I've been a bad blogger. Bad.
I come back in short form today with many thoughts coming down the pike.
My absence for the past few days (okay, ten) has been due to the fact that I needed to complete writing my book that will soon be published by Arcadia Publishing called Milwaukee's Live Theater. I had to finish the thing or face the wrath of my publisher. Actually, they are very nice publishers and I suspect there would not have been torture or anything if I hadn't finished the book on time, but I think I would have felt like I had let my dad down or something and that would have just sucked.
In any event, I'm posting something quick today because I just got an e-mail from that pot stirrer Rex Winsome about an article that appeared in The Stranger called Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves, and it had fresh significance for me after finishing a book about 150 years of theater history in Milwaukee.
The article makes the assertion that theater is broken right now. Terribly, terribly broken.
Well, I'm ready to tell you all one shocking thing that I can firmly assert after spending lots of time in archives, reading notes from producers from 50-75 years ago setting up institutions or seat-of-your-pants upstart theatrical brigades, and discerning the state of theater in Milwaukee and the nation over the past 150 years (the scope of my research). Ready? Here's the big shocker:
THEATRE HAS ALWAYS BEEN BROKEN!
It's time to fess up folks. Theaters have always struggled. There was a German theater movement in Milwaukee that thrived for over 75 years but faded away because audiences no longer felt the need for German theater. Same with a Yiddish theater scene. Also, a lady named Laura Sherry did Shakespeare, Pirandello and some whacked out experimental shit from 1899 to 1940 in Milwaukee and thrived until she no linger had the energy to thrive (thanks to Konrad and John for helping me see this important moment in theater history). All of these theatrical discussions share one common link: it was never easy for the people involved in the producing of the art to figure out what worked best to keep the art interesting for regular Joes and Janes. In other words, there's never been a perfect solution to selling a ticket.
Blame it on the internet and television now. Years ago they blamed it on those new fangled automobiles and moving picture shows with sound. There's always going to be an excuse, there's always going to be an obstacle.
Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves is primarily a humor piece. It is quick, funny and doesn't offer any suggestions that are all that radically different from what all theaters are trying right now (and when I say all, I mean all, no whatever what size). I applaud Brendan Wiley for his wit.
There is one really important thought that popped out at me in those ten points, however. The author suggests to "Treat your plays like parties and your audience like guests."
This is smart. Really smart.
Cover your ears if you're not used to curse words, because I'm going to use a well placed swear word right now. I also believe that a case could be made for the theater history of Milwaukee or any other city to be defined as theaters saying, "Yes, theater going public and anyone with a dollar in your pocket, I will lay down for you so that you can fuck me wherever you want."
Pardon my potty mouth, but there has been a tendency to cave in even the most well intentioned theatrical situation. The caving comes from not treating the art like the greatest thing in the world. The caving comes from thinking of plays as widgets.
Plays aren't widgets. Plays are unique. Each one is unique. And they don't need to be new (though I'm a huge fan of the new ones). If you want to do a production of Ibsen's ROSMERSHOLM, by all means, do it. But treat it like it's a party. And as my mother has always said, make sure you have too much of everything. Excess doesn't need to come in the form of stuff. It just needs to come in the form of attitude and intention. If you treat it like a party, all of a sudden it is a party.
What theater needs more than anything right now is excited leaders. Leaders who like producing plays. I tend to believe that you don't throw out things that are broken and start from scratch. Instead I believe that you use what you can from the past, and patch together the rest with new parts.
Party on playgoers. It's as simple as that.
12 smart alecky remarks:
Not buying into that party/guest dynamic. I did a lot of theatre that was free in parks. So was that theatre a picnic and the audience were who, what, ...picnickers?
Ants? Food? Sod fertilizer? Never mind...
The reality of attempting the art of theatre, is that the audience have to be collaborators.
Augusto Boal found the problem with most theatre was that it was a monologue. His life's work became trying to making it a dialogue.
Jerzey Grotowski once explained (in polish) that “in order to save theatre, theatre must be destroyed". Kind of an "if you see the Buddha on the road" sort of thing, I guess.
Another time, after taking his meds or having a satisfying bowel movement Grotowskii said, "Constantly being asked the question: How to save theatre? And yet, the question that ought to be asked is: How to save oneself?" Maybe Jerzy saw Jesus in his Babka. Or maybe something was lost in the translation?
I'll go with: Theatre does not need to be saved. It needs TO BE. To be attempted by brave, inquisitive, thinking souls.
Treat it like Art and treat the audience as Collaborators.
