What I Didn't Say

WHAT I DID NOT SAY

• That Allison and p'tit boo are capitalists, not "radicals." Perish the thought. I said that an attitude of "scarcity" underlies a capitalist viewpoint, and that an attitude of emotional scarcity -- that there is only so much understanding and sympathy to go around -- reflects this orientation. Nevertheless, p'tit boo has it exactly right: "how can we not come from a capitalist perspective ? That would be like you telling us we are coming from a human perspective.... Can we help it ?" Exactly. And exactly what I have been saying about the middle class as well, by the way. Of course, George might respond to you as he did to me: you are "refusing responsibility for the world in which [you] move [saying:] "we are victims, therefore our situation is beyond our control." This is a key quality of anyone who describes himself as a victim of forces outside his self." I don't think that is what you are saying, and it certainly is not what I am saying (see below). I think it is hard to argue that human beings are not affected by the environment in which they live -- not controlled by them, but affected by them. You can't be condemned for speaking English if you grew up in an English-speaking environment, but you can go out and learn Chinese if you want to. Which brings me to the next thing I did not say...
• That the middle class should be absolved of responsibility for the world's injustices. Creating straw men and then heroically knocking them down is one of George's favorite tactics lately, and I'm not certain what that is about. In this case, he shifts the focus from what I was writing about (the pain and frustration felt by the middle class, which deserves understanding, even respect) to what he is interested in: judgment and condemnation of unethical actions by members of the middle class. I am not an apologist for unethical behavior, crime, exploitation, and dishonesty by anyone. Those actions must be judged and condemned harshly. But unless you believe that millions and millions of people who make over a certain amount of money (and just what is that amount -- just more than what you make?) are all active criminals -- that the middle class is comprised of variations on the image of a "mid-level New York corporate lawyer who is finding a way around an FDA restriction for his drug-company client" (another Hunka straw man), this argument doesn't hold water. The fact is that most middle class people are working schlubs who push paper 40 hours a week, not Snidely Whiplashes exploiting the poor and the sick. They also run non-profits, teach young people, counsel the poor, lead churches, heal the sick, and run restaurants. They are being lumped together. I also did not say:
• That the theatre should be used as "a hankie for the well-intentioned tears of the rich." In fact, I said nothing about how plays should be written or performed, what they should be about, or anything about production at all. I was discussing the attitude of hostility and disdain toward the middle-class as human beings. This is about more than artists, this is about the world as a whole. The tendency to dehumanize groups of people in order to feel better about attacking them currently permeates every corner of the globe. The terrorists do it so they can blow themselves up killing innocent people, and the anti-terrorists do it so they can fire missiles into cities and bulldoze homes; the anarchists do it so they can smash windows and burn cars, the concervatives do it so they can exploit foreign workers and ruin the environment; the rich do it so they can feel good about their obscene incomes, the poor do it so they can feel good about robbing their neighbors; the white do it, the black do it; men do it, and women do it. If there was a global religion, it could be based on the creation and dehumanization of Others. It isn't any prettier when it is artists dehumanizing the middle class. We justify it on the basis on reciprocity: I did it to them, because they did it to me. p'tit boo denies hating and disrespecting anyone"purposely," but then says "And even if I did, well I am being disrespected and disregarded on a daily basis silently and passive agressively through the sexism," which I guess makes it alright. Goose-gander. There's another variation that leads to the same result. Allison writes, "Yes, of course all people, on an individual level, ought to be treated with respect for who they are, not whom they represent." [ital mine] But once there is more than one, apparently they are fair game for dehumanization and demonization. Or is there some point at which we reach critical mass for demonization? Under ten? Under 100 -- say, the capacity of an Off-Off Broadway theatre? Once it's Off-Broadway theatre, feel free to bash away? I don't understand how you can respect people one at a time, but disrespect them in groups. Seems hypocritical to me. Seems like it leads to comments like, "Some of my best friends are black" while simultaneously talking about "them damn niggers." And the final thing I did not say:
• That all pain is equal, that all victims are equally damaged. Obviously. In fact, I said this explicity, even giving it its own paragraph for emphasis: "I am not pleading for moral equivalence: the pain of the middle class is not the moral equivalent of the pain of the oppressed." But we are back to the first point: understanding and sympathy are not scarce resources -- they can be produced at will. p'tit boo agrees: "I don't believe there aren't resources to go around or that the pain of one person can be compared or takes away from the pain of another person." George also agrees: "Nowhere do [Allison and p'tit boo] suggest that the pain of individuals, whoever they are, of whatever class, is unworthy of assuagement." [Again, note the reference to "individuals."] But then there is this from Allison: "I wasn't saying that one should not feel empathy for the dilemmas of young people: I was saying that it is somewhat obscene, in this world where there are people who are unambiguously suffering, and especially when much of that suffering is caused by the economic structures that create our own privilege, to posit these privileged kids as "victims." Are we arguing about a word? Victim means: "One who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition." Not good enough? Pick another. They have been programmed, tested, categorized, and controlled. They have been tested in 8th grade and "tracked" for college, college tech, or labor -- in 8th grade!!! So pick your word. What would you call them? Privileged? And let's examine the word "obscene"? It is "obscene" to extend your sympathy widely? You'll have to explain how MORE understanding is better than LESS. Unless you think it runs out, and then we're back to the beginning.

