weebelly.com

Recently, on the Neohiopal listserve, an article was circulating, which, I’m sure, has made its way around everywhere else as well. The article, by Mike Daisey, is about “How Theater Failed America.”

First, I thought I would comment on it just because the language, the passion, the intensity of the article was so powerful and convincing that I was just impressed…overcome by it. Then, of course, the diatribe against the failure of regional theatres to serve the artists in the theatres, a reality with which I’m not so familiar (in terms of personal investment and time) but am seeing now first hand has convinced me to throw my own two cents into the mix.

First, as I mentioned, there is the writing: “I abandoned the garage theaters and local arts scene and friends and colleagues—because I was a coward;” or “We survive because we’re nimble, we break rules, and when simple dumb luck happens upon us, we’re ready for it.” There is no hedging in this piece. There is no tip-toeing around the subject. Daisey is angry, and so brutal. Blunt. “Their [actor–Equity, no less] reward is years of being paid as close to nothing as possible in a career with no job security whatsoever, performing for overwhelmingly wealthy audiences whose rounding errors exceed the weekly pittance that trickles down to them.”

Ouch. This is a pissed off fellow. And after reading his article a few times, I agree: he should be.

I guess the reason that this article moved me so much has to do with where I’m at now: working with a young, small theatre driven by a visionary artistic director who flatly wishes to have two things: a successful theatre; a troupe of actors, technicians, and playwrights who can make a living doing what they love. This is what regional theatres were supposed to do. According to Daisey “The movement that gave birth to [the theatres in Seattle] tried to establish theaters around the country to house repertory companies of artists, giving them job security, an honorable wage, and health insurance. In return, the theaters would receive the continuity of their work year after year—the building blocks of community. The regional theater movement tried to create great work and make a vibrant American theater tradition flourish.” But, as Daisey continues, “That dream is dead. The theaters endure, but the repertory companies they stood for have been long disbanded. When regional theaters need artists today, they outsource: They ship the actors, designers, and directors in from New York and slam them together to make the show.”

In Cleveland, I know from general conversations that the above matches what was happening at the Cleveland Play House. Conversations among actors always turned to the fact that they had post-office boxes in New York to handle their resumes because they got a response from auditions that way–that is to say, they got no response as actors from Cleveland: despite a mission statement dedicated to “our community.” I think this is less true of Cleveland Public Theatre–which is truly the theatre of Cleveland. The Play House may as well be on another planet. But the facts that Daisey outlines remain, the theatres stand, but the people (who make the theatres work) are constantly changing–and not out of choice.

I am also more acutely aware of the problem as I am switching from an MBA program to an MNO program (Master of Nonprofit Organization). This educational emphasis places me directly in line with the practices of modern regional theatres: namely, the professionalization of things unrelated to the activities of theatre itself: that is, putting up plays by company actors. Perhaps Daisey’s article is just this, a bemoaning of the professionalization of how theatres are run. Afterall, virtually all organizations today have undergone something similar to this: colleges and universities can’t run in old models, they’ve had to hire marketing departments and development departments and masses of people dedicated solely to making the school succeed in the community financially and socially. The same is true of hospitals, sports organizations, museums, and other non-profits. But does this make it right? Daisey writes, “Not everyone lost out with the removal of artists from the premises. Arts administrators flourished as the increasingly complex corporate infrastructure grew.” And this is precisely what I have described, and what I fear about my own role in modern theatre is–that is, beyond the playwriting I hope to do.’

The biggest reason the artists were removed was because it was best for the institution. I often have to remind myself that “institution” is a nice word for “nonprofit corporation,” and the primary goal of any corporation is to grow. The best way to grow a nonprofit corporation is to raise money, use the money to market for more donors, and to build bigger and bigger buildings and fill them with more staff.

One of the more troubling things that Daisey brings up (as if the whole thing isn’t troubling enough to begin with) for playwrights is the following: “Literary departments have blossomed over the last few decades, despite massive declines in the production of new work.” It is almost an off-hand comment. But the implication for playwrights is this: more workshops, more staged readings, less real productions. Further, works like “On Golden Pond” find “revivals” at the Play House, while new, vital work relevant to our time and our psyche right now (by vital new playwrights) is left out. As Daisey drolly points out, “It’s not such a bad time to start a career in the theater, provided you don’t want to actually make any theater.”

Daisey’s cynicism hits rock bottom when he writes, “Better to invest in another “educational” youth program, mashing up Shakespeare until it is a thin, lifeless paste that any reasonable person would reject as disgusting, but garners more grant money.” For me, there is a big NO SHIT here. How many “educational” and “youth programs” do you see now? But really, who is to blame for this? The arts organizations or the funders? My bitterness on this subject is acute, as a relatively new technology award program for which my university program just applied was rejected in favor of dozens of awards for “educational” and “youth programs.” What a sham. It’s hard to tell nowadays whether the organization’s started the programs to make money or made money because of the programs; but I think the reality is the former. And where does the cycle end?

