(Sidenote: I was going to post this as a comment on Eric’s post, but then it got long and I decided to make it my own post. A review of his post, if you will.)

Some great questions, points, musings… But the “edification of the artists involved” part I question. At the New York Times, there is an ombudsman (yes, he’s a man), and he is the person who speaks for the readers (ie, the audience) - not for the paper. Speaking for the paper (ie, the artists) would be the editors in their editorials (like the Artistic Directors in our letters and director’s notes to audience). So the way I understand it, an ombuds for a theatre would be someone on staff who would express views of the audience (”the people”), not views of the artists.

I also doubt Chuck Mee wants his plays left “unfinished.” My take is that he leaves them slightly messy when he writes them because he knows that the director, actors, and designers will be the ones to finish them up and polish them. He wants them to complete his process - he wants them to be collaborators. If he handed them something “finished” there wouldn’t be any room for the contributions of the other artists. That’s different than saying that a piece has to stay messy and unfinished. In fact, he often hands them over to Anne Bogart, a director known for detail, not rough unfinished-ness.

On the other hand, I agree that sometimes artists “polish” things by taking out all inconsistencies and having everything make “sense.” That, to me, can lead to boring theatre, boring art. Personally, I like starting with the broad strokes, but I don’t think we can stop there. What makes the story or visuals or art of any sort pop, resonate, connect with or move people is in the details. Not smoothing everything out, necessarily - but some sort of attention to the details. And the details you decide to pay attention to are what make the piece unique. You can choose to keep some things messy, but it’s a choice. It’s about paying attention to the details.

Apparently in Germany it has lost lots of money, because of the company’s lack of cultural sensitivity. The article states:

“In Germany, Wal-Mart stopped requiring sales clerks to smile at customers — a practice that some male shoppers interpreted as flirting — and scrapped the morning Wal-Mart chant by staff members.”

One employee explained, “People found these things strange; Germans just don’t behave that way.”

And Americans do???? We enjoy morning chants and fake smiling at all customers????

Fascinating.

We also, apparently, are willing to move to another state when one store closes and we are asked to transfer to another store - unlike the Germans who were “infuriated” and quit. And unlike in Germany, Walmart doesn’t actually need to work with labor unions in the U.S.

They say they are learning more about how to work with other cultures. In reading this, I am learning (or at least wondering) more about ours.

CALL FOR FLYING MACHINES!
Deadline: July 31
This October 21, thirty teams of daring individuals will take to the skies above the city’s Inner Harbor at Red Bull Flugtag Baltimore. Flugtag, which means “flying day” in German, challenges the everyday creative genius to build a human-powered flying machine with four close friends, family members, neighbors, or co-workers and pilot it off the end of a 30-foot ramp in hopes of achieving flight…or at least entertaining the crowd. Hey, there’s always the People’s Choice Award! So, if you’ve ever dreamed of flying or know someone you’d like to push off a ramp, we want you! Applications are available online and are being accepted now through July 31, 2006. For more information, please contact Sara Leeper at 323.866.6057 or sara.leeper@mslpr.com.

He weaves together thoughts about immigration, the wall being built on the Mexico border, and his own experiences as a green card-carrying immigrant. His treatment as an “outsider” by a profession (theatre) that I believe should be on the cutting edge of acceptance is appalling. This flows into his thoughts about theatre, about not trying to make audiences happy, and about bravery. He rails against rampant entitlement issues, including the “entitlement” to be trained as a theatre artist - which really just plays into making theatre more corporate-minded.

I have had similar thoughts. And I’m speaking as someone who went through the system. I’m “trained.” I, like Mr. Machado, teach for the money (although I also love it, and see it as one of my callings). In addition to getting an MFA in theatre, I’ve poured money and time into training with SITI Company, and in areas like Butoh, extended voice, physical comedy, le Coq, and Alexander Technique. (And yes, that list of links is meant to make you go see what a wide range of theatre is out there!)

Machado makes me feel a responsibility to use that training well. He also makes me wonder if I needed any of it, or if my years spent just doing the work have been more important. And he makes me go back to the question: Why am I doing this? Am I plugging into that reason, do I hold it clearly in my mind and heart as I go about my work? Or am I getting caught up in being careful, doing what’s expected, catering to audiences, furthering a corporate model that discourages risk? How am I choosing the shows that New World (or Goshen College) will do? How am I choosing what art to create and support? These are important questions that can get lost in the midst of everyday logistics. And, I admit it, I have a desire to please. A desire to please does not make good art. (Not that art needs to alienate, either. But a desire to please can shut down the desire to speak difficult things. Things that need to be said, in a world where people are afraid to speak difficult things.)