Why Protect the Middle Class

Isaac asks a wonderful series of questions (getting to be a regular occurrence) that is prompting me to elaborate on my philosophy (which is one of the main reasons I decided to blog, by the way -- each challenge or even each misunderstanding makes me adjust and fine tune my ideas). So here is what he wrote in my comments box:

"Why for the love of god do you think the middle class needs protection? Why do you feel a need to stick up for us? We run the fucking world. We own it. Especially boomer generation middle class. The world exists to not only indulge their every whim and desire, but to tell them that they are entitled to that indulgence.I just don't get it. I don't understand why we should make ourselves feel good about this incredible waste of power and priviledge currently going on in the world. We have a criminally negligent society, and that criminal negligence extends to people's taste in art (they want art that makes them feel good about themselves, which is not always true in all cultures throughout time and can hardly be calleda particularly high purpose for art) and I don't understand the point in not pointing that out for fear that it'll make someone feel bad. Or offend them."

The short answer (which will be followed by the long answer) is this: because middle class "deadness" or "complacency" is the symptom, not the disease, and by attacking the middle class for displaying these symptoms, we are attacking the victims instead of the disease. Let me elaborate.

What is the disease? Late capitalism combined with scientific materialism. Scientific materialism, because its proponents have de-spiritualized the world, eliminating all sense of mystery, all connection between humanity and nature, leading to a deep sense of being cut off from anything that might imply meaning, purpose, or hope in the world; late capitalism, because it tells us that the hole in our hearts can be filled with expensive "stuff": bigger cars, bigger TVs, etc. These things must be paid for with money earned by spending more and more hours at work, and fewer and fewer hours with family, friends, or even alone reflecting. Also, Late Capitalism, through its mass media, tells us that the status quo cannot be changed.

The middle class are as much victims of this overpowering ideology as every other group in the world. Let me tell you a story. I sometimes teach a course on the Hero's Journey in Literature, Film, and Drama to incoming freshmen Honors students. These kids almost always are from upper-middle-class households in the suburbs. These kids tell me that, from the time they were in late elementary school, they are being groomed for college and a "good career." They are told to participate in extra-curricular activities not because they are interested, but because it will "look good on their resume" when they apply to college. They take classes not because the subjects interest them, but because the classes will look good on their college apps. When they finally head to college, they are pressured to major in something that will lead to a "good job," so that they don't "waste" their superior intellects. By the time they get to me, and I start talking about their lives as a hero's journey, and ask them what sorts of things really excite them, they stare at me, open-mouthed: they have been told what to do so long that they have never really asked themselves what they love, what makes them happy, what excites them.

These kids will do well in college, because that is what they have been trained to do. They will complete their education and get a good job that will allow them to live the life that their parents aspire to -- a comfortable life in the suburbs. But at night, they will lie in bed asking themselves, "Is that all there is?" And they will feel the hole in their hearts, and they will secretly dream of making a contribution to something larger than themselves, but they have been taught to be afraid -- to choose security over all things. As Lerner says, "They often turn to demands of more money as a compensation for a life that otherwise feels frustrating and empty." If they ever had any artistic leanings, they may become season subscribers to MTC or some other theatre, and they will arrive in their SUVs and eat in a nice restaurant before heading to the theatre. And you will all scorn them.

