| TO RISK OR NOT TO RISK
by Jason Loewith on 11/07/2006 04:03:00 PM
At a recent Board meeting here at the Next, one of our most generous supporters engaged me in an invigorating conversation that began with the question, "What does 'artistically adventurous' mean to you?"
For those "in the know," that's a phrase from our mission statement: Next Theatre produces socially provocative, artistically adventurous work. Most people can wrap their heads around the first idea – ah, it’s work about "issues"; plays that try to examine socio-political or socio-cultural themes with some complexity...and if they're complex enough, the plays we choose provoke thought, and sometimes disagreement, about the issues they raise. Whether it's Omnium Gatherum, or Henry V, or A Number, the plays we choose at Next want to engage the audience in a conversation about issues beyond the immediate (family, relationships, love) and into the realm of society (politics, war, or cloning in the above examples).
But what about the second part of that phrase, "artistically adventurous"? What does that mean to us?
To me, that means choosing plays that aim to be form-breaking in some way, plays that challenge the established norms of theater today. It's no secret that theater has been torn between the impulse to change and the impulse to stay the same as it was at the turn of the last century, when realism sprung out of the romantic movement with the plays of Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg. More than 100 years later, playwrights are still writing (and audiences are still loving) the exact same kind of work: plays about familiar people, presented in a realistic way, dependent on the characters' psychology to provide an emotional catharsis.
Take, for example, August Wilson's play Fences, which just won Best Production of the Year last night at the Joseph Jefferson Awards. A brilliant play, no doubt (and a brilliant production)...but nonetheless not so different from a Chekhov play in form. Characters we relate to, behaving realistically, telling a story in a straight, narrative form with a beginning, middle and end.
Compare Fences now to our production of A Number last season. Yes, the characters in A Number undergo enormous psychological stress (as they do in Chekhov, or Wilson). But the formal presentation of those characters is intentionally challenging: which character is the actor playing now? Bernard 1 or his clone, Bernard 2? The very form of the play (demanding two clones are played by the same actor) is part of its dramaturgy, part of the way you as an audience receive the play. It forces you to work on both the level of content AND form. Why did the playwright choose to write this way? She chose to write that way to ADD something to your experience of the play. On the other hand, you see Fences and of all the things you think afterwards, you don't think, "why did August Wilson write his play in that way?" Wilson wrote Fences in a familiar form so you could engage solely with the content.
It's like the difference between these two portraits: Manet's The Fifer (1866) and Picasso's Portrait of Maya Holding a Doll (ca. 1895).
Manet – a realist – has painted a figure which seems as you might see him in real life – drawn in appropriate perspective, with realistic use of light and shadow, so that all we are called upon as viewers to consider is the boy's psychology of the moment. We take him at face value. Maya, on the other hand, is clearly represented in a non-realistic manner. No perspective, the odd arrangement of childlike body parts emphasizes her awkwardness, her youth; the colors and brushtrokes are playful...obviously, Picasso is asking us to view his Maya with two eyes (as he painted them) – one eye on the content (a young girl holding a doll), and one eye on the form (the two-dimensionality, the exaggerated characteristics, and so on). It is Picasso's hope that looking at the painting with both eyes open will yield a greater appreciation of the work than just one.
Looking at it that way, the question is: why hasn't popular theater moved BEYOND realism? Since the time of Chekhov, plenty of dramatists have worked to break with realism (alongside artists in the visual arts, architecture, dance and so on): O'Neill and Rice with the expressionists in the 20s, the absurdists of the 40s and 50s like Beckett and Ionesco, the post-modern auteurs like Robert LePage or Robert Wilson of the 80s and 90s...but for the most part, our theaters and our audiences return to realism again and again. It's as if visual art had stopped with the Impressionists.
The theoretical basis for moving beyond realism comes from the 20th-century's most important theatrical thinker, Bertolt Brecht. A problematic figure whose theories and practice didn't always match, Brecht at least stated rather clearly how he believed theater should be presented. He called his vision, "Epic Theater", which is characterized by an "alienation effect," through which the audience is continuously reminded that they’re watching a play. Here's his rationale in a nutshell:
The dramatic theater's spectator [someone watching a realistic play] says: Yes, I have felt like that too – Just like me – It's only natural – It'll never change – The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are inescapable – That's great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world – I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh.
The epic theater's spectator says: I'd have never thought it – That's not the way – That's extraordinary, hardly believable – It's got to stop – The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary – That's great art: nothing obvious in it – I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh.
Brecht believed the illusion of reality in realistic drama turned off the critical faculties of an audience in favor of emotional connection, entanglement. The theater he championed, on the other hand, tried to balance emotional connection with intellectual connection – if the form of the work is somehow alien to an audience (not "alienates" them – that’s a misreading of Brecht's ideas), it forces the spectator to consider the conditions being presented and whether they're changeable.
Brecht, of course, was a Marxist, and his theory is infused with political sentiment not wholly appropriate to this discussion. However, when he speaks of knowledge as a commodity just as valuable as entertainment, and that good theater must provide both commodities… that’s what we’re always talking about here at the Next.
So, to risk or not to risk? To present work that challenges the audience's perception of theater, or not? Chris Jones of The Tribune had a fascinating article ("Big Theaters Taking Bigger Risks") a couple of weeks ago noting that the bigger theaters are taking more risks than the smaller ones of late (Next is listed as an exception, incidentally). You can read his article here.
What's the right answer? Perhaps we theater artists should stop whining and just provide what most people seem to want – realistic plays, with modern characters, told in pretty much the same way they were told back in the 1890s. Or perhaps we should stop whining and present the riskiest fare we can. But the questions on my mind are: how far can we really go in this artistically conservative climate, and how far can we really go in Chicago?
And that's where we'll pick up next time. As always, I can't wait to hear what you think.
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Jason, I think this whole thing is a great idea. I found your explanation of our mission clear and easy to grasp and very helpful. I am curious as to whether other theaters/companies in Chicago have missions similar to ours. And, if so, do they actually pay any attention to them or just give lip service? It's clear, is it not, that our mission will limit the size and growth of our potential audience? Are we satisfied with this? How do we maximize our audience within these paramaters?
David, you bring up great points. I don't know of any other company in Chicagoland except Stage Left (which "offers plays that raise the level of debate on social and political issues") with a similar mission... most companies' missions are vague enough ("plays that embrace the fullness of human experience," etc.) that they can program a wide variety of works.
I wonder whether it's the "socially provocative" or "artistically adventurous" part of our mission which potentially limits our audience. I think one can make the case that most plays at non-profits these days are in some way "socially provocative"... but few are "artistically adventurous" - I suspect the latter limits our audience more than the former.
Or what about how closely we adhere to that mission? By sticking closely to our mission, we define ourselves in the press and foundation worlds, which benefit of course are beneficial. If we were to produce a broader selection of plays, we might find a greater audience, but would likely lose press and foundation favor...
The question ultimately becomes this: do we see audiences becoming more or less culturally adventurous in the coming years? Do we want to be on the front edge of a trend, or are we fighting a losing battle?
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