We are supposed to get degrees. Then we are supposed to make money. We are supposed to make art that makes money (and/or teach to make money). We are supposed to make sure our audiences are “happy.” We are supposed to give everyone equal opportunity for “success” in theatre. We are supposed to stay on our side of the wall, quiet and contained.

Machado challenges:

“Are we afraid of style? Content? Maybe we’re just afraid of Conflict. And where is the theater without conflict? If we are not open and brave where are we going? What is non-profit for anyway if not to risk it all.”

He quotes Henrick Ibsen: “The majority is never right. Never I tell you!” (this is actually a longer quote - go to the transcipts to read it)

He berates us for trying to cater.

“How they [playwrights of the past] all must have turned in their graves at the thought of it. Asking the audience… How do you feel? Are you ready to be challenged? Oh you’re not? Then we won’t insult you. Please let’s breed silence and passivity here at home so there’s nothing to compare with your fascist wars all over the world. Let’s all be happy. Buy those tickets make those donations. And we will please you.”

He describes “…this farce where we believe we are all entitled to talent and success. No one is entitled to that. All we can hope for is the joy in the work, the joy of expression, the joy of creativity.”

He tells us to be brave. To create places where we can fail. To remember the part of each of us that is “on the other side of the wall,” the part that doesn’t fit in, that wants to rebel, that wants us to speak our minds.

Yes, we need to make money. I would love to see artists supported in a non-commercial way, and I don’t know what to do until that happens. But in the meantime, being braver seems like a good start.

I’ll stop paraphrasing Machado now. Go read the rest yourself.

“In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives.”

Yes he did. I just looked it up.

And yes, he then followed that with the logical conclusion about free society:

“…decisions about such a fundamental social institution as marriage should be made by the people.”

Therefore, the logic follows, we need to have a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This will put the power back in the hands of The People. So they can be free to live the way they want to. So The People can decide what marriage is.

None of the people, of course, are gay. None of the people would support gay marriage. These aren’t the people. The people are the ones who are free to live as they choose and define social institutions freely. Freely = no gay-ness. Anyone who is gay or supports gay rights must be… an animal! One of those beastly, uncivilized ones, like a warthog or a toad. Therefore, we need to have an amendment to protect The People from The Toads. Those same-sex loving toads must not marry. We need to keep the people free.

Amazing how easy it is to string these thoughts together.

A guy wrote a story. It involved first-person language about spying on a semi-naked woman and murdering a homeless man, as well as volunteering to defend our country. Someone (quite possibly a disgruntled wikipedia user who was banned) called the school where writer-guy is a grad student and told them about the story, complaining that it looked suspicious. Writer-guy (okay, his name is Phil Sandifer) was subsequently investigated by the police, asked for fingerprints, etc. Apparently writing about stalking and murdering makes you a suspect for actually doing those things. No one asked him if he was actually thinking about defending our country.

What I’ve Been Reading
(and would like to share with you)

1) “Holy Skirts” by Rene Steinke, a novel about the Baroness Elsa van Freytag-Lorenghoven. Subtitled “A novel of a flamboyant woman who risked all for art.”

This woman was courageous, outrageous, and true to herself even when it hurt. She didn’t just make art, she lived it. A close friend and would-be lover of Marcel Duchamp. She wore taillights, bird cages (avec bird), and postage stamps, among other things, and a Time writer wrote of her: “She was New York’s first punk persona 60 years before their time.” Everyone thought she was crazy by the end of her life, perhaps from syphillis, but perhaps, as Ezra Pound wrote of her in a poem:

“Well, of course, there was a certain strain
On the gal in them days in Manhattan
the principle of non-acquiescence
laid a burden.”

I think I want to write a play about her.

2) “On Love” (a novel) by Alain de Botton
A book that muses on love through philosophy, diagrams, and a quirky sense of humor while following the romance of one couple from the time they meet on an airplane (chapter 1: “Romantic Fatalism”) through… well, I’ll let you read it to find out.

3) The five page (online) New York Times essay about the “best American fiction” from the last 25 years. Toni Morrison’s Beloved won overall, other top nominees were Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, John Updike… lots of people I haven’t read but have felt I should.

The accompanying essay is more interesting to me than the list itself. It talks about what seems to be important to the people who voted (historical perspective, personal stories set against large cultural events…), the vagueness of the contest rules (can authors vote for themselves? can a book that was written before 1980 but published after 1980 be a contender? what is considered fiction, exactly? etc.), and how the contest would have been different during different times in history. One of my favorite quotes is where the essayist writes of “the deplorable modern mania for ranking, list-making and fabricated competition.” (Notice my list here. Now I just need to fabricate some competition somehow…)

And at the end, a comment that all the winners were born within just a few years of each other, and are well over 50. For all of us aspiring writers, he reminds us: “2030 is just around the corner. Get to work.”