These people are victims whose souls have been oppressed by the Expectations of Late Capitalism. They have been locked up in spiritual prisons as strong and oppressive as the actual prisons that I teach in every Tuesday night. They are in pain, and they cover that pain up with what seems to be superficial laughter, but is actually a defense against despair. These people don't need to be attacked, they need to be encouraged to break out of their prison and follow their hearts. They need don't need to be told they are evil, but rather shown that it is possible to live without fear and to join something bigger than themselves. They need to be shown that there is fulfillment outside of "stuff." They have forgotten where their soul is.

So I am not saying that we should confirm them in their current way of life -- that would just add another padlock to the prison door. They might be shown, as Chekhov does, how tedious and boring their lives are as a starting point, but in such a way that a door is opened, not slammed shut. They need to be shown another life, one of imagination, of beauty, of risk, of contribution, perhaps of pain, but dignified pain, noble pain, pain with a purpose.

Encouraged thus, they might see that the "power and privilege" that they have can actually be used in a way that would contribute to the world, and fill the hole in their hearts at the same time. That it is an opportunity to fulfill themselves. They own everything, as Isaac says -- they can change things.

Many of them have been betrayed by the people they should have been able to trust: parents, teachers, friends, and they have believed what they shouldn't have: the mass media. And that betrayal is painful and damaging, and deserves understanding, if not sympathy. I think art should recognize this wound, rather than judge the behavior that results from it. Don't reinforce the old message, but create a new one. Do surgery to repair the wound, don't sneer at the bleeding.

Demonizing the Middle Class

It's been a busy couple of days, but when I finally find time to visit the blogosphere, I find George over at "Superfluities" bashing the middle-class again as a means of defending David Cote's review of Rabbit Hole by David Lindsey-Abaire. While I find myself, for once, on George's side as far as a reviewer's perogative to address not only the specifics of the production in front of him, but also the ideas and ramification of the play and production, I object to George's sneering at the middle-class in order to do it. He writes:

Ultimately, Mr. Cote's target, and he may not himself realize it (though I just suspect that he does), is the upper-middle-class suburban or suburban-minded community that the MTC attracts as its subscriber base, as its core audience, as the source of much of its private funding, and this is indeed a class question rather than a race or an age question. A complacent section of society, complacently feeling that art is doing its job when the audience "start[s] believing that the production in front of [it] is actually relevant, that [the play] is fiercely attacking [its] political, economic and moral assumptions."

Such an art, such plays, do no such thing: instead, they congratulate the audience on its perception of itself as open-minded, confirming that the great passions and pains of life, hemmed and hawed over for two hours in the confines of the Biltmore Theatre, are best and safely contemplated as a form of genial entertainment. That this theater is an economically and socially elite entertainment only serves as a further form of self-congratulation: I applaud Cynthia Nixon's portrayal of sadness, therefore I am compassionate and thoughtful, unlike those other yobbos at home watching American Idol. It is a closed round of self-approbation, this sort of theater. Its audience, contrary to its own belief, is not open-minded. Open-mindedness is not a characteristic of the spiritually but conceitedly dead.

The results of this complacency can be seen in the culture all around us, in our politics, in our schools, in our personal lives. In an odd way, this is no longer a culture of dynamic self-invention but deadly self-completion, exchanging the motion of the spirit for the security of the body and the bank account. We become complacent in our lives and bodies, feeling that we know it all and that, having achieved material and personal goals, we need no longer to change. More points for us; we are winning the game. We have, bizarrely, proved on the individual level that we are just as capable of internalizing and neutralizing rebellions, rebellions against our own limitations and the strictures of conformity, as the modern democratic society. We have set the system up, we have constructed a self that we can pay for with our jobs: all we need do is wait, then, until we pass on, expressing our discomforts to our therapists and watching them onstage, of no importance except as a bump on a relatively smooth road to the grave.

