Tuesday, June 20, 2006
But Before I Begin...
Edutech blogger Clarence Fisher over at Remote Access blogs this:
I think the same is true of theatre. We need to leap-frog. Things are changing at the speed of light, and we are dawdling, tinkering at the edges of how and what we create. Worried about the greying of the audience? Then start leap-frogging! The revolutions of the 80s and even the 90s are Old Hat. We need to be innovating as if our life depends on it -- because it does!
Don Hall over at Angry White Guy in Chicago says something similar, and he lists a few of the current innovations.
Hence the need to leap - frog... We need to leave behind ideas of incrementally increasing our understanding, and incrementally changing our teaching methods, slowly bringing people up to speed. This idea worked fine when ideas of literacy and education were not rapidly changing; but they are. We need to be be able to leap - frog in our understandings, in our methods, and in our tools, allowing us to move to where the kids are. If we do not become leaders to our students, we will be followers, seen as irrelevant, and left to cry in our books while the kids are off setting the agenda.
I think the same is true of theatre. We need to leap-frog. Things are changing at the speed of light, and we are dawdling, tinkering at the edges of how and what we create. Worried about the greying of the audience? Then start leap-frogging! The revolutions of the 80s and even the 90s are Old Hat. We need to be innovating as if our life depends on it -- because it does!
Don Hall over at Angry White Guy in Chicago says something similar, and he lists a few of the current innovations.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Describing a New Model
A good and brilliant friend of mine, Brian Santana, who sometimes reads this blog, emailed me:
Brian then goes on to use the opening of Robert Brustein's masterful Theatre of Revolt and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring as examples of writers who have painted a picture of the future as a way of defining the present, and illustrating the changes that should be made. While I am not capable of rising to the heights of a Brustein or a Carson, I do see the wisdom of his request.
So in the days that follow, I will attempt to describe what the theatre I envision might look like. Having said that, a disclaimer is in order: I'll only be able to describe a few of the manifold possibilities. I will present a broad sketch only, in the hope that somebody might be willing to embroider on my ideas, and extend them much further than I can myself.
Disclaimer 2: I don't have much hope that my ideas will be in the least bit original. I suspect that many, many theatres across the country and throughout the world have been using most of" my ideas" for decades, and it is simply my own ignorance that leads me to claim them. In fact, I hope that this is so, so that it won't be necessary to recreate the wheel. And I sincerely hope that others will not feel the need to ridicule my ignorance -- as a college professor, I am a big target.
Disclaimer 3: What I describe won't be for everyone, nor is it my claim that these should be the single way that theatre should be done. An art form is best when it is being done in many different ways. Diversity is richness.
I will also cannibalize from my previous posts, which in this new context might gain new perspective.
I welcome into my comments anyone who might want to build on my ideas, or tinker with them in some way. It is my hope that those who don't like the ideas won't feel compelled to condemn them here, since one's own blog is really the best place to put forward your individual vision.
Having written this, I'd better start thinking of things to write!
I was thinking about this question the other day: you often talk about the problems with the current theatrical system and the corrective measures that should or could be embraced to combat these ills. However, in all of this discussion, I have never been able to form a clear picture of what the theatre that you describe would look like. Perhaps this is because theatre would be concentrated towards particular communities, and therefore, theatre would be slightly different in each community.
Brian then goes on to use the opening of Robert Brustein's masterful Theatre of Revolt and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring as examples of writers who have painted a picture of the future as a way of defining the present, and illustrating the changes that should be made. While I am not capable of rising to the heights of a Brustein or a Carson, I do see the wisdom of his request.
So in the days that follow, I will attempt to describe what the theatre I envision might look like. Having said that, a disclaimer is in order: I'll only be able to describe a few of the manifold possibilities. I will present a broad sketch only, in the hope that somebody might be willing to embroider on my ideas, and extend them much further than I can myself.
