In primary school, I remember my principal being fixated on classical music, believing that early exposure to “advanced music” could boost our appreciation of art. One piece she often played through the school’s radio was “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” composed by Benjamin Britten.
The piece has stuck with me ever since. So a few years ago, when I came across a play by Alan Bennett titled “The Habit of Art” in which Britten features as one of the main characters, I convinced myself to pay the $130 annual subscription to National Theatre Live to watch it. To this day, I still pay the $130 solely to ensure that I can watch Bennett’s production at least once a year.
What does the titular habit of art mean? At first glance, the play complicates this question. At its core, it defines the habit of art as persisting through the process of creating even in the face of fear and the inevitable possibility of imperfection.
“The Habit of Art” is essentially a play within a play. It questions the tug of war between an idealized, simple way of creating art, and the complex realities that often prevent us from doing so.
The play centers on a group of actors and stage managers, including the playwright himself, who struggle to rehearse a play called “Caliban’s Day,” which depicts an imagined reunion between the composer Britten and the poet W. H. Auden. Throughout the rehearsal of this play, actors fail to memorize their lines; countless accidents occur with props; and everyone argues over conflicting interpretations of “Caliban’s Day.”
In one scene, the playwright requires the actor Fitz, who plays Auden in “Caliban’s Day,” to wear a mask full of ugly wrinkles and scars in order to portray the poet more realistically. Yet, a few minutes in, Fitz throws it away, claiming that the mask only prevents him from breathing and acting as his own person.
These conflicts in artmaking continue throughout the rehearsal among the actors, but also among the fictionalized protagonists in “Caliban’s Day.” When Britten unexpectedly visits his ex-lover Auden after a long time apart, they discuss his opera adaptation of the novel “Death in Venice” and its pedophilic narrative that obstructs Britten’s composing process. As they are both renowned gay figures in British literary circles, Britten hopes that Auden will understand his fears. The fragile standing of both men is threatened by Britten’s pedophilic leanings, which manifest in his adaptation.
“If an artist’s work is limited, redacted or censored, is the product still considered art? Apparently, Britten does not think so.”
If an artist’s work is limited, redacted or censored, is the product still considered art? Apparently, Britten does not think so. To preserve his image and reputation, he seeks to censor the pedophilic themes in his adaptation of the novel. However, he fears that by doing so, his adaptation can no longer be called “art,” but rather a manufactured product.
Britten thinks art should be pure and innocent. Despite being a pedophile, he sees himself as an innocent man lured by the pursuit of perfection and pure aesthetics at odds with reality.
On the other hand, Auden believes that despite moral challenges, one’s practice and creation can still be called art. Earlier in the play, for example, Auden had relished the artistic inspiration of a male prostitute. For him, art and the ‘habit of art’ are hardly sacred.
Auden’s artistic philosophy disrupts Britten’s working progress and definition of art. He believes that it is only when one truly embraces their downsides that they can genuinely produce a kind of art that represents them.
But does art necessarily and inherently represent the artist? Those like Auden’s male prostitute are relegated to nameless muses, footnotes to artists and elite society. Art, then, excludes the very people who helped shape it.
At this point, then, what can we call ‘real’ art? For it is not merely a perfected ideal, a product of human nature, nor a work consisting of only one sole author.
Throughout the rehearsal of “Caliban’s Day,” Fitz fumbles in presenting Auden, struggles to memorize his lines because of his age and keeps interrupting the spontaneous narrations the playwright wants to insert throughout the play. Yet, he still, somehow, has this ‘habit of art’ and wants to practice it despite all these disadvantages.
Like Britten, we humans have many imperfections — but these imperfections constitute the heart of artmaking. As the stage manager Kay in the play describes: “Plays plump, plays paltry. Plays radiant, plays rotten.” The process of artmaking is inherently problematic, as humans naturally possess a variety of flaws that bleed into our creative work. Art, then, is only ‘perfect’ when it conveys the imperfections of humanity. The habit of art must be to keep producing our own play.
Leslie Tong PO ’29 wants to get her driver’s license ASAP. That is the only genuine wish she’s had since last year, but somehow still hasn’t accomplished (yet).
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