George's characterization drove me to the writing of another George, this one with the surname Orwell. In his essay entitled "Notes on Nationalism," Orwell writes: "By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’." Class feelings, which Orwell cites as an example of "transferred nationalism," exists "among upper-class and middle-class intellectuals, only in the transposed form—i.e. as a belief in the superiority of the proletariat. Here again, inside the intelligentsia, the pressure of public opinion is overwhelming. Nationalistic loyalty towards the proletariat, and most vicious theoretical hatred of the bourgeoisie, can and often do co-exist with ordinary snobbishness in everyday life." I don't know if George promotes the proletariat -- he may think that only the intelligentsia is worth a damn, when all is said and done -- but I think the rest of the quotation applies. In a footnote, Orwell continues: "Nations, and even vaguer entities such as Catholic Church or the proleteriat, are commonly thought of as individuals and often referred to as ‘she’. Patently absurd remarks such as ‘Germany is naturally treacherous’ are to be found in any newspaper one opens and reckless generalization about national character (‘The Spaniard is a natural aristocrat’ or ‘Every Englishman is a hypocrite’) are uttered by almost everyone. Intermittently these generalizations are seen to be unfounded, but the habit of making them persists, and people of professedly international outlook, e.g., Tolstoy or Bernard Shaw, are often guilty of them."

So are we all, sometimes, and we need to be called on it when we do it. You can't talk about ideas without generalizing to some extent. But flat stereotypes used as straw men in an argument does a disservice not noly to those who are being stereotypes, but also to one's own ideas. Here's a rule of thumb I go by: if you substitute "African-American" or "Jewish" for the the name of whatever group you are bashing, and it is offensive, then you need to rethink. This is why I try to avoid, for instance, talking about Republicans as a group -- I'd rather deal with specific ideas. Creating an Other of any kind, in my opinion, is rarely a good idea.

As far as the middle class is concerned, in The Politics of Meaning, Michael Lerner writes about a sociological study he participated in San Francisco “to better understand the psychodynamics of middle-income working people." He wrote:

"What we learned from the thousands of people who participated in these groups challenged many of the beliefs that prevailed among us, and, more generally, in the liberal culture from which we researchers had come. We had thought of ourselves as psychologically sophisticated when we started this work, but we quickly learned that our assumptions about middle-income Americans were mistaken, prejudiced, and elitist. For example, most of us imagined that most Americans were motivated primarily by material self-interest. So we were surprised to discover that these middle Americans often experience more stress from feeling that they are wasting their lives doing meaningless work than from feeling that they are not making enough money. We found middle-income people deeply unhappy because they hunger to serve the common good and contribute to something with their talents and energies, yet find their work gives them little opportunity to do so. They often turn to demands of more money as a compensation for a life that otherwise feels frustrating and empty. In the Left and among many academics it has been almost a rule of reason to believe that what people really care about is their own material well-being, and that believing anything else is just some kind of populist romanticization. But we uncovered a far deeper desire -- the desire to have meaningful work, work that people believe would contribute to some higher purpose than self-advancement." [ital mine]

Perhaps when one feels like bashing the so-called "middle-class," one might instead instead substitute for "middle class" the name of someone one knows and care about who is middle-class -- say, one's parents or in-laws -- and then decide whether the picture being painted is nuanced, fair, and complex.

I think there are better ways to defend ideas than demonizing millions.

Education of the Artist

Isaac over at Parabasis (see blogroll) responded to my post entitled "Baffled" with the following questions, which I didn't want to address too quickly or glibly. He wrote:

"This little post has actually provoked me to ask you several questions... and I don't mean the rhetorically, I honestly want to know what you think:
1) Do you think you can teach someone to be a playwright?
2) Do you think academicizing theater has been, on the whole, good?"

I'm afraid I don't know much about the teaching of playwriting specifically -- in an early division of labor, that course ended up in the Lit Department rather than in Drama, and no other program I've been in had playwriting, either. Nevertheless, I think my general attitudes about theatre education are at least somewhat applicable. I have only taught in an undergraduate program, but I have been educated in an MFA program (at Illinois State University) as well as a doctoral program (City University of New York Graduate Center).

First, let me say this: I have serious qualms about undergraduate BFAs and conservatory program. I think the intense focus on theatre, and on the acquisition of technique, prior to receiving a broader education of the mind and heart is a disservice to the young artist. I think all artists, even "interpretive" artists, need to have a wide knowledge of the world and of themselves before their focus narrows. In addition, I think BFA programs and conservatories, even more than other undergrad theatre programs, are focused too much on the status quo. They tend to "train" student to fit in as smoothly as possible to the way things are done today, and anyone who has read this blog knows that I don't believe that our current way of producing and creating theatre is sustainable. In short, I think these young artists are being trained for a vanishing theatre -- like students being trained in card punch computer technology...