Disclaimer 2: I don't have much hope that my ideas will be in the least bit original. I suspect that many, many theatres across the country and throughout the world have been using most of" my ideas" for decades, and it is simply my own ignorance that leads me to claim them. In fact, I hope that this is so, so that it won't be necessary to recreate the wheel. And I sincerely hope that others will not feel the need to ridicule my ignorance -- as a college professor, I am a big target.
Disclaimer 3: What I describe won't be for everyone, nor is it my claim that these should be the single way that theatre should be done. An art form is best when it is being done in many different ways. Diversity is richness.
I will also cannibalize from my previous posts, which in this new context might gain new perspective.
I welcome into my comments anyone who might want to build on my ideas, or tinker with them in some way. It is my hope that those who don't like the ideas won't feel compelled to condemn them here, since one's own blog is really the best place to put forward your individual vision.
Having written this, I'd better start thinking of things to write!
Saturday, June 10, 2006
A Little Matter of a Conjunctive
At the end of her otherwise sympathetic review of Stopping Traffic, NYT critic Anita Gates writes:
"This is a show with a message (the need for openness about mental illness), but it's an entertaining, endearing one as well."
Is anyone else bothered by that three-letter conjunctive and all that it implies?
"This is a show with a message (the need for openness about mental illness), but it's an entertaining, endearing one as well."
Is anyone else bothered by that three-letter conjunctive and all that it implies?
Friday, June 09, 2006
On Neil Labute
Ben Brantley, in his review of Neil Labute's latest play Some Girl(s), beautifully distills what I find so distasteful about Neil Labute:
"As both dramatist ("Fat Pig") and filmmaker ("In the Company of Men"), Mr. LaBute has built a prolific career on vivisecting the unfair sex, with clinically contemptuous works that put the human male under a microscope and watch the little sucker squirm. Both moralistic and voyeuristic, his plays and movies seem always to be writhing in some ecstasy of self-flagellation, whispering all the while, "Oh, guys, we're bad, bad, bad — jerks, lowlife, pond scum." If there is masochism in the implicit litany, there is self-stroking smugness as well."
Labute is deeply dishonest -- as Brantley says, moralistic AND voyeuristic, masochistic AND smug. His is the glee of the elementary school thug who gleefully shouts at the girls, "Wanna see something gross?" Pathetic.
"As both dramatist ("Fat Pig") and filmmaker ("In the Company of Men"), Mr. LaBute has built a prolific career on vivisecting the unfair sex, with clinically contemptuous works that put the human male under a microscope and watch the little sucker squirm. Both moralistic and voyeuristic, his plays and movies seem always to be writhing in some ecstasy of self-flagellation, whispering all the while, "Oh, guys, we're bad, bad, bad — jerks, lowlife, pond scum." If there is masochism in the implicit litany, there is self-stroking smugness as well."
Labute is deeply dishonest -- as Brantley says, moralistic AND voyeuristic, masochistic AND smug. His is the glee of the elementary school thug who gleefully shouts at the girls, "Wanna see something gross?" Pathetic.
Eduardo Machado
Over at Parabasis (see bloglist), Isaac has published Eduardo Machado's impassioned speech at ART/NY a couple nights ago. George Hunka, who undoubtedly will respond more fully, has published his initial response that the speech is "much heat and little ligh" and after an initial reading, I see his point. It is a speech filled with angry questions and frustration. I guess there are times, though, when heat is more important than light. We need people to thrash around, to cause a stink, to shake things up within the theatre. We seem to have lost our sense of passion, and of fight -- the kind of passion that Harold Clurman had when night after night he exhorted the members of the Group Theatre to create a truly American theatre.
As I say, I've only read it through once, and quickly. I know that there are things in it that I disagree with, and I will probably quibble with him later. But they will be quibbles. My support will be for his willingness to get riled up.
As I say, I've only read it through once, and quickly. I know that there are things in it that I disagree with, and I will probably quibble with him later. But they will be quibbles. My support will be for his willingness to get riled up.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
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