Spoilers

So I have been thinking over the issue of how much it matters to avoid "spoilers" in reviews or discussing plays. I suppose if anyone doesn't know the ending of Othello or King Lear, it is their own fault. And they should know the ending to Medea, though if they don't, I would be more inclined to blame the school system in such cases.

I think given the generic conventions, as long as one knows whether a play is a comedy or tragedy, then one can pretty much guess the ending (to say nothing of the heavy foreshadowing of Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams, for example). The category "drama" is a little more ambiguous, but will certainly call for some tears or a breakdown or two along the way. The journey is generally more important than the ending anyway. But one could say the same thing about film, but people tend to get far more annoyed about "spoilers" in movie reviews.

When one is analyzing a play in somewhat general terms, then the ending is usually fair game. But not when producing a time-sensitive review of a specific production of a play. Still, it is a fine line and people will probably complain no matter what you do (which is why it is good to develop thicker skin before blogging at all).

I suppose I so rarely find myself "surprised" by a play's ending that I don't worry about it too much. Plays that rely too much on a twist at the end (perhaps DeLillo's Valparaiso) don't often stand up that well. Shakespeare's comedies don't fall into this category (for the most part anyway), since the audience was aware of the role switching, even though the on-stage characters were not.

A different issue is when one is seeing a play for the very first time, should one read the play beforehand? I can think of legitimate arguments in either direction. Certainly in smaller markets I would not hold off from reading a play in case it eventually opened there. However, in Chicago, if one is patient, one can see a huge chunk of the canon each season. I was planning on reading O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night for various reasons, and it turns out that Polarity is going to be doing a production in the next month. I do have a rough idea of how it will turn out (this is O'Neill we're talking about), so it isn't going to be "spoiled" in the most narrow sense if I read it first.

So I can either go with the immediacy of having the lines delivered to me "fresh," or I can focus more on the details, acting, costumes, the way one can on a second or third look at a particular play. I am leaning towards seeing the play without reading it first, but then reading it shortly afterwards to "lock it in." But I reserve the right to change my mind. I still have a few weeks to decide.