Response to Steve Julian: A View from a Primitive
Kevin Delin | Aug 20, 2012 | Comments 7 |
In a recent editorial, playwright Steve Julian makes the bold claim that live theater in Los Angeles is in trouble because today’s audience is desensitized. The thesis goes something like this: Back in the “golden age” – pre-television – it was far easier to show the audience something new. With news stories now bathing us in all manners of real-life topics on a continual basis, the artist, like Alexander the Great before him, has no lands left to conquer.
Let me start off by saying that, at best, I’m an art primitive. I can claim no degree, advanced or otherwise, in theater, drama, painting, or any other manner of the formal creative arts. I am your average art patron: I receive things through the prism of my own experience. Hell, I spell “theater” with an “er”.
And so, as a primitive, Mr. Julian’s argument doesn’t ring true for me. Desensitized? If shocking the audience is the key to exciting art, we’ve reduced art to a roller coaster ride. And while such “art” might gain notoriety overnight, it is hardly of lasting value.
Recently I saw Incident at Vichy, a lesser known work from Arthur Miller. The play is about how humans are quickly divided among themselves in the face of authority, mostly due to fear. Written in 1964, it closed after only 32 performances. Apparently contemporary audiences didn’t see this as a major play. Nevertheless, I felt it was an outstanding piece of theater (and though it doesn’t mean I’m correct, the LA Times gave it a “Critic’s Choice” label). Here is an old play, about topics long since thoroughly discussed by psychologists in the popular media (most people are at least vaguely aware of Stanley Milgrim’s “shock experiment” or Phillip Zimbardo’s “Stanford prison experiment”), and yet I was blown away by the production – “not wanting to leave my seat after the show” in Mr. Julian’s parlance. And curiously, this reaction was to a play that was not well-received in its time.
How could I have been taught something new, by a nearly 50-year-old play on topics already scientifically studied? Well, that is the mystery of truly great art. Desensitization has nothing to do with it. In fact, our culture has gone backwards in many respects. We like to think of ourselves as progressively more open-minded, marching monotonically in one grand upward direction — and yet here is something that was on national television almost 40 years ago:
Edith Bunker: I think he’s right, Archie. Like, you haven’t said the word “coon” in almost a year.
Archie Bunker: What are you talking about? I say it everyday.
Mike Stivic: You haven’t said it in front of us.
Archie Bunker: Alright then: Coon! Coon! Coon! You wanted it, you got it.
Think you could get that kind of language on network television today? You can’t even find reference to the “n-word” without calling it the “n-word”.
Audiences currently desensitized? This primitive thinks not. There are plenty of topics and methods to shock and titillate today’s art patron.
We must dig deeper. Perhaps part of the problem is hinted at in Mr. Julian’s piece itself. In it, he uses the word “theatre”.
Archie Bunker might call that a “fag-word” (did I shock you?), but let me be more polite and call it an “elitist word”. We don’t write “colour”, “metre”, or “Alexandre”… so what’s up with “theatre”? Is it a way to show the specialness of the art? To make it more important? To make the audience stand up and notice? To make it an event they must prepare for? Like a school assignment?
And we wonder why people might not be enthused about theater?
The pennilings in Shakespeare’s time didn’t go to the theater to ennoble themselves. They went for a good time. People didn’t watch All in the Family to be shocked. They watched to be entertained. And Angelenos should be able to go see a live production without feeling they are stepping into a “theatre”. We don’t call film projection auditoriums “movie theatres” after all. And yet some of our greatest cultural works have played in them.
The first thing a quality piece of work must do is engage its audience. And theater for theatre’s sake may not be the best way to start. To opine that live theater is in trouble because the audience is numb shifts the burden away from the artist. Perhaps we should begin by keeping it entertaining – for the audience. Including the primitives.
Wouldn’t that be shocking?
Filed Under: Featured • kevin delin • Ponderings
About the Author: Kevin Delin took a few writing courses (among other things) at MIT from playwright A.R. Gurney and author Frank Conroy. Unable to convince backers to turn his textbook, Foundations of Applied Superconductivity, into the Broadway spectacular it deserved to be, he let his id run amuck and wrote Heat & Hostility instead. With an immodest plot about immodest gender relations, the play was an immodest success: the police never raided the theater. The last mentionable thing he did in a theater (besides seeing a play) was participate in Hollywood Fringe 2012 as both a writer and director in Theatre Unleashed’s 24-Hour production. You can follow him on Twitter @KDelin.