Every time a regional theater produces Nickel and Dimed, the play based on Barbara Ehrenreich’s book about the working poor in America, I keep hoping the irony will reach up and bitch-slap the staff members as they put actors, the working poor they’re directly responsible for creating, in an agitprop shuck-and-jive dance about that very problem. I keep hoping it will pierce their mantle of smug invulnerability and their specious whining about how television, iPods, Reagan, the NEA, short attention spans, the folly of youth, and a million other things have destroyed American theater.

The solutions are somewhat obvious, though not easy: if a regional theatre appeals to and raises a good portion of its budget from “grey hairs” and appeals to and raises the rest of its money from children, the overtly apparent question is “what happens to all the people in the middle?” After all, a bell curve is a bell curve for a reason: the middle is where it’s at, not the ends. Strange that theatres uniformally run against logic. But, as Daisey points out, moving toward this middle means several things, the most daunting of which is change. No more hobknobbing with wealthy white greys or controllable drooling puppet-lovers. Further, you’ll actually have to work and think about what you put up: no more standard musicals, or “on golden ponds,” or “midsummer night dreaming.” Now you’ll have to move toward interactivity, multimedia, content that is aggressive and that challenges the audience. Theatres will have to enter the uncomfortable realm of questioning their communities, their society, their culture–and not just leeching off it. You’ll have to ditch the old standards and take risks, something that artistic directors beholden to boards and ticket sales are afraid to do–after all, look what happens in modern sports. Two bad seasons and you’re done.

There are clear steps theaters could take. For example, they could radically reduce ticket prices across the board. Most regional theaters make less than half of their budget from ticket sales—they have the power to make all their tickets 15 or 20 dollars if they were willing to cut staff and transition through a tight season. It would not be easy, but it is absolutely possible. Of course, that would also require making theater less of a “luxury” item—which raises secret fears that the oldest, whitest, richest donors will stop supporting the theater once the uncouth lower classes with less money and manners start coming through the door. These people might even demand different kinds of plays, which would be annoying and troublesome. The current audience, while small and shrinking, demands almost nothing—they’re practically comatose, which makes them docile and easy to handle.

Better to revive another August Wilson play and claim to be speaking about race right now. Better to do whatever was off Broadway 18 months ago and pretend that it’s relevant to this community at this time. Better to talk and wish for change, but when the rubber hits the road, sit on your hands and think about the security of your office, the pleasure of a small, constant paycheck, the relief of being cared for if you get sick: the things you will lose if you stop working at this corporation.

So what does this mean? It means that you need to support what is new, what is original, what is alive: not the lumbering death that is the proscenium stage and tired old plays. Don’t settle for what the corporate theatres dish out for you–seek out what is new, what is alive, vital. Find theatres like convergence-continuum and support them. Hold on to them for dear life. For as Daisey writes:

Corporations make shitty theater. This is because theater, the ineffable part of the experience that comes in rare and random bursts, is not a commodity, and corporations suck at understanding the noncommodifiable. Corporations don’t understand theater. Only people, real people, understand theater. Audiences, technicians, actors, playwrights, costumers, designers—all of them give their time and energy to this thing for a reason, and that dream is not quantifiable on any spreadsheet.

Really enjoyed Indelible.  I don’t want to sound dismissive when I compare, but I found it a very real, earthy play, in the vein of [amazon_link id=”1559363037″ target=”_blank” ]August Wilson[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”0823413004″ target=”_blank” ]Lorraine Hansberry[/amazon_link].  It is very odd for me, because for all the workshopping and scriptwrighting, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a production of one of Oatman’s works.  I don’t know what I expected, but with his ongoing obsession with Negro professors I was expecting something high-fallutin’ and “talky.”

I’ve found recently that when I see a play I’m focusing much more than I ever have on technical and structural aspects of the piece.  So, the first thing I noticed was the frame: the opening and closing are in the present framing, as it were, the play itself, the main events of which are in the past.  I think this worked very well for Mike.  At first I wasn’t sure, being overly conscious of it.  But one effect that it has is to put a certain matter-of-fact expectation on the events.  That is, it removes “suspense” (to some degree) from the piece and allows you to focus on other aspects of it.  More frankly, it was apparent early that the main character, Walter Davidson, would be dead by the end: because it was a dramatic piece, a white man was confessing, and this is America, where bad things always happen to good people.  The framing device also is a convenient way to bring the piece to a conclusion that not only works, but is highly satisfactory to the audience: giving them a sense of where they started, what they went through, and where they have arrived.  I found the framing device worked well, as well, in the way Smith chose to stage it: planting two voices in the back corners of the audience to counter the voice below on stage.  The only thing that I found disappointing, in a way, was the silence at the end.  That is, the outraged black voices of the arrested marchers (what’s a white man doing here?) were replaced by the ignorant white voice of a cop (so, you’re the crazy white man).  I can see this as effective, to a degree, in shining a light on the similarity between the “present” day ignorance of both races when it comes to their still judging others based on appearances and shallow criteria; but I would have liked to have heard from those black voices again.  I don’t know what I would have wanted them to say, though.

