| I disagree with a lot of this | |
| Posted by: oddone 06:56 pm EDT 05/07/24 | |
| In reply to: re: How and why does the Pulitzer hold just esteem? - ryhog 01:25 am EDT 05/07/24 | |
|
|
|
| First, I'm not sure I quite agree that the Pulitzer Prize is the be all and end all of prizes. I mean, certainly not the one in Drama. Yes, it's prestigious, but at this point I feel like it's mostly because it tells us it is prestigious. If you look at the winners in recent years, I would hardly say they represent anything close to the "Best" play of that year. Generally the plays they award are...decent plays. Sometimes they are more than that, and sometimes they just aren't. I mean, I liked Primary Trust well enough, but I walked out thinking "this could be a great play if a few changes were made; as it is, it's just a decent play, and that's kind of frustrating." I wanted it to be better than it was. I mean, to move off of Drama for a moment, I find the Booker Prize (for fiction) to be a much more "trustworthy" award than the Pulitzer. Perhaps it's a taste thing, I don't know. But I would much rather have a reading list of all Booker finalists than I would of Pulitzer finalists. To say that "Those who know poetry do not decide on a recommendation of a play, etc." – I mean, sure. But it isn't like there is a Tony award for poetry. You make a decent point that, because the focus of the award is small, that that helps make it more "legitimate" somehow, and I guess that's fair. But really, the Pulitzer is doing a completely different thing than the Tonys or Drama Desk or Outer Critics Circle or whatever – it's 1) focused nationally (not just on NY theatre) and 2) focused on picking a single script. It doesn't pay attention (much) to production values or a live presentation, and isn't also awarding actors or designers or whatever other categories. Just writing. It’s a much smaller mandate, and I would argue that it’s also an easier one. I think the closest parallel (to the Pulitzer for Drama) would be the NY Drama Critics' Circle - which of course is limited to NY productions, but at least is just focused on giving out only 2-3 awards. And to be honest, I think year after year, THEY pick a better "Best Play" than the Pulitzer. I also like that this organization is very transparent with how its members vote. In contrast, I find the Pulitzer Prize for Drama has – over time and perhaps just for some people – become less trustworthy. I mean, it has for me. If the best eligible plays each year aren't even being named as finalists, why am I going to take what it says seriously? And then "the even more rarefied Pulitzer Board" can just swoop in and decide not to give an award – this makes it MORE legitimate? Doesn't this go against what you are saying – that the final decisions are made by experts in the fields? You also say "Many awards are decided only by critics, who are not necessarily experts of any kind. And still others are closer to pay-to-play plebescites." Again, I take issue with this – what makes one an "expert" in theatre when it comes to awards? Is it only being hired full-time to write for the New York Times or some other "fancy" publication? Most of the critics I know are quite expert in what they do. Many have significant training and experience in theatre, and that includes making theatre as well as evaluating it. Expertise and success in the industry (however you define that success) are not the same thing. Sure, they overlap, but they are very, very different. And sometimes, I find that the purported “experts” are…not all that expert. Now sure, I'm not going to argue that the winners of the Tony or Drama Desk or OCC awards are always "the best" either. Of course not – I usually don't judge an award like that by who wins it, since often, the larger voting body (who decides the winner) is large enough where that will never come close to being the case. There are – what – 800+ Tony voters? Obviously their choice won’t always be “what should have won.” But I do think you can say a lot about an award by who the NOMINEES are – because these are generally decided by a much smaller group, who generally invest a lot of time and care into making these selections. They are hardly error proof, but those I know who work as nominators do their best to make the best decisions they can. And importantly, they DO see everything. And again – if you look at the "nominees" for the Pulitzer (so winner plus finalists), and compare it to the nominees for "Best Play" for the Drama Desk or Tony awards, even after taking into account that each has a different pool of eligible plays, well, I think – especially in the last ten years or so – the Pulitzer is hardly the "be all and end all" of the great new American play. I won't argue that the Pulitzer's other categories don't deserve respect. I am much less up on the various kinds of journalism that their journalism categories award (so I can't really speak to the worthiness of those winners), and the same for some of the other "Arts" categories – music, poetry, etc. I suspect that the prestige of the Pulitzer may in large part be due to its Journalism categories, and that something like Drama is just riding on the coat tails of those. But I do know a fair bit about plays, and while the Pulitzer in Drama may be awarding something, at least in recent years, it doesn't seem to be an award for anything close to a "Best" play. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: How and why does the Pulitzer hold just esteem? - ryhog 01:25 am EDT 05/07/24 |
| Next: | re: I disagree with a lot of this - ryhog 02:01 am EDT 05/08/24 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.063393 seconds.