Right on. I lost the fight in my founder’s meeting between theater and theatre. Fetishizing the British gives American theater an inferiority complex.
I am so sick of theatre vs theater arguments.
People don’t use re because they fetishize the Brits. They use is because they think it is an appropriate use of the word. And, wait for it, it is.
There is a camp who thinks re refers to theatre the art and use er to refer to a theater building. Who cares? They are both acceptable to people except those who love semantic arguments.
People support quality art. That is the conversation we should be having. Why aren’t more people supporting theater(re)? Because there isn’t enough good work being done, not because theatre is spelled the way the British spell it. You bring somebody to see a well done play and they are more likely to come back to see more. You bring them to a shoddy produced/acted/written/directed play and they are more likely to go to a movie next time.
His point being that not everyone defines ‘good’ or ‘well done’ exactly the same, and that many folks who consider themselves aficionados may ignore the bored pleb to their left and say he doesn’t ‘get it’ and doesn’t appreciate the theatre.
You know what I’m sick of? All these hand wringing articles about how no one goes to the theater ‘anymore’ and that ‘not enough good work is being done.’ Thats bullshit. Tons of people go to the theater. I see them every weekend. Is it the same number as sees movies or football games, no, but so what? Technology has a habit of eroding traditional media and pushing it toward niche applications. It’s not the end of the world, you just have to adjust and give people something unique that they can’t get from cinema or TV. And if you think that isn’t already being accomplished by tons of LA companies every week, you’re not seeing enough theater.
I know there isn’t enough good work being done because I see so many plays in Los Angeles. Over the past three years I’ve averaged about 50/year. And that is, obviously, a matter of opinion. It happens to be mine. It’s not bullshit. I’m also not speaking in absolute terms, either. I’m not saying there is no good work being done. I’m saying there isn’t enough.
It’s an interesting idea to say that “People support quality art.” Van Gogh sold exactly 1 painting in his lifetime. And in my essay, I talk specifically about the Arthur Miller play, “Incident at Vichy” which closed after only 32 performances. I think it’s a quality play. Your mileage may vary. For what it’s worth, you can still check it out at the Sierra Madre Playhouse for another few weeks. (Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with that production or theater whatsoever.)
Thanks for the comments, gentlemen.
Like Brian, I too see 50-75 shows per year, read scripts, and interview actors, directors and playwrights. I cried both times I saw Culture Clash’s AMERICAN NIGHT (Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the KDT). I cried the time I saw THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL at the Fountain. I’m not entirely jaded.
My point is that, as David J confirms, there’s a lot of theater happening in LA. Given what I have seen of it, not every piece breaks ground. Not half, at least for me. Fewer still keep me in my seat when the lights come up. That isn’t my judgment; it is my reaction.
I went back and read my article again. Kevin, I believe it’s a stretch to interpret it as suggesting that I want to shock the audience. (You write, “If shocking the audience is the key to exciting art, we’ve reduced art to a roller coaster ride.”)
Art IS a roller coaster ride because it can anger us, thrill us or, if it fails, bore us. It does not take shocking content to do so. My challenge as a playwright is to look for a new way of saying the obvious so it becomes an awakening to some. Or as a director, showing the story in a way that someone may find illuminating.
That’s my point: how can we as writers, directors and producers, the ones who create the content, leave someone in their seat when their row has cleared out? That isn’t putting the onus on the audience; it’s accepting responsibility.
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. More than anything, I appreciate keeping the conversation on how we can create better theater, which, by the way,I spelled with an ‘er’ and not an ‘re’ because that’s how we do it at LA STAGE Times. Their rule? A company’s name that’s ‘re’ is kept ‘re’ while the genre in which we take in a story is ‘er’. Hopefully that’s TMI.
We at Sierra Madre Playhouse thank Mr. Delin for his nice comments about Incident at Vichy. His observations are accurate: We often see people sitting silent in their seats after the lights come on, or leaving the theater wiping their eyes.
But Mr. Julian has a point. One need only look at the top grossing films of the week to see the things that appeal to today’s audiences: explosions, bodies flying, winged monsters, morphing transformers, more explosions, train crashes, car crashes, and extreme sports, all at 120dB+ sound levels. That audience is not likely to appreciate live theatre, at least not until they have mellowed some.
The worrisome thing is that the boomers don’t seem to be following their parents in discovering the magic of live theatre. If we can just get them into a theater where there are no microphones, where 3D doesn’t require glasses, where you can tell the color of the actor’s eyes and feel the vibrations as they stride the stage…..