That said, when I look around at most non-BFA/conservatory undergraduate theatre curricula, I don't see much difference from BFA/conservatory programs -- and I include my own department in this assessment. They are, for the most part, BFA-Lite. The focus is on "training," not education, and they are equally focused on preparing students to fit into the current theatre, not creating the next. In every department, the courses and approaches are almost identical: Stanislavski-based techniques that build from personal exploration to improv to scene study to "styles;" a couple theatre history courses; intro to technical theatre; maybe a play analysis course, although not consistently -- we tend to train students to rely on the director's analysis skills, rather than develop their own ideas that might lead them to have an idea of their own and so not be malleable. Most undergraduate drama departments are little more than play clubs, where the emphasis is placed on production, and education comes a distant second -- or third or fourth. Of course, general education and non-major courses are things to be gotten "out of the way."

To a large degree, I tend to agree with Tony Kushner who, in his 1997 keynote speech to the Association for Theatre in Higher Education that was published in the January 1998 American Theatre as "A Modest Proposal": "we should abolish all undergraduate art majors." He goes on: "any college or university worth its salt tell its undergraduate students that henceforth they cannot major in theatre, the visual arts, writing, filmmaking, photography or musical composition....[and instead] must prepare to spend the next four years of their lives in the Purgatory of the Liberal Arts."

This speech (which is a good example of an artist provoking the audience, since the audience was comprised of college teachers most of whom teach in undergraduate arts departments) deserves to be quoted more extensively, and to receive a wider circulation. I was in the audience when he delievered it, and aside from a few chortles ("Oh, that crazy Tony" kind of stuff), it caused nary a ripple. I guess drama professors are simultaneously unable to be shocked or consider an alternative -- which, now that I think about it, goes together. Anyway, more Kushner: "Education, as opposed to training, I think, addresses not what you do, or will do, or will be able to do in the world. Education addresses who you are, or will be, or will be able to be." To me, this is his most inspiring idea, and one which gets little attention in academe. Taechers conceive of themselves as purveyors of "content" and "skills," and we leave the exploration of self to happen on its own in late-night, beer-soaked musings known popularly as "bull sessions." But aren't these questions, questions of self and self-in-the-world, truly what a young artist should be considering? So that when they arrive in the world ready to create theatre, they might have a sense of what is important in their art and the art they are interpreting.

He goes on: "The vocationalization of the liberal arts undergraduate education echoes the loss in the world at large of interest in the grand dialectic of life, in all dialectics, in breadth, in depth, in thinking as a necessary luxury, in the Utopian. The vocationalization of undergraduate education is, I think, akin to all sorts of social malaises, all of which commenced or burgeoned simultaneously with the death of Utopia as a place about which serious adults devote serious thought; and its replacement by corporate-sponsored Never-Never Land, a place in the name of which Peter Pans and Inner Children, instead of reading, devote serious shopping time....

ENTIRELY TOO MUCH TIME HAS passed without sounding my keynote: We should abolish all undergraduate art majors. I travel around the country doing lectures--after tonight I expect the invitations to dry up--and I am generally tremendously impressed with the students I meet and talk with, and generally unimpressed with what they know, and among these impressive and impressively undereducated students the worst, I am sorry to say, are the arts majors. And it isn't simply that they seem remarkably non-conversant with the pillars of Western thought, with the political struggles of the day, with what has been written up in the morning's paper--these arts majors know shockingly little about the arts. Forget literature. How many theater majors do you know who could tell you, at the drop of a hat, which plays are by Aeschylus, which by Sophocles and which by Euripides? Or the dates of any of those writers? How many undergraduate playwriting majors, for instance, know even a single sentence of ancient Greek, just to have the sound of it in their ears and the feel of it in their mouths? How many really know what iambic pentameter is? How about alexandrines? How about who wrote what in alexandrines? How many know the names of a single Chinese playwright, or play? Or of more than one or two African playwrights? How many have read Heiner Miller? Suzan-Lori Parks? How many have read more than one play by either of these writers? How many have never heard of them? How many know who Lessing was, or why we should care? How many have read, I mean really read and absorbed, The Poetics? The Short Organum?

