Outrageous Fortune: Commitment-Phobia

Aristotle Said There's Supposed to be a Catharsis

But there isn't. Not in this book.

The first sentence of the last chapter, entitled "Positive Practices and Novel Ideas," tells us ominously that there is "no one solution," and then the first sentence of the second paragraph reminds us, in case we didn't read the first paragraph carefully, that there is no "magic bullet." The last words of the book indicates that this is "the start of a conversation." And in between, we are informed that this is just a "snapshot of the field" and that "our intention is description, not prescription." Like Zola and the Naturalists, London, Pesner, and Voss are giving us a slice of life with no interference from the author. Like a 2nd-grade kid on the playwright squealing with glee, "Wanna see something gross????"

It is unclear who, exactly, is supposed to have this conversation. Artistic Directors? Playwrights? Funders? Bloggers? (Hey, we did our bit!) David Dowers is surely right when he says, in his deservedly-frustrated outburst RTWT, that it is up to us to ask, along with Buckminster Fuller, "What can the Little Man do?"

Answering Fuller

At this point, at least in the blogosphere, the answer to Fuller's question seems to be another Fuller quotation, one that is in the sidebar of this blog: "build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Isaac agrees with Mead Hunter, and so does J. Holtham and so have many others: the system is irreparably damaged. Move on.

J Holtham sums up the situation straight-forwardly: "The system we have is not producing great art or happy artists or satisfied audiences." That pretty much runs the table of dissatisfaction. And so, in a statement as courageous as it is logical, Mead says, "the only way to win is not to play. Let the regional system dodder on if it wants to; we don’t have to ape its shopworn antics." This goes Mike Daisey many steps further. After all, Daisey just wanted the regional theatres to reform, whereas Mead suggests everyone move on and leave no forwarding address.

I'm not certain this is precisely the conversation that London had in mind...

Is That Really the Answer?

Over the 4+ years I've been writing Theatre Ideas, I have been saying pretty much the same thing in a rather discordant Halleluja Chorus with Don Hall (who was singing solo before I haltingly joined him), so it is a little disorienting to find our duet suddenly a full-throated choir. Not that we're all singing from the same hymnal, but we at least seem to be in the same choir loft. What interests me most is that the movement seems to be away from the national rep system and toward smaller theatres where artists know each other, and where the quest for traditional success seems less pressing. Matt Freeman, for instance, has expressed his satisfaction with the OOB theatre he works with as such a place.

As the Outrageous Fortune - a-thon got underway, more and more people seemed to find themselves at a tipping point, with OF providing the fatal push. With the arrival of the new year, J. Holtham revealed his identity (gasp) and indicated "I'm going to be looking very seriously at self-producing, about starting a production company, probably under the name of 99 Seats. More about that as it comes. At any rate, it's a new year, a new decade. Time to turn the page." Josh expressed admiration, and then Matt Freeman and Travis Bedard issued a call for a guide to self-producing. James Comtois obliged, creating an ongoing series entitled "Little Jimmy's Guide to Self-Producing," which provides an excellent how-to for playwrights who want to take control of their own productions in NYC. And suddenly everybody was jumping ship and following Don Hall into self-producing.

What role did Outrageous Fortune play in this seemingly sudden conversion? By dragging all the dead mice out into the open and making us look at them in the full light of day, it made continued denial difficult. But had the final chapter provided some glimmer of hope, we might have all been been able to close our eyes and pretend the mice were singing "The Work Song" from Cinderella.

That didn't happen.

What Did

The first thing London did that made my heart sink was start singing the most boring song in the hymnal, one once made popular by Spinal Tap: "Gimme Some Money." Calling for "more extensive subsidy," London quotes one economist who served as an advisor for the book saying "surely it does not take an economist to recognize a lack of money is a good part of the evils investigated." When I was young, that call seemed like the next logical step after the anti-War, Civil Rights, and Feminist movement. But in 2010, the younger generation (and me too) has given up clapping for that particular Tinker Bell, and wants to hear something new.

"But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, 'I want to go home!'"

Throughout most of Outrageous Fortune, there has been expressed a longing for an artistic home (the title of another London study which was supposed to provoke discussion, but whose issues remain depressingly unresolved 17 years later). Conjuring up the images of Chekhov, Odets, and Brecht, who "became synonymous with the companies...to which they gave voice," London proposes we consider James Still, who is "in residence" with Indiana Rep, as an example of a similar kind of "deep artistic connection" between a theatre and its playwright.