Theatre, like any art, does not exist on the stage (or the page, or the screen, or the pedestal, etc.) It exists in that place where the artist's ideas, intentions, forms, subject matter - the artist's best efforts, connect with an audience member's experience, understandings, questions and IMAGINATION.
Oh and your "potty mouth" thing. Gosh darn you (Palinspeak)! I covered my ears. But I could still read it. So I covered my eyes. I betcha there's no need to explain how that didn't work. F@%K self censorship... "Nyuk! Nyuk! Hey Moe! Hey Larry! I can't see!!!"
Theatre needs to be in conversation with the audience. In order for that to happen, the conversation must be about something the audience cares about.
A brave, inquisitive, thinking soul in New Jersey.
thanks for your post.
M J M, the most interesting thing at a party is the conversation. I think we're all looking for the same thing.
But i'm with growtowski- let the dying theatres (and theatre patrons) die. I don't think it's possible for a company like The Rep to make the transitions it needs to survive without first killing itself. They cannot possibly retain their donor base and attract new audience at the same time. Their attempts to do so have been laughable. This isn't my fault, it's their donor's fault. These people want theatre to be an exclusive invite-only party, giving them what they want requires turning everyone else away.
Also, you've been reading Seth Godin, haven't you, Schmartsy? All this talk of tribes and leaders.
But, on your book, the 150 years of theatre in milwaukee, i want more than the simple conclusion that theatre has always been broken. I want to know when it was least broken, if it's more broke now than at what times in the past. what can correllate the ebbs and flows to? I wanna know when the theatre community had no clue at all and when it was able to (to quote Beckett) "fail better".
That's what my overly schmartsy political science background wants, anyway, and i guess i'll have to wait for the book to come out before i can get all those details.
Somebody smarter and deader than I once explained that the one thing the USA inc. knows how to do is to organize everything as a BUSINESS. That includes ART, art and artists. So, as I think Marx's (not Groucho) song and dance was how capitalism turns everything & everyone into a COMMODITY.
Me, I tended to favor a GIFT ECONOMY.
It see's everything, everyone, every talent as a gift.
The # 1 Rule of the GIFT ECONOMY is NOT "location-location-location", or even "Hire for attitude, train for skill" (altho those are handy rules in the RIGHT LIVLIHOOD world of zen-biz*). But in the GIFT ECONOMY the numero uno rule is (drum roll, please!):
THE GIFT MUST MOVE
All wanna-be, would-be, coulda-been, shoulda-been, may still be artists/thespians/storytellers should drop their rhetoric and grap a search engine to 1)find, 2) get &3) read THE GIFT: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by brilliant poet, artist, storyteller, Lewis Hyde
* Mr. Schmartzy tells that he was an assistant to one of my mentor/friends, Sara O'Connor, who, when she left the MRT & the show business, became a Soto Zen Priest. Tonen O'Connor is now the Resident Priest at the Milwaukee Zen Center.
Live theatre can have a Zen quality since it exists only in the present. The reality that our minds are fixed on the past and the future can and does often destroy the experience of live theatre.
So is theatre a zendo and the audience meditators, aware of the moment by moment NOW? The advice to serve alcohol to "save theatre" seems to plead for escape from awareness...
Fellas. Grotowski? Come on. What is this, "My Dinner At Home While Typing with Andre"? I like the idea of GIFTing. I even like the idea of REGIFTING more. All the best ideas are always grafted, twisted, and recycled. Thanks for the comments, though. I'm stealing all your good ideas and making them my own. I suggest you do the same with any I may have squirted out.
Johnathan, the ideas of Grotowski, Brecht and many other amazing theatre artists have been woefully underdeveloped historically, the rise of DIY theatre movements are an opportunity to explore and develop these ideas and bring them to greater fruition.
M J M - i haven't read your book reccomendation, and i should, I'm adding it to my list. but my rudimentary understanding of the gift economy is that it is somewhat problematic in terms of sustainability, and potentially worse than capitalism at rewarding laborers for their efforts, which is important to me.
That said, the practices i've been employing come pretty damn close to the gift economy. Insurgent has almost always functioned under a very low ($5-$10) suggested donation, this weekend we did a handful of "please buy some merch or throw some money in this bucket if you liked the show" shows. I intend to explore ways of making optional payment more lucrative in our future, because i recognize the need to give more to the artists we work with.