And even if your students can tell you what iambic pentameter is and can tell you why anyone who ever sets foot on any stage in the known universe should know the answer to that and should be able to scan a line of pentameter in their sleep, how many think that "materialism" means that you own too many clothes, and "idealism" means that you volunteer to work in a soup kitchen? And why should we care? When I first started teaching at NYU, I also did a class at Columbia College, and none of my students, graduate or undergraduate (and almost all the graduate students were undergraduate arts majors--and for the past 10 years Columbia has had undergraduate arts majors), none of them, at NYU or Columbia, knew what I might mean by the idealism/materialism split in Western thought. I was so alarmed that I called a philosophy teacher friend of mine to ask her if something had happened while I was off in rehearsal, if the idealism/materialism split had become passe. She responded that it had been deconstructed, of course, but it's still useful, especially for any sort of political philosophy. By not having even a nodding acquaintance with the tradition I refer to, I submit that my students are incapable of really understanding anything written for the stage in the West, and for that matter in much of the rest of the world, just as they are incapable of reading Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Kristeva, Judith Butler and a huge amount of literature and poetry. They have, in essence, been excluded from some of the best their civilization has produced, and are terribly susceptible, I would submit, to the worst it has to offer.

WHAT I WOULD HOPE YOU MIGHT consider doing is tricking your undergraduate arts major students. Let them think they've arrived for vocational training and then pull a switcheroo. Instead of doing improv rehearsals, make them read The Death of Ivan Illych and find some reason why this was necessary in learning improv. They're gullible and adoring; they'll believe you. And then at least you'll know that when you die and go to the judgment seat you can say "But I made 20 kids read Tolstoy!" and this, I believe, will count much to your credit. And if you are anything like me, you'll need all the credits you can cadge together."

I know that quoting Kushner so extensively is rather a cheat, since Isaac asked what I think, and I am, in essence, saying "What he said." Nevertheless, I think Kushner is on to something important. If arts departments were focused on the developing of artists, as opposed to the development of craftsmen or interchangeable cogs for the theatrical mill, I think they would make a real contribution to an American theatrical renaissance. As it is, I think we contribute to its diminishment. O'Neill, following the model of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, had an epiphany and decided to become a playwright while in a sanitarium reading philosophy and the plays of modern European experiment. When he began writing, he had something to say.

In the January 06 American Theatre, Eric Booth, founding editor of the quarterly Teaching Artist Journal and author of The Everyday Work of Art, and head of the Julliard School’s Faculty and Professional Mentoring program is quoted as saying:

“The longer students stay in a conservatory the narrower their definition of life in the arts becomes. Julliard’s president, Joseph William Polisi, noticed, as he traveled around, that many graduates were not leading full, juicy lives. He began to feel responsible for too many graduates who were thinking that a life in the arts is only about technique and gigs. Faculty members weren’t be encouraged to send graduates out there to explore other art forms or ask big questions. We weren’t modeling the very life we wanted them to lead.”

He goes on: “The old assumption is that you follow a path of training – and when you graduate, you are an entry-level artist whose career will build to larger roles that create a good life, which leads to an advanced and more financially rewarding place in that field. The fact is that fewer than 10 percent of graduates of conservatories have careers that look like that. Ninety percent will be piecing it together in some different way: working in other fields, originating work, collaborating with artists of other fields, starting theatre companies and launching business endeavors. We need to model the way for students and young artists to think and be joyful and make meaning of this hodgepodge that is a contemporary career. We’re good at rehearsing Shakespeare scenes and improvising the hell out of awkward situations. But we’re not so sensitive to training inner skills that will make a sustainable creative life in the theatre.”

And again, I say: ditto, except I think it extends to all arts majors, not just those in conservatories. If we, as teachers in drama programs, focused on creating artists, and I mean artists prepared to confront the type of career that Booth describes for the "other 90%," I think we would be doing the theatre a favor. The development of virtuosity is something that should occur after the development of a soul, a mind, a heart, and an imagination.

Isaac, I hope that at least partly answers your questions. It pertains as much to playwrights as it does to actors, directors, designers, and secondary school teachers. These are opinions that, as the non-response of the ATHE crowd exemplifies, will probably not be heard much less accepted. Most teachers have come up through the ranks of MFA programs, which focus totally on "training," and understandably they think that is how they should teach. The demands on a theatre teacher are heavyt enough that, once hired, there is rarely time to reflect on what you do and why -- you hit the ground running, and keep on running until you retire.

