had to do with something new and unexpected, which is itself a risk.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the life of me I can’t remember who recommended this to me, but thanks whoever you are.
I enjoyed this well thought out analysis of how modern theatre is being held back on a larger systemic and smaller personal level. Sometimes when the author discussed his own works I sensed a bias, but I appreciated the wide range of examples he references.

I had a cool experience while reading this, I was getting ready to go to see a new play and got a last minute notification that the advertised lead got sick and won’t be performing and an understudy would go on. They offered refunds, which I was going to see the show regardless cause I like understudies, but I thought of this book’s comments about how these kinds of disruptions can liven up a show and audience. Especially since the understudy ended being of a different gender and race than the scheduled lead. I got to see a totally new show that was exciting and never felt overly rehearsed. So I look forward to consuming theatre and art with some new perspectives this offered.

[Chris Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book about theatre I’ve read— expressing a need for unique, exciting, dangerous, and spontaneous work, the stuff you don’t see on Broadway or other commercial stages. In this way it becomes mostly about Theatre of Failure and the essential liveness of interacting with and reacting to the audience. Tannahill cites so many pieces of theatre and performance art that example this, including his own work, all of which really expanded my view of onstage possibilities and nonlinear/abstract storytelling. Circus fulfills all of these needs to me, but transplanting physical risk into the more literary and metaphysical spaces that makes theatre theatre is so exciting and inspiring to think about. Theatre is about stakes but it’s also about the stakes of the performance itself, the machinations behind it, which is often much more exciting.

[Andrew Child · Rating 2 out of 5]

when i first encountered this book, i really thought it was brilliant! and he was only 26/27 when he wrote it?! now i come back to it as a 26 year old who has worked with or at or engaged with multiple artists and institutions written in this book, and it just isn't what i remember. it operates on a pretty harsh binary (berlin theatre = cool, other theatre = lame) and parts of it (dare i say it?) are kinda cringe. i also feel like it gets at what the empty space gets at, but already feels dated and of an age (even if that age is 2015) and empty space still feels revelatory upon revisiting. kinda bummed. maybe it just didn't warrant a reread?

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself relating to this more than I wanted to, particularly the idea of theatre as an obligation. I love theatre. I really, really do. I just also sometimes find myself dragging as I contemplate going to a show or walking away from a show without any big thoughts beyond its time to go home. I liked the points that were made about how "flawless" theatre is generally not super exciting to watch. I also liked the exploration of how some people come to consider themselves non-theatre people without having seen much or any of it as well as the reasons why we seek out theatre in the first place.

[Jacob Free · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book inspirational while I was in theatre school. I felt stuck in the old ways of theatrical form that seemed to hold so little interest to the general public... It seemed that no one wanted to ask why so much theatre is so boring! I felt so grateful that Tannahill confronts this.
I took a star off because ultimately I don't think Tannahill solves this issue in any meaningful way; most of his proposed solutions are super gimmicky and don't speak to the broader cultural forces at work. I think ultimately Tannahills vision is too limited to his own creative output to effectively answer his question. Still a very worthwhile read for the young theatre worker.

[Eleanor McCaughey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off pretty promising. I particularly liked the argument that seeing a bad or boring movie or TV show would never turn people off of the medium forever, but for some reason we apply that to theater. People all the time say they don't like "theater." That's like saying you don't like music, or podcasts, or books. You haven't expereinced them all!

Unfortunately after that it kind of goes downhill. A lot of this was written in a very academic voice that I didn't really enjoy, and the rest was just the author explaining immersive and experimental theater that he's seen.

[Carla Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author takes apart the exclusionary industry, the expectations of the industry that are making theatre companies fear to take risks, and problems with our funding structures that perpetuate exclusions in the industry. He has given so many insights on disinterested audiences and as a person writing a mixed media disabled play that I’m afraid will fail, I feel rejuvenated. I wish I could meet this playwright & see performances at his company in Toronto. To dare failure is the risk we have to face. Brilliant book.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly enlightening read about the state of Canadian Theatre and theatre elsewhere in North America. My favourite section had to be FAILURE in which Tannahill describes some experiences he has had where a precisely staged moment of supposed failure lead to some of the most engaging theatrical performances he has experienced in recent years. Highly recommended for anyone interested in creating theatre and theatre lovers in general.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting little book about contempory theatre and liveliness within the art form as it evolves away from storytelling withing realistic, well-made plays, to something more risky and interesting. The author uses his real life experiences to illustrate his points which I enjoyed reading about.

[Hannah Wiggles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me forever to finish. I agree with most of what Tannahill says but a lot of this felt self congratulatory to me? And a little pretentious. But still, I think he’s right about the direction that live theatre needs to go in and I found it more enjoyable towards the end. Worth a read for theatre artists for sure, but take his thoughts with a grain of salt.

[Brandon Hillier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through this series of essays Tannahill addresses some of the greatest challenges facing the English-language theatre today - with special focus on Canada and the USA. His writing is filled with personality and personal anecdotes which gives the whole book the feeling of having a really good conversation with a friend over coffee.

[Kayden Merritt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A totally engrossing exploration of contemporary drama and its shortcomings in pursuing risk-adverse experiences.

Although this will inevitably become an artifact I do think that it encapsulates the core of what’s generating mundane theater on both sides of the spectrum (traditional and experimental)

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

really got me excited about making theatre again. I only wish the section aligning failure and risk and ephemerality with queerness lasted longer! maybe that’s another book... maybe that book has already been written by jack halberstam lol

[Edward Bromberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just good to remind myself why I got started in this business in the first place and how it has never ceased to amaze me. I’ve seen countless failures and more nice tries, am responsible for several myself - but the masterpieces have sustained me for 50 years. Theatre.

[Abbey Barthauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what I was looking for other than someone to understand my frustrations with modern day theatre and it gave my performing arts loving soul a place to feel validated in the lack of human connection I was finding.