The play moves very quickly into the frame and we learn all about Walter Davidson and Doleda and Festus Watkins.  I found the character development and interactions highly believable and very adeptly handled.  I think Oatman did a terrific job with them all around.  These were living people, and you could smell their sweat and feel their heart beats, taste what they ate for dinner, and know what the slept, tossed-and-turned about, and what they dreamt at night.  I think great credit is owed Mike on that alone, for it is very difficult to create characters who so really breathe and live.  I think, I believe, that Mike has probably carved one of his finest characters in Doleda Watkins.  I feel foolish saying this, having no real familiarity with his other works; but she was very delicately drawn, passionately presented, and was the heart-wrenching linchpin of the piece.  Mike also clearly hit the target audience with her, as the women in the audience went fairly nuts about several of her lines (the big one being, and I don’t have it exactly, when you say “woman” it should come off like “pearls from your tongue”).  I think Mike knew his mother would be watching this one and gave her credit through this character.  I had some minor issues with the character of Festus.  There were a few places where he seemed to me to be talking over his head.  My daughter is only 21 months, so I can’t claim to have deep and meaningful conversations with her yet; that is to say, I don’t know what she will be like at 7 or 9 or 11 and what she will be capable of thinking.  Perhaps she will be capable of the philosophical ruminations that Festus was delivering, but it struck me enough to mentally note it, and move me out of the play’s experience.  I think more so in the very first scene between Festus and Walter; than the later scene between Festus and Amassa Delano—but even there Festus brightly jumps to conclusion that Amassa is going to hurt Walter and in the end (almost romantically or poetically) says nothing about it.  It may be that Festus is supposed to represent a generation that was silent in some way about what it saw? (As opposed to the generation after, which would have marched, fought, and became the Civil Rights movement—but, I may be reading too much into this.) I found the exposition regarding how the paper system worked between Walter and ‘Bama a bit much.  It was also difficult to hear on some occasions, (which added to the frustration of involved discussions such as this) and I’m not sure what was the source of this: whether the words didn’t role-off mellifluously enough, whether there were issues with the space echoing, or whether it was an issue of pacing—i.e. trying say too much too fast. Finally, I found the relationship between William Rochester III and Doleda to be too much to believe.  I can see why it is there.  I can see clearly how it works in the structure for Mike.  I don’t know if there is a way to soften it, or otherwise dilute this.  The only thing that I can think would be to remove the open suggestion of intimacy between them and make it more intellectual or impersonal.  But that removes the emotion and it also lessons the comparison between Rochester and Davidson in terms of manhood and responsibility, which I think is one of the central points that Mike is making.  It is a very sticky issue.  I see clearly why Mike has done it, and I think it is effective—especially, again, for someone who isn’t looking at the play for elements like this, but is just enjoying the work for what is says and how it says it.  But to me, it did stand out and momentarily threw me out of the experience of the play.

There were also some moments of language that perhaps need examining.  At one point a character says “whoop his ass” or something.  It is the discussion of Jack Johnson. I marked the phrase and didn’t know if it was something someone would say in 1930. And another was “a pretty short drive” or something. But, these things could have been said, and I may be mistaken.  It is tough to pay attention to all of these details as I discovered in my play The Empiric: trying to figure out or imagine how people talked in a time that is well-removed from your own is challenging—especially the idioms.

I don’t want to come off as too critical or smack of a sort of nitpickiness.  I think Indelible is a tremendous work: great characters, strong emotion, well-researched, and a real earthiness and power that I would kill to feel coming out of some of my plays.  I think Mike has done a wonderful job with this piece and I look forward to seeing more of his work.  I also wonder if there has been any consideration of expanding this piece just a bit and making it a “full evening of theatre.”  It is a long enough one act that the move is not that much, I think. That is, adding an intermission and a two act structure.  I think it could be done; and it would make the play more marketable.  A move like this would challenge the “frame” structure, I think.  But it could be offset in a powerful way by adding a scene in the middle to heighten the success or achievement (paper) or tension or love (Doleda)—in fact, much of it is already there to be pulled out; and then bring it all to a devastating conclusion—sort of the Greek thing with the Hamartia or tragic-flaw in the character—Davidson’s hubris or prideful sense of injustice and the Peripeteia (reversal)—where everything suddenly goes to hell, like right now.  The achievement is undermined by the boldness of the action in a corrupt society.  Of course, Mike may have captured exactly what he wants from the piece and it is just the way it will be; and that’s fine too.