But if we could conceive differently what educating an artist should be, I think wonders would happen.

"Can't Touch This"

Don Hall, over at "An Angry White Guy in Chicago" (see blogroll), in a section of a post entitled "Critique the Critique," chides Chicago Sun-Times theatre critic Hedi Weiss for her review of "A Child's History of Bombing" because she takes issue with what the play says. "In other words," Hall writes, "she criticizes the play, not for the acting, the set design, the quality of the written text, but because she disagrees with the point Allen and Sherman are making. She turns her review into an OpEd on those who would criticize war in general rather than just the wars she dislikes. This type of critique goes to heart of Scott's treatise on An Ethics of Theatre but focuses upon the role of the arts journalist in the equation of In-Yer-Face type topics. When the critic of a major newspaper turns a theater review into a political OpEd it no longer serves the art but blurs the line between responsible arts journalism and punditry."

I respectfully (and perhaps predictably) disagree that the content of a play should be ignored. What if there was a well-acted, beautifully-designed, stunningly-directed production of a brilliantly-written play that was a racist diatribe -- would it be OK to simply ignore the fact that the play was about something, to not condemn the content of the play? So many theatre people seem to expect critics to remain mired in the formalist New Criticism of the 1950s, which examined poems and novels as if they existed in a vacuum with no social, political, or psychological context. It is as if, when I was grading a student essay, I only graded on the font choice, paragraph layout, ink color, and quality of paper, but not what the essay was about.

A play is not simply a form on a stage -- a work of art in the theatre says something, and that is as much a part of the production as the interpretation. In my labyrinthan mind, this connects to the current expressions of opinion concerning the Muslim protests of the Danish cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed. Isaac over at Parbasis (see blogroll) states an opinion that it is difficult to argue with: "I am staunchly for the freedom of expression, and that comics are art and art should be protected." Hear! Hear! Me too! Me too! By all means artists should be free to say what they think, but that is not the same as saying that people who view the art should not be allowed to react to it, to protest it with vigor.

For some reason, artists think that they should be given a free pass -- they can confront people, provoke people, make people "uncomfortable," invade their space, grab them by the scruff of the neck and shake them, but they expect that people should just shut up and accept the assault quietly and passively. Artists can hand out the assaults, but scream like babies when they are assaulted themselves. Yes, the Danish cartoonist should be allowed self-expression, and so should Muslims. To expect them to simply look the other way when their prophet is attacked is unreasonable. The same is true of the Christian reaction to Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi . That said, the form these protests have taken should be strongly condemned -- violence, or the threat of violence, is never an acceptable reaction to a work of art. However, non-violent protests should be seen as acceptable, and perhaps even welcome -- they might be seen as proof that the artist has succeeded in his goal of provocation. What's the point of provoking if everybody remains unprovoked? But to be surprised that there should be a negative reaction at all is naive.

If your slogan as an artist is "Sacred cows make the best burgers," then you should expect to get gored by a bull now and then. It is part of the game you've chosen to play. If you see your role as an artist being to provoke, then don't be surprised when people are outraged and let you know it. And don't whine when they take actions that provoke you. Goose, gander.

Baffled

A couple days ago, a student in my Modern Drama class stopped me in the hall:

STUDENT: Do you teach a play analysis class?
ME: Yes.
STUDENT: Do you teach a playwriting class?
ME: No, that is taught in the Literature Dept.
STUDENT: I write plays -- which do you think it would be better for me to take: a play analysis class, or a playwriting class?
ME: Well, I would say a playwriting class would be better, since a play analysis class sometimes can feel constraining to somebody who is trying to create, as opposed to analyze.
STUDENT: Hmmm. I've already written a play, so I already know how to write plays, but maybe that is what I should do. I saw a production of "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," and I was very influenced. I want to grow up to be David Mamet. I try to make my plays as offensive as possible. I take people I know and alter their personalities so that they are as ugly as possible. I HATE my characters!

I excused myself: I was late for a meeting, and couldn't stay to talk. But as I walked away, I was mortified: she's written a play, so she "knows how to do that." And she is trying to make her plays "as offensive as possible," filled with characters she hates. And the question that keeps going through my mind: how does this happen? How do these attitudes develop in kids so young?

