| ELECTION SEASON BLUES
by Jason Loewith on 9/09/2008 03:43:00 PM
Every four years, Artistic Directors around the country get a golden chance to participate in our 230-year old democratic experiment: they can program plays that further community conversation about important issues. As the populace gears up to go to the polls and elect a new (or old) President, September and October are the golden time to program socially provocative plays. It's the only time our nation unites in its desire to have a relatively serious conversation about the issues we face.
Of course, at Next Theatre, we do that all the time... but I'm talking about the big theaters, the small theaters, and every one in between. If theaters really do reflect what's happening in their communities, the plays they produce in September and October of a Presidential election year ought to speak to it.
It's not surprising that we've already got some interesting political theater out there: Writers' Nixon's Nixon, Timeline's Weekend, Theater Seven's Election Day, and even ATC's recently-opened The People's Temple. We'll open The U.N. Inspector next Monday, which is the first of three plays this season that examine Western foreign policy (while entertaining you at the same time). Court's Caroline, or Change will tackle racism in our culture at just the right moment - and that's the kind of theater I'm talking about, when the Artistic Director programs plays that take advantage of the current cultural climate.
So I'm surprised that other Artistic Directors around the City are ignoring the conversation. Take the Goodman, choosing to do the Tommy Tune vehicle Turn of the Century on the eve of the election. Huh? Tap-dancing into the polls?
Now the Goodman's an easy target, so I'll be more generous in my astonishment. Remy Bumppo - whose motto is "Think Theater" - wants us to think about a family of embezzlers in The Voysey Inheritance as we elect a President. Chicago Shakespeare is tackling Peter Shaffer's now-a-chestnut Amadeus (at least they've got Edward II following it, that's a gutsy choice). Northlight brings us Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and unless they're making a snide comment about a certain candidate's anger-management problem, I don't think that's giong to do much for the audience's political thinking. Even Steppenwolf, usually on the ball with "of-the-moment" work, brings us Murakami's adolescent fable Kafka on the Shore (a great book, but I'd rather see Galati's adaptation in January) and Glass Menagerie. Glass Menagerie? Isn't that the show that Shattered Globe just opened? So we need to see important Chicago companies mount TWO productions of that tired, worked-over script within a month of each other, and in an election season?
I know it's my familiar soapbox, but with the stakes so high, shouldn't our major theatrical, cultural institutions be talking about the most important thing that's happening right now? Taken together, Goodman, CST, Northlight and Steppenwolf are talking to upwards of 60,000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands more single-ticket buyers with these productions. That's a lot of opportunities to engender conversation, to provoke thought, to make community count.
And as for New York... here's an interesting look at the declining woman's voice on Broadway: Theresa Rebeck's article in the Guardian. Surprising - aren't those Sarah Palin voters coming to Broadway shows?
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