a poor player

Dunkirk, NY - Over the past couple of days I’ve received the somewhat expected and typical emails urging me to contact my elected officials in the form of faxes, phone messages or emails, and ask them not to cut funding to the arts in New York State any further. The usual dire warnings abound, as well as the tried-and-true argument that cutting funding for the arts would harm the economy (as if cutting arts funding would make that much of a difference in this present economy). I’ve tried very hard to find a reason or two to justify why I should attempt to stop cuts in the arts, and you know, for the life of me I can’t find any really solid reasons to do so. Here are some of the things which have given me pause:

• Theatre is basically made up of urban upper-middle-class white people putting on shows for more urban upper-middle-class white people. Over the past 35 years or so theatre artists have made no effective effort to reach out beyond this demographic, and there appear to be no signs that anything will change in the future.  Why should such an enterprise receive government funding?
• The whole business seems more like an effort by people to keep their jobs rather than an effort to provide a vital service to the state and nation. Nothing wrong with that, really; but if given a choice of whose job to save these days, I think I’d choose an autoworker’s job or a nurse’s job or a VA counselor’s job.
• No noticeable common good seems to have come out of funding theatre. Children today are not measurably smarter or more appreciative of drama because of any public funding. There has not been any significant increase in the number of people attending theatre; in fact, TCG reports that over the past five years their 117 trend theatres’ attendance actually went down 6.1% (Theatre Facts 2007). Wouldn’t continuing arts funding be throwing good money after bad?
• There seems to be no strengthening of the cultural fabric because of theatre. Simply from an observational basis over 20 years of teaching theatre, it appears that students come in with less and less knowledge of the literature as a basis from which to work. Even in the world of musical theatre, they do not know the literature of anything which pre-dates Sondheim.
• From a political point of view, for whatever reasons, theatre cannot seem to manage to find conservative voices within its community. Theatre appears not to want to be a unifying voice in society from a political perspective, but rather wants to take a particular side. If theatre is so one-sided in its viewpoint, does it deserve to receive government money if it cannot prove it’s contributing to the national good in some fashion?
• In my home county of Chautauqua, there has been no visible benefit received from NYS money from the NYS Arts Council as far as theatre is concerned. The area’s two colleges, Fredonia State and Jamestown Community College, along with the Jamestown Little Theatre, a community theatre group, provide all the theatre in the county, and no state money goes to help any of these groups. No outside organizations, no touring companies, nothing in the way of legitimate theatre, has come through this county care of the NYS Council on the Arts in 10 years at least.

I’m sure I could find some more reasons, but when a man like Dan Gioia figures it’s time to leave the NEA, then perhaps it’s time for me actually to consider supporting cuts in arts funding. Perhaps Mr. Gioia has provided the best reason of all from his Stanford commencement address in 2007:

In a time of social progress and economic prosperity, why have we experienced this colossal cultural and political decline? There are several reasons, but I must risk offending many friends and colleagues by saying that surely artists and intellectuals are partly to blame. Most American artists, intellectuals, and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.

When artists begin again to talk to the rest of society, I will consider helping to renew their art funding. Maybe it will take a zeroing out of their current funding, which might force them back into the world of non-artists suffering far more pain in these bad economic times, to awaken their sensibilities. I can’t see any good reason to continue to support artists simply talking to each other.  -twl

Fredonia NY – Signs You’ve Been In The Theatre Too Much:

