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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.

Naomi Wallace’s article, which I began reviewing in my last post, continues with an enumeration of ways to transgress when writing. She outlines six, specifically:

1. Ways of Seeing — she points to John Berger’s book.

Interestingly, I have several copies of John Berger’s book. When I worked for AmeriCorps in 1994 one of the VISTAs with whom I worked managed to get Penguin Books to donate tens of thousands of its overstocked books to the program. We filled the shelves of the ABLE program and had many duplicates to take for ourselves. I have looked at it several times, but always assumed it was an “art” book. Guess I should go dig it out.

2. Write against YOUR traditional ways of seeing.
   

   I’ll have to read it to gain the perspective necessary to fully understand what Wallace is talking about here; but I have no doubt about it’s validity. I was amazed by the immediate progress I made when I changed the MANNER in which I approached playwriting. I can’t imagine how beneficial approaching the matter from a different way of SEEING will be.

3. Study how language is used to oppress

From the various forms of literary criticism that I’ve read, I’ve certainly come to understand the validity of claims regarding how language conveys power relationships and affects self-perception. When researching my play about midwives I looked into misogyny in medicine and power relationships in the medical world; it should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time in a hospital that language is one of the key mechanisms that medical professionals use to control interactions: from the mechanistic view of the body to the manner in which they use “medical-ese” to keep patients at arms length (nephrology–kidney; oncology–cancer, etc.). I still find the way Wallace loads this item with her communist polemic distasteful, but hey, to each her own. Regardless, language is certainly something that should be important to playwrights, and how one group uses it against another is key to many aspects of play creation.

4. Disrupt cliches and the “cluttered mind”

I always strive to do this. Cliches are THE key indicator that you are not original…unless, of course, you’re writing an entire play using cliches, which I have thought of doing.

5. Explore other writers

Probably the single most valuable aspect of the MFA program I’m in. Just the sheer exposure to other writers and other “ways of seeing.”

6. Research thoroughly what you’re writing about

I always am thorough in my research. In fact, I am afraid that my calling may be to just do research and not to write at all. In each major work that I have done–two big plays and a children’s book–I’ve spent, collectively, six years researching: gathering, reading, analyzing, following citations, working the interlibrary loan machine…

Wallace goes on, after this, to express her “highest aspiration” as a writer: which is to “re-imagine ourselves and our communities” which I think is very noble, indeed. And despite my disagreement with the language in which Wallace often couches her propositions, I do very much agree with her on this point–as well as her “6 Ways to Transgress.”

The next thing that Wallace considers is of great import to me, I’m glad to see it is for her, too. Of course, I am forced to admit that Wallace’s language in her plays and her often stunning stage images leaves my constructs to shame–but with Geither’s help and my re-constructed view of playwriting and the stage I have began to cultivate powerful stage images of my own. Regardless, the item of concern here is the question of “dryness” and “sex” that she puts.

The question of “dryness” refers to “writing devoid of passion and complexity and entertainment”–that is, the fear that if you write plays that are political they will be “dry” and uninteresting. This certainly should be a concern, but I would state that it ALWAYS should be a concern REGARDLESS of the subject matter. If characters in a play are viewed humanely and honestly and one utilizes imagination in the staging and dimensionality of the work and one exercises the “standard” toolkit of playwriting techniques: such as timing and tension, etc., then a play should NOT be “dry.” Wallace goes on to expand the dryness to encompass a subject matter that is just plain boring (again, as viewed by students). But Wallace ably fends off this question by simply pointing to the blood press that is history–that is, one throws apples into a press to get cider; history throws people into a press to get blood, consequence, and the problems of the future.

The question of “sex” is what Wallace re-phrases as a question of intimacy. And again, Wallace ably defends that both economics and politics are sexy, especially when couched in the terms of their consequence on the smallest of lives throughout all time: for instance, the prejudice of a pope makes four generations of Jews live in a ghetto. The consequences on the lives of all those people is pretty intimate. Here Wallace quotes Terry Eagleton who somewhere wrote that “our economic world is about ‘the plundering of the body of its sensuous wealth'” and again, she couches the argument in terms of capitalism, etc. But, in this case I agree–in that our lives are spent pursuing a course other than that which we would were it possible for us to live without selling 40+ of our human hours every week: our body hours, our dreaming hours, our life hours. Now that I have children I realize more acutely what the sale of my time–my life–means.

Here, Wallace begins to make some of her more powerful and beautifully worded appeals. For instance, “What could be more intimate and personal than the history of our bodies and their relationship to the world?” or:

History itself is a study in intimacy, or our lack of it, with others. What else is history and politics but the struggle of people to define who they are and what they can and cannot do?

But still, I think the statements that she makes apply to a certain type of writing, a certain type of play. What has been referred to by others, with some amount of distaste, as “social plays” or plays about “issues”: Ibsen, Miller, Wilson, etc. But when I think of the early plays of Sam Shepard, I am less inclined to agree that these elements apply. But one certainly could argue for them in his later family trilogy plays, and so on. They play out less on the national political level than at the metapolitical level of the family or the interpersonal/personal level of the self and its relation to family members. If anything, of course, Shepard’s plays approach the idea of masculinity in our culture: its manifestation, consequences, and meaning. But, as Wallace states, “we are involved in the job of drama,” each of us.

I am relieved that on page 102 Wallace writes that she is “not calling for a condescending theatre or a ‘preaching to the converted’ theatre but a welcoming, vigorous, inquisitive and brutal theatre…to challenge normative ways of seeing, to get uncomfortable, to get unsafe, to get unsure.” For really, there is nothing worse than a condescending political theatre. It becomes very like the current national campaign for president.

In the end, true to form, and true to good writing, Wallace leaves us with as many questions as possible answers. Some of the questions that I felt particularly drawn to were those that Wallace posited for playwrights–what she refers to as a “how” state of mind:

“How did it come to this? How am I diminished by my own ignorance? How have I been silenced in ways that I am not aware of?” These are good questions, and while I know Wallace points us toward a full human condition, I am still disappointed that the questions (and her pointing) are couched in the lesser language of a blatant political philosophy that I would say, diminishes the discussion.