Jon Hewitt

Daring to Think Seriously: the Need for Aesthetic Judgements

The issue of attitudes towards art in England is here compared and contrasted with those evident in the rest of Europe today. This article was written in June 2009, following discussions in Wroclaw during the festival ‘The World as a Place of Truth’, part of the Year of Grotowski. Jon Hewitt is Artistic Director of Admiration Theatre Company, based in London. He has directed several productions, the most recent being Romeo and Juliet Docklands, set in the East End of London. In February 2010 his latest production, Tower Hamlet open at the Courtyard Theatre.

THIS ARTICLE will cover four areas: the need for greater attention and promotion of a sense of aesthetics in English cultural debate on theatre, together with some reflections on the subjective/objective debate in assessing art in this regard; a definition of levels of training and achievement for the actor, as this is not normally stated in debates on English theatre; and finally, although I will begin with this, distinctions of levels of objective for a production or an actor. I will begin with some definitions as they serve the argument that follows…

TO READ THE WHOLE OF THE ARTICLE PLEASE GO TO NTQ VOLUME XXV1 PART 1 FEBRUARY 2010