•    Your weekend consists of Monday, and only Monday.
•    “Q” is not just a letter.
•    National holidays that fall on Monday seem pointless to you.
•    You know more than one theory for the origin of the name “green room.”
•    You can only read from a light that is blue.
•    You consider the red part of the stoplight the “standby.”
•    You can’t remember what daylight looks like.
•    You feel naked without your keys attached to your belt loop, or your belt without your Maglite, Leatherman, and Gerber.
•    You know tie-line has several uses – shoelaces, belts, ponytail holders…
•    95% of your wardrobe is black.
•    You watch the Super Bowl, waiting for intermission, not half-time.
•    You tell more stories of what went wrong on shows you’ve done than what went smoothly.
•    You start wondering what it feels like to be a prop.
•    You know anything can be fixed with duct tape, Mortite, sculpter-coat, a sharpie, tie-line, and a safety pin.
•    Your diet consists of fast food or microwaved food.
•    Your Halloween costume in some way utilizes running blacks and gaff tape.
•    Varying your diet means ordering the #2 instead of the #3, or eating with your left hand instead of your right.
•    You understand the jokes in Forbidden Broadway.
•    You insist on spelling “theatre” with an “re” – not an “er”.
•    People recognize you by the sound of your keys jingling down the hallway.
•    Going to a restaurant means ordering and sitting down in McDonald’s rather than the drive-thru.
•    You’d heard of Mandy Patinkin before he was on Chicago Hope.
•    “Practical,” “drop,” and “flat” are nouns.
•    Instead of saying that you’re leaving, you say you’re “exiting.”
•    At home, you “strike” your dishes to the kitchen.
•    If someone asks you what time it is, you respond with something like, “Half hour ’til half hour.”

-twl

Dunkirk NY – 45 years ago, this day, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was three months from my 12th birthday, in 5th grade. Mr. Monoco, a 6th-grade teacher who was fat and had a mean streak, came bursting into our classroom to let his my teacher Mr. Weissman know. TVs were found, wheeled into the classroom, and everybody sat watching Walter Cronkite give us the news. When school let out that afternoon, I went to my post as a School Safety Patrol officer, where I served as a crossing guard, leaned on my School Crossing sign, and spent the entire time crying. In all the following years I cannot remember a time when I cried harder or for a longer period of time.

There was much drama and ritual the following four days. I have always been drawn to ritual, which accounts for part of my attraction to the theatre. Watching the services play out, watching everyone play their part out to the hilt, from the grieving widow to the loving children to the new president, made a deep impression on me. Whenever I see clips of those moments replayed I can still feel a hushed reverence in my soul.

I’ve no idea why I am writing this, really. Perhaps it’s because I don’t think anyone else will spend a minute or two thinking about this event, and I’d like them to do so. I believe that JFK’s assassination was perhaps the seminal event of the second half of the 20th century, as it unleashed a string of events which, had he lived and served two terms, might not have happened. I would like to think that, culturally speaking, in the arts and in civil discourse, we’d be a stronger, more culturally vibrant, and less polarized nation. Like JFK and his brother Robert, I tend to be a dreamer. The greatest problem with dreaming, though, is waking up.  -twl

Fredonia NY

The view outside my window today

Fredonia NY – I am in the midst of many things at the moment: directing Christmas Carol, hearing juries for BFA students, giving feedback, seeing final projects, working for our institution’s accrediting process, and so on. Here are thoughts which have drifted out my office window and on which I should have written but could not find the time.

*I had to dismiss from my cast a freshman student who was often late and to whom I issued a warning that if he were late again I would have to dismiss him. He indeed did come late due to misreading his rehearsal schedule. I had to keep my word. I didn’t like doing this, as he’s basically a good kid trying to find his way in the department. I find it always difficult trying to walk that fine line between leniency and discipline in education.

*Christmas Carol is a beautiful story. It grows on me more and more. Its message of redemption is so full of the frailty of humanity, and Dickens has so much to say about “vain man in his brief little authority.” It’s too bad it’s gained a reputation as nothing but a cash cow. I fear the commericalization of this story has robbed it of its powerful message and its beauty. Communicating the wisdom and wonder in the story to younger actors is a serious challenge. They, of course, do not yet in their lives feel the need for redemption. Maybe they are right.

View from my office window

*The leaves are gone from the trees, snow has fallen and accumulated in pretty good amounts up in the hills, although not in town. The view from my office is barren, a reflection of the state of my soul at times during the day. But with the grey season settling in, at least I can open my blinds completely and take in the view. I had one of our first-year faculty members in my office the other day and he admired the view, as his office is down in the basement where the technicians gather. I told him in 20 years it could all be his.

*It seems I am once again going through another re-adjustment between myself and my students. I don’t quite get why they don’t throw themselves fully into their work. I don’t understand why they need to socialize and gossip so much, and why they have so little discipline. Was it just easier in my day? I fear I am becoming something nobody ever wants to become in the theatre-training business: someone who believes that things were much better “back in the day.” It’s an annoying trait, and yet I can’t stop myself from experiencing that feeling as I watch the students work. How many more re-adjustments are left, I wonder?

* Academia is so slow to change, so conservative. I’ve been working at a snail’s pace on curricular matters, and there are layers upon layers to get change implemented. I think most of the rest of my career will be spent trying to grease the wheels of change for a coming generation. It’s a grind, to be sure. I can only hope it’s worth it.

*Aging seems to be about letting go of things.

-twl

Dunkirk NY – Yesterday in my classes we had a discussion about the importance and the power of words on the stage. It was very interesting to me to hear how the last thing young actors come to grips with are the words of the play. In all my class this semester, it’s been surprising to me how little understanding or appreciation the students have for words and language.

Commitment to the words; connection with your acting partners; an openness and honesty on the stage – we decided that these were the elements of “naked acting.” The term came about because one of the students observed that she was always more concerned about the costumes and props she was going to have than about the words or anyone else on stage. She said she had to learn how to act without all those external trappings, at which point I coined the term “naked acting.”

Stillness is the final component of that. In a rehearsal the other night with the two actors playing Belle and Young Scrooge in my upcoming production of A Chistmas Carol, we worked to minimize all extraneous movements and gestures, and attempted to use just the words from Dickens and a connection between the two of them. At the end of one attempt at the scene, the girl playing Belle observed that the stillness of the scene made it that much harder for her to say the words, because she really had to confront Young Scrooge. Stillness made the confrontation stronger, the obstacle harder, the stakes higher.

I love the stillness inherent in nature. When life is still, you get the opportunity to see everything clearly, without it being able to shift or escape your gaze. More of this is what we need on the stage, I think, and what would make theatre a little more compelling.

“Naked Acting” – I wonder if I have a textbook there?  -twl

Fredonia NY – California’s Proposition 8 concerning gay marriage has been a hot-button issue since its passage. Broadly speaking, liberals opposed the measure, conservatives supported it.  The artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento has resigned his position because it was discovered he exercised his constitutional right to financially support the causes that he believes in, one of which being that, as a Mormon, he believes that marriage should be one man, one woman. You can read the New York Time article on the issue.

The reaction from the theatre community, and the gay community within the theatre community, is interesting and instructive. Some reactions demonstrate the intolerant liberalism of which I wrote; others, while disagreeing with Mr. Eckern’s position on the issue, demonstrate, to varying degrees of strength, at least a recognition that he has been improperly forced to resign.

In my opinion, this is the heart of the matter – we cannot consider ourselves to be culturally diverse and open-minded if we continually seek to punish those who disagree with us or in other ways try to suppress the constitutional rights of conservatives. Failing to understand this point will only serve to turn “liberalism” into another lock-step, groupthink constituency. As someone who attempts to be liberal-minded, it may be that I will have to stop identifying myself as a “liberal,” and more so as an “independent.” Since I am not registered with either party, perhaps that’s a better way for me to self-identify anyway.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – Yesterday was Veterans Day, and as is my custom, I called up my old college roommate to wish him a happy Veterans Day. A former Navy Seal who did one-and-a-half tours in Vietnam, received two Purple Hearts and the Navy Cross, got the million-dollar wound by getting some shrapnel in his back (not enough to do lasting damage but bad enough to send him stateside), he now lives in a subsidized housing dormitory for veterans in lower Harlem, has prostate cancer and emphysema, and lives off his military pension.

