Now, to the prompt. I'm not going to lie, although I read, and reread the prompt and questions, I'm not 100% sure what's being asked, so I will use my recent experience with Fifth of July and our Forum about Outworks to help shape my response. (I also enjoy that we live in an age of cynicism and apathy - I'm finally home!) Throughout my experience in Fifth, I often wondered, "Why are we doing this show?" When I asked Rick, his response was vaguely, "Because I wanted to". Interesting, not that he felt that Ken and Jed's struggle with life and the war was worthy of being performed today because it is relatable, or that in a bigger picture, the ideals of the late 70s are relevant to today's collegiate audience, but because Rick "wanted to". Why do the show then? It's no longer relevant. George Morris, Baton Rouge's love-to-hate-him theatre critic, said
"First staged in 1978, “Fifth of July” may have resonated better in an era when much of America was struggling to shake off the bad dream of the Vietnam War and the social upheaval that surrounded it. Today, it feels like a play that just needs to get to the point."I fear Morris may be right. (Read the rest here, it's a delightful doozy of a review.) The next step theatre must take in order to create new dialogue and initiate change is to do theatre that is relevant, or at least relatable, to today's audiences. I think that the reason for doing theatre today must be greater than just "wanting" to do it. It must be performed for this specific reason. Does all theatre have to have a "point" then? Some call to action, didactic message that changes your life view on a topic? Not necessarily. Mary Poppins and The 39 Steps are worthwhile pieces of theatre, though they might not have powerful messages. The difference in performing shows like these and shows like Fifth lies in the intention. Mary Poppins' intention is to entertain. Fifth's intention is to… well, I don't know. At least today, in 2014 Baton Rouge I don't.
The same goes for Outworks. We can't take advantage of our 1020 audiences just because we have them captive. It's not fair. It's one thing to celebrate the LGBTQ lifestyle, but it's another thing to force a mass group of traditionally non-theatregoers to attend a play festival, and then get angry when they don't love it. You can't preach at people who don't want to listen. The same goes for Fifth. Don't abuse your audience because you can. It's just the wrong way to go about creating theatre with a message attached. To initiate change, we have to change the way we're doing it for anything to happen.
I think theatre is one possible answer to things like war and oppression. An artistic view on an issue might be the thing one needs to fully grasp what's happening. Others might want facts and figures. It depends on the person and how they process information. Sometimes theatre is quite helpful in making an issue relatable and bringing it close to home. It can shed new light on tired issues. Lee Blessing's Two Rooms comes to mind. Others might only be swayed by a news article or segment on tv, the same news story that is lost on another. Theatre could always be an answer, just like a news segment. Different strokes for different folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment