Its how you look at the thing OR an open letter to the blogosphere

Last night two friends went out to see a play. They did not see the same play. Rather they each saw two different plays. One, was a fairly large and well produced 'Classic' by a reputable mid-size regional theatre. The other was a no-budget, comparatively new work, by an unpublished playwright in the basement of a pizza parlor. Their reaction could not have been more different than the plays themselves.

The friend who had gone to see Shakespeare left mad. Not just disappointed, but physically angry. Angry that he had sat through bad theatre. Angry because it had been praised as "clever" and "innovative" and it was not. Angry because an audience who read the review would go and see the play, be bored and think they either did not like Shakespeare or they did not like theatre. Thus being more hesitant the next time around in considering a ticket purchase. The frustration and anger is certainly justified in light of an aspiring theatre professional who cares passionately about the art form.

The other friend was part of an audience of perhaps fifteen people. He drank his beer throughout the performance and laughed along with all of his fellow audience members, who left the theatre feeling fully satisfied for having seen a powerful performer on stage speaking and acting the words he had written in a dramatically compelling way. He left the theatre happy and filled again with the sense that theatre can engender a strong and vital direct experience. He felt assured that the medium was healthy and would do fine.

Now, there are any number of reactions one could draw from these experiences. I will only focus on a few. A popular one with many an aspiring artist would be to take the example of the first play as 'proof' of the corruption of commercial art. How the work gets watered down and destroyed when taken to that level. That the only way of creating vital work is in a small setting with limited audience. The regional theatre movement, and certainly commercial theatre, is dead and deadly. It kills the potential behind the work and serves only to make cookie cutter productions for a subscription audience who for some reason wish to pay to be bored.

Ok.

Another way of looking at this situation sees nothing but potential. There is good strong new work being created every day. That theatre is a living and vital art form, continually evolving and recreating itself anew. That while the smaller show may not have had the fullest of resources or the fullest of audiences it was none the less a strong and vital experience. The regional theatre show proves that if powerful strong work can be created and placed within its mechanics, then the resources are there to get a large and paying audience out to see the work. That the resources exist to design a world for the play that brings it alive in newer and even more vital ways.

Well then.

Which is true?

Over at Matt Freeman's blog there is a rather silly argument going on in the comments section. Matt asks about impressions of the Summer Play Festival. One anonymous commenter keeps harping on the fact that it is flawed because the writers showcased there have written works that have received staged readings. Now, for the record, SPF does not say anywhere that I could find that it only accepts work by people who have never had their work shown in any fashion. Rather it says it creates a venue for emerging artists to get their work produced.

Somehow, I see these two issues as related. While one is dismay at an art form with a great deal of potential and the other is a kind of sour grapes by someone who I assume did not get accepted into the festival, they both point to a kind of pessimism towards the work. There is a lot of bad and unfortunate work out there.

That is a fact.

But there is also a lot of good work. And there is a lot of potential. A lot of the off-off-Broadway work is horrible. Truly horrible plays produced by actors in a literal sense equity's "vanity showcase." I have seen a lot. I actually stopped seeing off-off-B'way plays for a while because I had seen so much crap. Does this mean there is no good work? Certainly not. There is quite a lot of good work going on in theatre on the fringe. But like the Fringe Festival, while there might be some good works, there is a lot of bad fringe theatre as well. There is a lot of really good and vital regional theatre out there as well. If you don't believe me ask my friend Matthew.

What baffles me is the amount of energy people will expend justifying off-off-B'way theatre, rather than just making good work. Why complain? The surest way to prove wrong that theatre is dead is to make work that is alive. I don't care if I am designing for a 60 seat black box or a 700 Seat Opera or a small regional theatre. What I care about is that I am doing my best work.

We can sit around complaining. That is easy. We can spend all our effort justifying the existence of Off-Off-Broadway or we can do something:

Every generation recognizes the same problem. Every generation comes to the same wall.

Most generations divide into two camps. One camp recognizes the wall, measures it, and begins to climb it. Some may actually get over to the other side, who knows? Most of the first camp, however, settle on finding a position somewhere on the wall and begin to jealously guard it.

The other camp, standing at the wall, not climbing, divides as well. Half spend their lives standing at the foot of the wall, shaking their fists and shouting. The other half grows bored and walks away.

That's what most generations do, upon finding themselves at the wall.

The exceptional generations, the historical generations, tear down the fucking wall.

If your play gets rejected, write a better play. If the theatre you want to work at sets up certain requirements, go meet those requirements.

Me, I want to work in Europe. Do I spend my time in cafes bitching with my American friends about the miserable state of theatre? Yes. But I am also out there doing my best work and plotting schemes. Because I don't have any interest in fighting over scraps. My vision is too big to sit around camp at the base of the wall. And I am impatient. Who's with me?