At the pool here in Carrboro, watching the athletes register for their events for a Special Olympics day that my other sister, Morrow, is volunteering for, I was overwhelmed. I had intended to help the volunteer staff at the event in any way that I could, but was unneeded, and rather than sit in the muggy heat for 3 hours with a sense of dread and unease, I opted to come home instead. And now I sit here and I feel at a loss to the purpose of what I do.
When I was younger I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to change the lives of students. I envisioned myself standing before a classroom while rapt students looked up at me, absorbing information and asking questions of their world. While I realize that was a wholly unrealistic ideal of teaching, the fact of the matter was that I imagined I would be serving my community directly through teaching.
Instead, I fill my time by trying to create spectacle and entertainment for a small sliver of a community. Today I must resume work on Oklahoma!, a show that I would argue is pure drivel because it shows us nothing new in our world today. It does not make you think, it does not challenge your opinions, it just entertains and amuses you. And it was picked for the UNCG season specifically because it would be a money-maker, drawing in the "blue-hairs" and families that long for the Golden Age of Broadway to return. (Granted, I feel that the director for this piece is trying [and succeeding] in making this production relevant and challenging. But the bottom line is that Rogers and Hammerstein themselves admitted that they conceived the musical to hearken back to a brighter, happier time as America was facing the brutal reality of WWII.)
It is disheartening that in almost a decade spent in this profession of theatre that I find myself struggling to find meaning and purpose in an art form that has been the cradle of dissent and change in past times. One of my most important heroes is Hallie Flanagan who helped create the short-lived Federal Theatre Project. Her belief that theatre (and art) could be driven by the masses as well as be thought-provoking and dangerous ("Theatre, when it is good, is always dangerous," she said), is one of the things that has driven me further in my endeavor to work in this field. But the sad fact is that not many people are doing dangerous stuff anymore. True, there are companies that are working outside of the capitalistic, commercial frame-work, but they truly are the "not-for-profit" sector. Furthermore, they are often preaching to the choir because like-minded individuals are generally the people who make up their audiences.
So, what does this all mean? What, if anything, can I change in order to feel like I'm doing more than catering to the jaded and numb audiences? I'm not sure. Many people talk about the death of theatre in terms of the decline of audience numbers and the rise in the mean age of said declining(/dying) audience members. I feel like the death of theatre is in it becoming deadly. If, in an educational theatre, where the students are allowed to try something without the threat of eminent doom if they fail, the season selection committee can't push the envelope a little with their big-budget musical, what hope is there for theatre that can't afford to fail? I don't have the answer, but I do hope that as a theatre artist that I don't forget that I want to do what Hallie says: create the type of good theatre that is dangerous. Meanwhile, as I work on shows that feel useless and un-challenging like Oklahoma! I will dedicate my work to Kristin, whose simple, innocent outlook on life is enough for me to know there is a time and place for entertainment for entertainment's sake. I will design in the vein of the Golden Age of Broadway, pull out the stops in spectacle, and create an iconic surrey-with-the-fringe-on-top because I know that if Kristin where in the audience her joy and excitement would be all that matters in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment