Last night, I went to see my friend Michael Cyril Creighton (and his newly minted Equity card) appear as the priest in The Vietnamization of New Jersey by Christopher Durang. Sub-titled "an American Tragedy," the play did have its pitfalls but was overall an enjoyable experience. Suffice it to say, Michael was fantastic in a very small but memorable role, and James Duane Polk was divine (no pun intended) as Hazel, the black, female maid traditionally portrayed by a male actor.
No matter how well-acted, or how naturalistic a set is designed, the whole experience of live theater just strikes me as a little ridiculous. All of these grown-ups in their fake living room, standing around or in front of perfectly good furniture, holding empty coffee mugs, or bouncing on the balls of their feet just offstage, poised in front of a flimsy prop door, waiting for the audio technician to cue a very loud canned doorbell sound effect. And all of those strategically set family photos because, after all, this is someone's home we're peering into from our theater seats. There is a history here. Never mind the guy seated behind you who keeps rattling phlegm around in his throat; we are all witnessing a life inside a snow globe.
It just seems like such a silly pursuit for adults, even if they are creating (sometimes) serious art. Occasionally I can focus and allow my disbelief to suspend itself but something always draws me back out of the action, and I begin asking myself completely disruptive and inane questions about the construction of the play, rather than about the play itself. For example, I might zero in on a book on a character's bookshelf and think, "Shogun, by James Clavell, huh? That's a weird choice. No one has read that book in the last 25 years. Oh, I'll bet they just purchased a crate of books from the nearest Goodwill store, and filled these bookshelves with them. There is no way this character has read that book. Lousy cheaters." Or, last night, I just kept laughing to myself, thinking of how funny it was that the character of the town sheriff was actually just a grown man in his fifties with a fake, plastic gun strapped to his belt. It just seemed completely idiotic.
I was trying to think of why I lose focus so easily during plays set in very true-to-life locations. (rather than more experimental plays where the only set dressing is a pair of painted black cubes, a portrait of Mao hanging in space, and a garbage can with the word "MORALITY" spray-painted on it.) Is it because a play, because of its limited format, can't easily direct or restrict your focus? Movies, while just as ridiculous as plays with regards to the men-and-women-shooting-plastic-guns-at-invisible-dinosaurs factor, at least exercise greater control in helping you to accept the fantasy they present you. With editing and framing and music and dozens other techniques, movies tell you where to look and, as best as they're able, how to feel.
Now let me get really meta (last thing I promise) and post this conversation from Tom Loughlin's (old) blog where he references my reference to Baron Vaughn's blog. {whew}
[FROM TOM] So why Part Two of Original Practices? Because my good friend Carolyn Castiglia, who's a prolific blogger, pointed me to a blog entry from a friend of hers. He's talking about stand-up comedy, putting forth the idea that stand-up has a more immediate form of audience involvement than modern theatre. The entry reads as such:
[FROM BARON] To me (standup) can be more immediate than the theatre. The Theatre has become elitist. We can’t pretend to say that “everyday people” go to it. We can say that those are the roots of theatre. For the people. To tell stories of humanity and such. It also seems to be the credo for every major theatre movement that followed. “We’re doing this for the people, man! Taking it back to the streets!" Still, a comedy room is where you will find people from all walks of life, or at least more divergent walks of life than the theatre nowadays. The direct address quality and informality of a stand up room gives it the potential to become more penetrating, more truthful, more immediate then the Theatre. Even though it is theatre itself. It’s the closest thing we have to the origins of Greek theatre. That’s what it was at first. Solo performers telling stories. Active audiences. The passive audience is a new ideal. Its only I’d say about a century old when (as a wiseman once told me), “some motherfucker turned off the lights” that the audience became passive. Waiting for the performers to do everything for them. I believe there should be more of a give and take. I believe that exists now more so in Comedy than any other form.
[FROM TOM] The whole post is located here. There's also a very interesting New York Times article about performers transforming their blogs to one-person shows. It's located here. I'll come clean right away and say that I don't like about 90% of the stand-up comedy I hear, but that's just a matter of personal taste, and not really the point. Baron Vaughn's point is correct; theatre in many ways has lost its immediacy. While the Moscow Art Theatre may have ushered in a radical way of doing theatre for its time (with help from technological developments such as electric lighting), it could not have foreseen the rise and ultimate supremacy of film and television in terms of the audience's preferences. Theatre never had that kind of competition prior to the turn of the last century. I don't think that Stanislavski's intent was to create a passive audience, but that has nevertheless been the outcome.
My girl Becky Yamamoto is about to take her show on the road throughout January, reprising the role "Korean-American*" which she originated this fall in “Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven." Look for it at a college near you, Ohio State!
*Here's an example of theatrical magic at its finest: Becky is actually Chinese and Japanese! Take that Kim Jong-il. BOO-YAH!