An Ethics of Theatre

Yesterday, I was one of 18 people reading from the works of African-American authors as part of the 17th National African-American Read-In Chain. As I sat there listening to each person, it occurred to me that here was an example of the kind of artist-audience relationship I have been speaking about. We were in a meeting space that was comfortable, with a fire burning in the fireplace behind the speakers. There was a small spread of food provided that we all snacked from, and before the reading we talked together in small groups. The readings were inspiring, because each person chose a piece that meant something to them, and explained that connection. There were some harsh and ugly things read, things that made me, as a white person, feel uncomfortable in my skin. That was good. (Contrary to popular interpretation, I am not against feeling uncomfortable.) And there were some things that made my heart want to sing. That was good, too.

The thing that struck me, though, was that no matter how harsh the words were, the overall attitude was open, giving. The people had come to share something important to them, and those who were listening were open to hearing it. I could fully open my heart and listen to what was being said, because I didn't have to worry about being ambushed, objectified, and attacked. Those in the hall knew me, and respected my humanity. They weren't going to grab me by the scruff of the neck and yell in my face. Because it was a safe space, and I trusted those who were there, I could experience more powerfully the pain and the joys that were presented to me. I didn't have to be guarded, my defenses up. I knew the spirit in which the readings were offered. I could try to understand, rather than just react. Or duck.


Several of you have taken me to task for not talking about specific plays that are considered In-Yer-Face Theatre. I was not reacting to the plays themselves, but rather Sierz's theorizing of a new "style," in the same way that many, many critics responded to Martin Esslin's "creation" of the Theatre of the Absurd. When I read his website, I perceived a certain glee about the prospect of grabbing the audience by the scruff of the neck, forcing them to see things they didn't want to see, and invading their space. It is the nasty attitude that Sierz displays toward the audience that disturbs me, and that I have called adolescent.

I am not suggesting, when I condemn such an attitude, that artists and audiences come together to make cookies. I appreciate, for instance, the plays of Franz Xaver Kroetz. In his plays, "onstage, characters take showers, use the toilet, eat meals, wash dishes, shop, picnic, make love, work, and tell dirty jokes. Of this early work, his most successful play is probably Farmyard which tells the story of a love affair between a retarded teenage girl and a farm worker four times her age." But Kroetz, it seems to me, empathizes with his characters, and doesn't use them as projectiles to be hurled into the audience's face. The audience may be uncomfortable and disturbed, but I think it isn't the purpose of his writing but a side-effect. I might react to the work of Sarah Kane in the same way, I don't know -- I need to get a copy of her plays.

Sierz, unlike Kroetz (and perhaps Kane), seems to get off on transgression as an end in itself. His writing on the website, it seems to me, has the excited quality of someone who has just set a bag oif shit on fire on his hated teacher's doorstep. Your mileage may differ, but that's what I felt when I read the website.

Rousseau, in Emile (I think), wrote when talking about educating a young person: "Let him see, let him feel the human calamities. Unsettle and frighten his imagination with the perils by which every human being is constantly surrounded. Let him see around him all these abysses, and hearing you describe the, hold on to you for fear of falling into them." [ital mine.] My sense was that Siertz would not only show the audience the abysses, but throw them into it to boot!

Matha Nussbaum, in her marvelous book Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, writes with approval about Wayne Booth's book The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. She writes: "Booth proposes a valuable metaphor for the interaction of reader with a literary work. A literary work, he writes, is, during the time one reads it, a friend with whom one has chosen to spend one's time. The question now is, what does this friendship do to my mind? What does this new friend ask me to notice, to desire, to care about? How does he or she invite me to view my fellow human beings? Some novels, he argues, promote a cheap cynicism about human beings and lead us to see our fellow citizens with disdain. Some lead us to cultivate cheap sensationalistic forms of pleasure and excitement that debase human dignity. Others, by contrast, show what might be called respect before a soul -- in the way the text itself depicts the variety of human goals and motives, and also, it may be, in the interaction among the characters it displays."

What I call for is the artist to respect the soul of his friend, the theatre spectator, and to avoid creating art that debases human dignity and promotes a cheap cynicism, both on and off the stage. My anger toward Siertz, admittedly a bit extreme, was based in a sense that he didn't respect the soul of the spectator, only the soul of the artist.