We are the unlikeliest of friends. I did not serve in the military, and was a conscientious objector at 18. I was not drafted because in my year of eligibility under Nixon’s lottery system they did not call my number. As a pacifist and basically a liberal, my political views are by and large the polar opposite of his. He intensely dislikes just about everything that has to do with the 60s, and on more than one occasion he has shared with me his experiences about facing people back here in the US when he returned to college. Like many returning vets of that generation and that war, he was shunned, literally called a “baby killer,” and so on (side note – for those who may think my previous post was an “isolated incident,” intolerant liberalism is not new; it’s something I have not seen before. Returning Vietnam Veterans were subject to this phenomenon 30 years ago, and only now has that mistaken view been corrected). Continue Reading »

Dunkirk NY – OK, so Barack Obama has been elected. And yes, I think that’s a good thing. Without question it’s an historic event. But I do fear that his victory already has in it the seeds of his defeat in the form of an emerging intolerant liberalism.

Recently I ran across the work of Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor at the University of Virginia. His work centers around the differences between conservatives and liberals, and his work questions the traditional notion that liberals are more compassionate and open-minded. In some ways they are, but not when it comes to understanding or tolerating conservatives. Conservatives, it seems, will soon become the new outcasts of this liberal dawn. He has an article here, and you can also view a video on TED (one of my favorite web sites) where he further explains his research.

I’ve seen this phenomenon taking shape on my campus at the student and the faculty level. An itinerant preacher named Jim DeFerio came to our campus on Oct. 7 and spent about 4 hours preaching that homosexuality was a sin and calling people to repent and come to Christ. Despite never having expressed more than his opinion about the matter, and never claiming to hate gays (in fact, his claim is that his love for them motivates his desire to see them repent), his preaching, although legal and within his rights, was determined to be unacceptable to the campus community, and a “spontaneous” rally was staged so as to drown him out (“spontaneous” because there is circumstantial evidence to indicate administrators on the campus sent out calls to have people rally). Fredonia is not the only campus this man has visited. He has been to SUNY campuses across the state, and in each place he has received more or less the same treatment. One campus even had him arrested, despite his right of free speech on a public university campus. Continue Reading »

Dunkirk NY – It’s been a hectic week. From last Monday until this evening I have not had dinner in my own house. I had a week where I had to do academic advising, rehearse for yesterday’s workshops conducted by a couple of alumni, rehearse Christmas Carol, see Marat/Sade, and – oh yes – teach classes. This week should be easier, but who knows.

I spent some time this week trying to assess where I was in the semester. My reason was because I did something on Tuesday this past week which I seldom do – I lost my temper in a rehearsal. The reason I lost my temper was because a student actor, wanting to know what the rehearsal schedule was, began by saying “Someone told me that…” Because it was the third time that someone started a sentence that way, I just snapped, and yelled at the entire cast, “I am the only one you should go to for information about the show. If I catch this “someone” who’s passing out bad information I will personally wring his/her neck!”

It wasn’t my finest teaching moment. I have found in the last year, or actually since returning from sabbatical in 2006, that my patience is not what it used to be. This is a problem I need to pay some attention to. All actors in long runs have to pay some attention to the problem of keeping a show fresh and new, but when you’ve been more or less in the same “show” for 21 years, how do you keep it fresh? Remembering that all this is new for them does not seem to help as much as it did at one time.

The same thing seems to happen in other classes to a lesser degree. I can feel the irritation begin to build, because to me the problem seems ridiculously simple, but students seem somehow unaware of why the issue might be a problem.

Let me illustrate with an example. In my Directing 1 class, the final project is to direct a one-act play at the end of the semester for the bi-annual “One Act Festival.” There isn’t a student in the department who doesn’t know after their first semester that, when they take Directing 1, they will have to do a one-act play. This has been going on since I’ve been on the faculty. Yet, time and again, a significant handful of students who take the class get to the point where, when the title of the one-act is actually due, they do not hand in a title on time, and I have to drag a play title out of them.

The source of my irritation, of course, is the fact that I would think it would be so easy to come into class on the first day and already have a title ready to go. You KNOW for a fact you’re going to have to have a play to direct. Why wait until the very last moment to choose? And of course, they always claim there are no one-acts in the library, they don’t know where to find one-acts, etc. etc. So this year I even did one entire class session on “where to find one-acts.” It seemed not to work; the same percentage of students still did not have a one-act by the deadline. Some students were still looking for play titles on the very day they were to hold auditions!

So the watchword this week is patience, and seeing again with renewed eyes. We shall see what comes of it.  -twl