Here is the nature of that commitment -- try not to get too misty-eyed. First, Still lives in California, not Indiana -- although he does visit every month and he board knows who he is. Sort of like a divorced Dad and his kids. In addition, Still, who writes for television and for other theatres, "depends on the theatre for neither his income, nor even his health insurance." Good thing, because there is "no 'James Still slot' in the theatre's season" and the artistic director, Janet Allen, says "There is no presumption that we're going to produce everything James writes." Nevertheless, Still does expect "Janet and the IRT to be interested in everything I write, to be curious about it, to want to consider it. I don't have to wonder whether or not Janet will read something I write." (Are you hearing the refrain of "Hopelessly Devoted" playing in the background?) Still goes on, "From the beginning, we've treated my residency like a living, breathing thing capable of change, capable of surprise, and capable of challenges....There is a definite commitment between us...but there is also the understanding that we must be flexible, that both sides must be flexible. I sit down with myself on a regular basis and ask myself if this is still working -- not because I fear it isn't, but because I never want to take it for granted or treat it like a habit or an obligation."

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but this is commitment? It sounds like a chapter out of He's Just Not That Into You. This is a casual, long-distance relationship with no expectations of fidelity -- when you're in town, if we feel like it we'll get together for dinner and maybe have sex, and when you're not in town we can do what we want. Compared to Chekhov, Odets, and Brecht, this is pretty superficial stuff.

This is followed by Liz Duffy Adams, a New York-based playwright who makes her "home" in San Francisco, a 2900-mile commute; and Adam Brock who, miraculously, "actually resided in San Francisco in he late 1990s" (because after graduating from Brown he figured it would be "smarter for me to go to a mid-sized market. It was a business-artistic decision"), but now also lives in New York. Probably catches the same flight as Adams. But hey, "his Bay Area relationships persist." Facebook is a miracle, ain't it?

Finessing Broadway

Then we get Amy Freed. Freed has a large-cast farce called The Beard of Avon, which gets a bunch of regional theatre productions and then opens in New York. Hey, it can be done, right? Except there is a hitch. In order to get investors interested in putting up the money for a Broadway production (because "she would have sold her little brother for a chance to be produced on Broadway"), she couldn't do all those regional theatre productions first -- the investors felt it would suck away too many "sub rights." But without those productions, the play wouldnt have been "ready for New York." Says Freed, "That's kind of a catch-22, isn't it?" Indeed.

Kind of hard to see her story as something to be aspired to, especially since following all these productions around the country "was an enormous disruption in my life, my teaching income, my ability to write another play."

And So On

The book ends with the National New Play Network, and interesting group of 26 member theatres across the country who "pioneered the concept of the 'rolling world premiere,'" in which the Network helps fund three or more companies to produce a specific play. While this doesn't exhibit a commitment to specific playwrights, it does provide a glimmer of an idea on how to "help the theatre community wean itself from a New York-down approach to circulating new plays throughout the country."

And the last example, entitled "Audience Education 101" (when all else fails, it must be the audience who needs to be educated), comes from Steppenwolf, who has struck on the "novel" idea of letting a select group of rich people pay $75 to sit in on some rehearsals. Pardon me if I don't get up.

"You've always had the power to go back to Kansas"

And that's it. Those are the solutions. Do you understand now why everybody is punching their ticket for the HMS Self-Produce?

So if I were an AD or playwright who was really committed to the current system, I don't know what I'd tell you. I guess I'd say, "Let's start the conversation."

But like my fellow bloggers, I don't see a lot of room for optimism. Unless... well, this would require a revision of the entire model, so that it is no longer the non-profit, corporate theatre system we've come to know and...have a flexible reklationship with.

But I think we should look back to history. Specifically, to Shakespeare's Globe (is this a violation of the Garvey's Law?). Shakespeare was a shareholder in the King's Men, and also a householder in the Globe. Meaning that he had a financial stake in the theatre's success. As one of the chief playwrights for the company, it was up to him to crank out new material that would bring in audiences hungry for new material. If he wanted to do a "formal experiment," he had to weight that desire against his desire to pay the rent, not only for himself but for all his fellow shareholders and householders, who were all relying on him to crank out two-three-four plays a year (could we get Tony Kushner on that schedule, PLEASE?). And he not only wrote plays, but he acted, and helped run the theatre space -- hell, he probably swept up the pit after the groundlings spilled food all over it. And they also took in apprentices, for whom they were responsible to provide room and board in exchange for teaching them the theatre ropes and, possibly, integrating them into the company. In short, Shakespeare had a real commitment to the success of his theatre, and a stake in its success. Which is, in essence, self-production, right? The solution that so many have rediscovered.

But this freelance, freeze-dried, imported, global theatre economy isn't going to make it. We need to get married, settle down, and commit to making this thing work.