LA Stage Blog - Beta

Because we live in the country we do, we were recently able to make our political voices heard. For me, as for many, it’s been eight very long years of feeling that I had no voice at all. Besides my measly vote, I could do nothing about the destruction the frat boy in the White House was wreaking on the world. And then, in the middle of his non-elected term I became a mother, first in 2003 and then again in 2005. Without delving into the complexities of motherhood, let me just say that it’s a quick way of taking a hatchet - not a scalpel - to your own needs and voice.

So I wrote. Because that was the only thing I could do. That was the only way I could hear my own voice.

I’ve been writing for years, but with a colicky baby it became the only line of communication I had, and that made it absolutely vital: necessary for me to sustain my existence. I began to think about the need to make theatre, which we all lay claim to, and the journey from that need to the realization of a vision. If we all have this need, and there are about 400 productions a year in the greater Los Angeles area, why are we still struggling to prove our worth, not only on the national stage, but to each other locally? Are our individual artistic needs serving the craft, or serving ourselves?

There’s a lot of chatter in this town about the quality of LA theatre, or rather, the perception of the quality of LA theatre. And that difference between actual quality and perception of quality is crucial. It’s the distance between being beautiful because of what’s within, and having plastic surgery in order to be deemed beautiful. (I think that’s an appropriate analogy for LA.) Because I believe that within that difference is the key to whether or not LA can stake its claim to being a serious theatre town.

As part of this conversation, we have to address the notion of 99-seat theatre. On the one hand, a lot of people consider it a gift. We’re able to participate in this art form that we love because productions can be done “on the cheap.” On the other hand, doing theatre for $7 a performance - or, say, a fee of a couple hundred dollars - might be called Community Theatre in other cities. Being professional means a number of things, one of which is that we get paid a living wage - “living wage” being a subjective term, of course. At a certain point you have to ask how important it is to work for peanuts, not for your checkbook but for your sense of self.

Over the years I’ve learned that things you get on the cheap don’t end up being of the highest quality, not just because of, say, shoddy materials, but because if you don’t pay for what something or someone is worth, you can’t expect full value from it or them. In the interest of saving money I have gotten half-baked work from actors to the guys who installed our air conditioning. (I do have to say that I’ve gotten incredible work from some collaborators despite lack of funds, because they had a deep belief in whatever project we were working on.) But I am kind-of amazed that we all continue to agree to work for free, or close to it. Why?

In order to answer that, we have to look at the origins of our commitments. Here are some reasons that people get into theatre in the first place:

1. You find a community that doesn’t exist for you anywhere else.
2. You have deep pain in your soul and this is the way you work it out.
3. You are better at it than anything else, so you keep doing it.
4. You like getting attention so much that you actually can’t live without it.

There are lots of other reasons, of course. And there’s nothing wrong with getting into something this way. People become cops because their father’s were cops before them. Or lawyers because they hope to make money. Or teachers because they had a liberal arts education and what else do you do with that? The point is that you can’t judge the reason anyone gets into anything. We make decisions about our careers when we’re very young. Even if you’re well into your 20’s before you make up your mind what road to go down, you’re still essentially in the second half of your adolescence.

But once you’re in it, why do you keep doing it? After all, it doesn’t pay and it can be emotionally cruel. I see lots of people who I care deeply about come to a place in their lives where they wonder why they don’t have property or children or self-esteem. And they’re still doing 99-seat theatre.

The real answer, of course, is beyond words. It’s the fire in our bellies that can barely be described and can never be satiated. It’s ironic that the form we pursue is fleeting, and so our moments of satisfaction wear away with the passing of each show.

I write because I have to, because there are things in this world that I can’t do anything about: class inequality; untreatable disease; continuing genocide; blind devotion to religion; etc. I try to do it with humor, but the frustration is what impels me to write. It says to me that something is unjust and it’s up to me to spread the word in the best way I know how.

I am fortunate to know the work of many artists who are good at dealing with serious subjects in a humorous way. Jamie Pachino is a playwright who tackles major issues with both pathos and wit. Tim Robbins has found a way of directing political theatre through Commedia that tickles us as it slams its subjects. Nilaja Sun performs her cadre of realistic characters with a precision that turns our laughter into tears.

Through the doorway of adaptation we can use stories from one time or place to illustrate a truth about the here and now. Laura Eason’s Around the World in 80 Days (she adapted and directed) last year at Lookingglass in Chicago, danced the audience across continents with the lightest touch, until, one minute from the end, we realized that we were witnessing the difference between wanting to be of the world and wanting to own it, and that in this country we were participating in the latter. We had inherited the British sense of entitlement, the very thing that we escaped some 200 odd years ago.

I’m not saying that entertainment for entertainment’s sake is wrong. Particularly during this economic crisis, audiences are going to opt for music and laughter over drama and gore. But I always ask the question: Why? Why this material? Why now? Why that style, those lights, that pre-show music? How can you do Pajama Game in 2008 without deconstructing or commenting on it? Or using it as a comment? Are we choosing work because of meaning or to make ourselves look good?

To be very clear, I’m not saying that artists shouldn’t be exploring form and style. There’s a terrific article by Malcolm Gladwell in a recent New Yorker that addresses the question of genius by comparing prodigies to artists who achieve success much later in life. You can look at the article here: (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell) One of the points he makes is that genius is often achieved later in life through a process of trial and error, while prodigies, who may have been blessed by the muse of creativity early in life, fizzle by the time they’re 40. Failure is a tool of discovery; how can you learn if everything you do garners praise? So experimentation and exploration are necessary for growth. We cannot condemn an artist for bold failure, though we most certainly can condemn apathy and indolence.

Idealistically, by choosing to be artists, we are proclaiming that we have something important to say that needs to be told to more people than the couple across the table from us at a dinner party. We are starting a conversation that we hope will touch the lives of absolute strangers, hundreds and thousands of them. The people who choose to join us in that conversation - audiences and critics - play an important role too that I will address in my next couple of blogs, but it is the artist’s voice that reaches farthest, that can affect thoughts and deeds, that can communicate the savagery and beauty of the world.

Good theatre is made out of passion: something must be said, done, heard for the world to be a better place. It’s made out of intelligence: the assumption that the audience is made up of people who want to think, and not the lowest common denominator. It’s made out of love: a respect for the craft that mandates skill and discounts laziness. It’s made out of history: a knowledge of what has come before and how it can be built upon rather than repeated. It’s made out of collaboration: the coming together of thoughtful artists who each contribute to the whole of a vision.

Some people choose to be cops so that they can protect and serve society. Or lawyers because they believe in justice and the right to representation. Or teachers because they believe that the next generation can and should be even stronger than the current one. I initially chose to be a theatre artist because I was good at it; I understood it; I found other people who spoke my language. And I’m glad that’s what brought me to it. But I have stayed an artist because there are people in this world who have no voice and need someone to speak for them. I’d be a lousy politician - I very gladly leave politics to our President-Elect. My voice belongs in the theatre, where I can communicate ideas through art. To share what I think I know, what I don’t know and what I want to know about the world around us. It’s my way of taking a scalpel and carving out the questions I want answered.