When I was in my twenties I apprenticed at a professional children's theater. The plays were staged in a swanky new arts center on the riverfront and the children were bused in from most of the schools in the area. No doubt, but this was a great program for the children - for some it was their first exposure to theater and they were being exposed to great works of literature. But they were also learning something else - how to be an audience. I found it particularly disturbing. The children would come in, sit down in the comfy new seats and be quiet, laugh in all the right places (well, most of the time), applaud, then get autographs at the end.
My previous children's theater experiences involved having the children sit right next to, if not on, the stage. This created a fluidity between the actors and the children that, at the time, I'd seldom experienced doing theater for adults. For one thing, they would touch us and talk to us and tell us how evil we were if we were playing a witch or tell us if they didn't believe a particularly fake piece of staging involving stuffing a "live" animal into a sack or throwing it in a "river." As an actor, I thrived on this type of interaction, so it was shocking to go to into this apprenticeship and watch the children line up, sit in neat rows, fold their hands on their laps, not rattle their programs too much, and generally try to behave in a respectful, appropriate manner. They were noisy before the show, you can't expect perfection right? But once the lights went up, they were a good little audience and it was a nice little show and then they went back to school.
Until one day. We were doing Hansel and Gretel. As an experiment, they put a roped off box on the floor where the children could come down and sit near the stage if they wanted. This changed the dynamic a bit. There was a little more feedback than usual. You know Hansel and Gretel. It gets a little intense - especially towards the end when the witch is about to cook Hansel. Well, during one performance, that scene was too much for one little boy (who was actually sitting in the comfy seats) so he ran down and climbed up onstage and pulled open the bars of Hansel's cage (they were made of rope) and yelled "Run, Hansel! Run!" Hansel was stunned. He finally gained his composure and explained that he had to save Gretel, but the little boy would have none of that. He knew that Gretel was toast and he said as much. Finally, he was gotten offstage and the show continued. Sure it's funny. It's hilarious. It's also a proper response.
My question is, how many times have you felt that way watching theater? How many times have you been provoked into a response only to have the play pull back and let you, it, and the performers off the hook? It's frustrating and annoying for me. Especially after the provocation is over and everyone can relax back in their seats secure in the knowledge that had they been watching say, a real lynching, they would have done the right thing. Yeah. We all know how that goes.
This is one of my problems with political theater. I'm not saying anything new here and I'm not trying to start an argument. It's mostly me thinking things through. For the past several years, my theater company's mission professed to be political and as time went on it became a hinderance for me. As a playwright, I felt hemmed in by the idea of political theater, or rather the ways that political theater reinforces ideologies. Frankly, I have work that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into that box and I don't want it to. The next question is how to get out of the box?
I thought I had that solved - the company became defunct. No more mission to follow. I felt a certain freedom and release which continues to expand. As a director though, the next project I was hired to do was direct Nickel and Dimed. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but it was an opportunity for me so I took it, knowing I knew how to approach the play and bring it home to a young, university audience. Directing N & D represented a culmination for me, I'd been researching and working with the topics of poverty, scarcity, money, and distribution in America for three years. I liked the idea of getting to do an epic production with the proper production support. When the show closed, I thought my political theater days were done.
It appears they aren't. I have three scripts in the que and they all have a political bent to them. And I'm not particularly comfortable with that. The challenge is to find ways to explode ideology - expose my own and create rhetorical experiments that allow me to examine other ideologies without reinforcing any particular one.
Because I have felt like that little kid at Hansel and Gretel. One time. I was seconds away from leaping out of my seat to stop the action onstage. It was during a production of The Adding Machine directed by Anne Bogart. Towards the end of Act 1 when Zero is in the gas chamber. The tension was too much - poor Bill McNulty, his face so pathetic and fleshy, and green from the light hitting the dry ice. The mechnics of the moment were completely apparent to me and still my gut couldn't take it and I was leaping out of my seat about to scream - just as the lights came up for intermission. The old ladies behind me were annoyed. At least I didn't vomit because that's where it was all going for me. And to think, some people think a cathartic experience is impossible in this day and age (to speak in the old style).
This is one of my problems with political theater. I'm not saying anything new here and I'm not trying to start an argument. It's mostly me thinking things through. For the past several years, my theater company's mission professed to be political and as time went on it became a hinderance for me. As a playwright, I felt hemmed in by the idea of political theater, or rather the ways that political theater reinforces ideologies. Frankly, I have work that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into that box and I don't want it to. The next question is how to get out of the box?
I thought I had that solved - the company became defunct. No more mission to follow. I felt a certain freedom and release which continues to expand. As a director though, the next project I was hired to do was direct Nickel and Dimed. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but it was an opportunity for me so I took it, knowing I knew how to approach the play and bring it home to a young, university audience. Directing N & D represented a culmination for me, I'd been researching and working with the topics of poverty, scarcity, money, and distribution in America for three years. I liked the idea of getting to do an epic production with the proper production support. When the show closed, I thought my political theater days were done.
It appears they aren't. I have three scripts in the que and they all have a political bent to them. And I'm not particularly comfortable with that. The challenge is to find ways to explode ideology - expose my own and create rhetorical experiments that allow me to examine other ideologies without reinforcing any particular one.
Because I have felt like that little kid at Hansel and Gretel. One time. I was seconds away from leaping out of my seat to stop the action onstage. It was during a production of The Adding Machine directed by Anne Bogart. Towards the end of Act 1 when Zero is in the gas chamber. The tension was too much - poor Bill McNulty, his face so pathetic and fleshy, and green from the light hitting the dry ice. The mechnics of the moment were completely apparent to me and still my gut couldn't take it and I was leaping out of my seat about to scream - just as the lights came up for intermission. The old ladies behind me were annoyed. At least I didn't vomit because that's where it was all going for me. And to think, some people think a cathartic experience is impossible in this day and age (to speak in the old style).
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