Brecht and Grotowski ideas are woefully underdeveloped historically? Maybe I'm reading those wrong (and it's been eons since my NYU Brecht and Grotowski immersions) but isn't it kind of the point that they need to be underdeveloped to exist? Those movements always need something to fight against, right? Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but if Grotowski and Brecht didn't have something to be pissed off about, they wouldn't be Grotowski and Brecht. It's hard for me to imagine a situation where those ideas, and fringe ideas of other undeniably great theatrical thinkers lead the charge for sweeping institutional change. I'm stymied about how isolationist ideas save anything. I'll admit that I'm a lover of Brecht, and a hater of Grotowski, but my love of Brecht has never been based on my belief that he has big insights into how to save anything. I've always believed that the Brechts, Boals, Grotowskis, Fos, Becketts, and Ionescos of the world are there to blissfully keep us in check, keep us honest. But how do you suggest they need more development.
MJM, Sara O'Connor, thanks for that name in any discussion. Genius, inspiring, class, tenacity, wisdom, and connection to the whole of life are things I always think of when i think of her. Just had to say it.
see:http://www.lewishyde.com/pub/gift.html
as well as:http://www.lewishyde.com/index.html
and: http://www.lewishyde.com/pub/AfterwordGift.pdf
finally:
A tree simply strives
as best it can to realize
its full potential as a tree.
It may be limited by
external circumstances,
leaning at an acute angle
under the constant force
of wind, but it is not selflimiting.
We are all too
often self-limiting. Some
of our difficulty arises
from the huge range of
possibilities before us.
Our task is not as simple
as that of a tree. How
do we know in which
direction to grow? As
Shitou implies, we are
bound only by our self,
and it may be that this
boundary-less existence
drives us, not to expand
in liberation, but to erect
narrow boundaries built
upon fear. Built upon fear,
they imprison us and we
plaintively ask others:
“What is liberation?”
Our consciousness
opens horizons to us that
are not available to the
tree, however glorious,
green and tall it may
grow. Our consciousness
can also stunt our growth.
The tree cannot feel
inadequate and so it
grows. We feel inadequate,
stunt our own
growth and huddle
within the chains of our
fears, at the same time
complaining that we are
bound. To find our way
out of this impasse, it
helps if we can let go
of our discriminating
mind – the one that
insists that this is an
Impure Land – and rely
with more confidence
upon prajna, our innate
compass that points the
way to harmonious
growth within the life
circumstances we face.
When all else fails,
I look up at the limitless
sky to see the way it
blends into the limitless
life of the earth and
remember that this
boundless life is also
mine. And I am grateful.
– Tonen O’Connor
Yes, Brecht and Grotowski wouldn't be Brecht and Grotowski if they weren't railing against something. But i'm not talking about Brecht and Grotowski as personalities, i'm talking about their ideas. Reducing these ideas to personalities is exactly how the ideas get neglected after the personality dies.
Especially Brecht's ideas. He wasn't just there "to blissfully keep [you] in check" he was there to develop something completely new and different. Something that would replace you completely. He failed. He was stuck in his reaction against German folk theatre and constrained by soviet censorship.
When i make radical theatre i'm not just trying to influence the ugly monolith that is mainstream theatre, "keep you honest". I want to see you replaced by independent artists who are producing theatre that excites and engages the audience in ways that traditional theatre cannot anymore. Ways that traditional theatre would not be able to emulate if you wanted to.
I want to see more theatre artists picking up Brecht's experiments where he left off, attempting to develop and complete them. I want to see more theatre that presents me with critical engagement, not passive entertainment. I see theatre as a tool not to impose morals on the populace, but to excite the populace to the idea and practice of critical thought. That's my motivation.
I only care about what the establishment does because i'm tired of seeing potential audiences disregard theatre because the monolith's definition of it is so unappealing, and i'm tired of seeing talented artists sucked into the myths that undergird that establishment.
Myths of "hitting it big" which only give artists a huge debt, a crappy education, an appreciation of shakespeare, lousy roles in lousy plays for sleeping audiences, and poorly paying precarious employment.
M J M - When i read things like that poem, i think about how, before we can realize any of those potentials, before we can even think about realizing those potentials, we need to rearrange the basic economic realities we live in.
As a political science student i realized the inadequacy of attempting change by winning the hearts and minds of people through song and poetry. Real change requires direct action. That's why it's not the content of radical art that makes it revolutionary, it's the form, and even more importantly, the business model employed.
Love the notion of 'leaders who like doing plays.' I think there's a lot of producers out there who don't like theatre all that much in their heart of hearts.
I also don't think theatre is broken or dead. Money-making theatre, maybe. But 'Theatre' with a capital T and air quotes? Never.
Theatre as a communication tool? A dialogue? And to get really artsy-fartsy - a power? It will always live on....much as Celine Dion does.
Boy I wish she would go away, and I'm Canadian too....
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