Plays are getting shorter

This topic is especially timely now, as two of Philadelphia’s most-respected theaters are presenting curtailments of Shakespearian classics. The Arden has staged a two-act Macbeth that lasts only two hours including the intermission, while the Wilma has mounted a two-act Hamlet that’s half the running time of Kenneth Branagh’s film version. In addition, last month the Delaware Theatre Company presented Ingmar Bergman’s compressed one-act version of Ibsen’s Doll’s House.

Even aside from the works of those theatrical giants, in my youth most plays were three acts long. Then two acts became the norm. Now many producers opt for one-acters. Starting times have changed, too. So universal was an 8:30 opening curtain that a 1935 Noël Coward musical play was titled Tonight at 8:30. Now 8:00 has become the standard, and sometimes the curtain rises at 7:00 or 7:30. Evenings at the theater used to include two intermissions; now when the house lights come up, it’s because you’re being sent home with none, ready or not.

Various reasons are offered. With the rise of suburbia, playgoers live at greater distances, but you could argue that if you’re going to trek all the way into town you want more than 90 minutes of entertainment. Producers cater to people's short attention spans and inability to sit stil. They also want to avoid paying stagehands for overtime.

When will the fat lady sing?

This trend infects high art, too. Operas were commonly written in four or five acts with multiple intermissions. Audiences loved the opportunity to chat — or to eat and drink — during those intervals. Now even the traditional guardians of classic artistry trim their offerings. Carmen and Otello, for example, are presented with only one intermission instead of three.

Scholars have encouraged the full presentation of masterpieces. Verdi’s Don Carlo was restored by 20th-century scholars to its original five-act length, but in 2010 the Metropolitan Opera sliced the first nine minutes out of the opening scene in order to shorten the running time. Expediency trumped faithfulness, even for the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. It appears that things are retrogressing.

Like cereal boxes, the price keeps going up but the contents are smaller. To me, short plays seem like drive-thru eateries. Many of us wonder: Why the rush? We’d like to slowly digest dialogue and plot development. We want to immerse ourselves in the playwright’s creative vision as he or she weaves long, drawn-out arcs of complex characters. We want to see explications of psychological detail.

Through my immersion in music, I relish hearing and seeing many moving parts, and observing patterns of rhythms. In the hands of talented creators, longer pieces offer more complexity. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for example, reveals more than his Egmont Overture. And I love observing the architectural structure of plays. Most palaces and cathedrals reveal more than do one-room shacks.

There are very rare exceptions, such as the British production of Wolf Hall Parts I and II, based on Hilary Mantel’s novel (which also inspired the TV adaptation currently running on PBS). This drama about deceit and intrigue at the court of Henry VIII, which opened April 9 on Broadway, is so long that it’s broken in half and can be seen at a matinee and evening or on two different days.

Playwrights are being told they must keep their creations brief or they won’t be produced. I suggest that a good ad campaign could overcome that prejudice. More bang for your buck, these ads should proclaim. As they say on TV infomercials, order now and we’ll give you not one but two acts with no extra cost!