Someone once said that I write in declarative sentences, and that’s true. I really dislike all the bobbing and weaving of “this is just my opinion” and “maybe I’m wrong, but” and all the other ways people try to avoid offense. Of course it’s “my opinion,” I wrote the damn thing–who else’s opinion would it be? Of course I might be wrong–is anybody infallible? It’s such a waste of time. Get in, say the thing as directly as possible, and get out.
“Recently, I read this essay by Robert Porterfield, an aspiring actor who founded a theatre company in Abingdon, Virginia. The company called Barter Theatre is apparently the nation’s longest-running professional theater, except I’ve never heard about this theater until now.”
This was written by a 20-something theater person. It’s not their fault that they haven’t heard of it–nobody mentioned the Barter Theatre to me, either, when I was their age.
There continues to be a lot of “discussion” concerning AI. I have not taken a stand on this blog, preferring to follow around @apoorplayer and make counter-arguments, which is just sort of trollish. So let me write here and give him a chance to follow me around for once.
Let me start with a personal story. On St Patrick’s Day 1978, my mother, who had just turned 42, died of liver cancer.
Ireland Frank Delaney
The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always listened to me, is to know this: what I can believe, you can believe. And the way we all see our story—not just as Irish people but as flesh-and-blood individuals and not the way people tell us to see it—that’s what we own, no matter who we are and where we come from.
I have had it with US politics. It’s not because–or not ONLY because–the Trump Administration’s policies (I use the term extremely loosely) are uninformed, haphazard, and abusive, it’s because the entire process has become superficial and narrow. And while the Republicans seem to have cornered the market on superficial, narrow stupidity, the Democrats aren’t that far behind them.
The political system has been entirely taken over by marketing people. Political discourse is like one 30-second commercial after another, no vision, no depth, just slogans.
There is so much BS in this article from American Theatre Magazine about what theater students should be taught about “the biz” thatit made my head explode.
If a university wanted to create an innovative theater program, I would come out of retirement to create a BA in Sustainable Theater. It would focus on environmentally sustainable design, playwriting, directing, and acting. There would also be a large component devoted to starting and running a company, and seniors would run their own company out of a storefront.
Wait, what??? I was one of the people whose Social Security benefit was lowered due to the Windfall Elimination Provision, which was eliminated by the Social Security Fairness Act that was signed by Biden in early January. Today, I received a letter from the SSA spelling out how that will affect my monthly benefit, and MY BENEFIT IS BEING REDUCED BY $138 A MONTH??? WHAT?
I confess I am fascinated by this Scottish theater company, who does a new play every week and performs in a pub. Last year, they celebrated their 20th anniversary. Here is an article about their 20 years in business. And below is a song with pictures written for the celebration. I have never seen a production, and I can’t even say whether I’d like what they do, but what I do like is the way they seem to have thought about theater from the ground up.
(This post is the result of writing I’ve been doing on my personal project.]
I’ve been reading Ivan Illich’s 1970 classic Deschooling Society and John McKnight’s The Careless Society. I’ve admired the ideas of these two people over the years, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that they actually knew each other and that McKnight was greatly influenced by the time he spent with Illich. Reading the two books side by side (not literally!
I began a new project a few days ago. In many ways, it is the opposite of the Learn in Public orientation. In fact, it is intentionally Learn in Private.
I have been writing (and learning, and sharing) in public for 20 years, and it has been great. I’ve learned a lot, and I flatter myself in thinking that my writing made at least a little difference to those who were trying to re-imagine theater.
“The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world, full stop. Unless we can inhabit that distinction, we will end up defending the world as we have known it at all costs, no matter how monstrous those costs turn out to be.”
At Work in the Ruins by Dougald Hine
The Resistance The attempt by the six members of the Theatrical Syndicate to create a monopoly of the road was, of course resisted. But for the rank-and-file actors, the war was over in the 1870s when the combination companies killed the resident stock companies and actors were forced to move to New York in order to pursue their careers. They had no ability to resist this change--Actors Equity didn't appear until 1917.
You know what I think is weird? That people will condemn you for not keeping up with the news while they think nothing about ignoring philosophy, literature, theology, cultural criticism, history. You will be at the mercy of spinmeisters if you lack a worldview that structures the news.
I wrote this in 2009. I still basically feel the same way.]I am at home with a cold. Forced by my body to stop the quotidian forward motion from prep to class to prep to class and then to grading, I find myself propelled instead toward reflection, bleary and slightly feverish though I am.
The catalyst for this introspection, which will likely take an outward turn, is Camille Paglia. On Saturday, in an almost accidental way, I picked up her 1992 book Sex, Art, and American Culture at the local branch library.
In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he responds. “Gradually, and then suddenly.” He could have been talking about the changes to the American theater in the last quarter of the 19th century. In my February 23 post I described “The Rise of the Combination Company and the Death of the Resident Stock Company.” Today, I want to describe the capture of the American theater by businessmen.
As always, Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) calls our attention to extraordinary writing, not only his own but of others as well. In this case, it is Nicholas Carr writing about the act of contemplation, both of art and of nature. And while I will have to think more about his preference for what he calls “unenchantment,” this essay is worth reading if only for the lengthy Nathaniel Hawthorne quotation in which he describes sitting in Sleepy Hollow just…being aware.
Michael Rushton is doing an excellent job of dismantling all the ways we miss the boat when we’re trying to run an arts organization. This one is about why metrics don’t work: open.substack.com/pub/micha…
“With the broad acceptance of scarcity, the drawdown of resources ensues, and business begins: the race for the best education in a world believed to be short of good teachers; the race for the best-paying jobs in a world believed to be deprived of respectable work and access to resources; the competition to acquire land and housing in a world where we believe there is a housing shortage; the pressure to buy all the right advantages and implements for our children in a world that is believed to have limited space and opportunity for them; the hustle to work hard and bank and invest and save in a world where we believe money is the only means of having our needs met.
This post could be called “The Enshittifcation of Theater,” and so could the next one.
By 1870, all the pieces were in place to overthrow the resident stock companies across the nation:- a railroad system connecting many of the cities coast to coast;- a canal that connected travel from New York to the Great Lakes;- a large metropolis (New York City) at the head of both the train and canal system;- a burgeoning star system that was much in demand across the country.
“The change I am talking about appeals to me precisely because it need not wait upon “other people.” Anyone who wants to do so can begin it in himself and in his household as soon as he is ready-by becoming answerable to at least some of his own needs, by acquiring skills and tools, by learning what his real needs are, by refusing the glamorous and the frivolous. When a person learns to act on his own best hopes he enfranchises and validates them as no government or policy ever will.
Recap During the first 75 years of theater in America:
Companies were independent, semi-permanent, self-contained units; They were managed by the leading actor, who chose the plays that were done, when and how long they would be done, and who in the company would play the roles; Company members were paid a share of the profits; They played standard English fare, especially Shakespeare, in rotating repertoire; The theater building was either owned by the company, or were leased long-term; The company played in a particular community, but would go on short tours each year; actors in stock companies normally led stable, settled lives and enjoyed working conditions comparable to workers in other fields; By the 1820s, a star actor from Europe or, eventually, America would come to town and perform plays with the resident company members before moving on to another town.
I wrote this in 2008, and it still is true today:
From Daniel Quinn’s deceptively simple and inspiring Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure:
The river I mentioned earlier is the river of vision. Our culture’s river of vision is carrying us toward catastrophe. Sticks planted in the mud may impede the flow of the river, but we don’t need to impede its flow, we need to divert it into an entirely new channel.