{ My Thoughts Now: I’m not sure the centralization of Silicon Valley (or any other centralization, for that matter) is a good idea anymore. In a post-pandemic era when more and more people are working from home, and some businesses don’t have a “headquarters,” we see that it is entirely possible to be inspired from many places. The main point, however, stands as is – the arts are too centralized in a few major cities. Yesterday, I think, I read an article (that I’m frustrated to say I didn’t save) about the “Rural Purge”] on TV shows in the 1970s, and that today pitching a TV show set in a rural area is the kiss of death. Most of our TV shows are set in urban areas. The effect of this narrowing of stories is that our knowledge of life in non-urban areas is woefully lacking, and likely contributes to the cultural polarization in every aspect of our society today. }

Originally published on Theatre Ideas

In my previous post, “Want and Need,” I asked the question whether any theatre needs 350 - 400 non-profit theatres. There are some who will point at other cities that have a concentration in a certain industry – say, Silicon Valley – and discuss the positive creative effects of having the amount of creative interaction such a concentration affords. And there would be great truth to such an argument – the circulation of talent and ideas ramps up the creative heat, there is no doubt about it.

Here’s the difference between the theatre and Silicon Valley: Silicon Valley, despite being concentrated in a small area, is creating products for the world, whereas the theatre creates products for the locality. If the only people who would buy the computer products created in Silicon Valley were people who lived in Silicon Valley, I guarantee that you would soon find the computer business scattered across the globe.

If you cage up 400 dogs and every day feed them only enough food for 40 of them, you will eventually end up with 360 dead dogs and 40 very powerful dogs capable of fighting for their fair share. That is the theory behind the “if I can’t make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” motto of New York. One might ask whether the strength of the winners is worth the destruction of the losers, or whether the skills developed as a result of the competition are the skills that lead to the best theatre. Cream rises to the top, but so does pond scum. And my bet is that in the bloody remains of the 360 I would likely find quite a few talents that could have added mightily to world’s beauty.

Published in Theatre Ideas on April 20, 2008:

At the end of the NY Times article on the Off-Off-Broadway theatre numbers, Paul Bargetto, the artistic director of East River Commedia, boggles his own mind with what he apparently thinks is a rhetorical question:

“‘You start to show people the numbers involved here,’ he said. ‘What city wouldn’t want to have 350 to 400 not-for-profit theater companies?'”

A better question might be: What city needs 350 to 400 not-for-profit companies? I suggest a quick read of Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons”, which discusses how finite resources (in this case, the theatregoing crowd) can be depleted through overuse, as an indirect response to Bargetto’s question. Or perhaps a basic economics text about overcrowded markets (see “marginal benefit,” “excess supply,” and “allocative function of price.") [Or, perhaps, Blue Ocean Strategy]

Several days ago, Alan Jacobs (@ayjay@hcommons.social) published the following in a post entitled “Reorientation":

In times of social and political crisis, especially when new and often contradictory bulletins are arriving on our ICDs (Internet-Connected Devices) at a second-by-second rate, you and I need to step back. We need the relief. But at the same time, it is impossible, for me anyway, not to think about what’s happening. Just saying “I’m not going to read any more about this” is an inadequate response; it has a tendency to leave me fretful and at loose ends.

What helps is to read works from the past that deal with questions and challenges that are structurally similar to the ones we’re facing but that emerged in a wholly different context.

The idea of choosing works that are structurally similar to what’s going on, is an approach that uses literature, not as an escape, but rather as a means of achieving emotional distance for contemplation. I was reminded of how vaccines work by injecting a small amount of the disease into the body in order to allow the autoimmune system to strengthen itself. The works Dr. Jacobs has chosen for this moment includes Psalms, Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, and Machiavelli’s Discourses.

I’ve been trying to figure how I, as a theater historian with a background in dramatic literature, might follow Dr. Jacobs' lead. One work that sprang to mind immediately is Alfred Jarry’s bizarre and outrageous surrealist play, Ubu Roi (1896), whose central character, King Ubu, “is an antihero – fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, greedy, cruel, cowardly and evil.” Another possibility: Sophocles' Antigone, which seems fitting as a portrait of a tyrannical ruler whose reaction to resistance is brutality (although Jean Anouilh’s version, written during the Nazi occupation of Paris, might supplement the original Greek version). And finally, Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 drama, William Tell, about an individual’s resistance in the face of inhumanity, and the moral questions that arise from his resistance.

Jacobs concludes:

This practice of breaking bread with the dead in times of crisis offers a threefold reorientation: - Emotional, because it gives you a break from people who are continually trying to stoke your feelings of anger and hatred; - Intellectual, because in comparing past situations with ours you get an increasingly clear sense of what about our current situation is familiar (and therefore subject to familiar remedies) and what unusual or even unique (and therefore in need of new strategies); - Moral, because, as Aragorn says to Éomer, “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”

Well said, Dr. Jacobs, and many thanks for providing me with inspiration to think differently about my reading. I think it might be wise to add to my list a re-reading of *Breaking Bread with the Dead” as well.

“Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf to Star in Broadway ‘Salesman’ by Michael Paulson, The New York Times | Joe Mantello will direct the next revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” opening in April at the Winter Garden Theater.”

COULD WE PLEASE GET THESE PEOPLE A DIFFERENT PLAY ANTHOLOGY??? How many more productions of Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, and A Streetcar Named Desire. There are other plays, people!

I had a dream last night that my wife has insisted I share because it is so complete and plotted. I must say, it is unusual for me – I don’t usually have dreams with stories. Anyway, here it is:

I dreamed that my wife's aunt owned an island estate, and she asked me to help her because she wanted to sell it and she was having a meeting with a bunch of high-powered lawyers and realtors. When I arrived, the house was filled with said lawyers and realtors, but as I wandered the house and grounds I also found that the house was being used by a Very Famous musical playwright as a rehearsal space for his next major musical. One room was filled with costumers sewing elaborate period costumes, in another the choreographer was rehearsing a dance number, in another the orchestra was rehearsing with the singers, and in another scenery was being built. None of the people were talking to each other, and as I wandered through the rooms and hallways it was clear that nobody seemed to be working on the same play, but instead every artist was following their own inclinations and paying no attention to creating a cohesive production. I became increasingly angry and frustrated at the waste of time and money, and the lack of actual artistic thought.

Suddenly, there was one of those shift in scenes that sometimes occur in my dreams. The cacophony of the production continued, but the scene was now in a Broadway theater. Different groups were scattered across the multi-leveled set, talking and singing and dancing and laughing and creating a scene of total chaos. Suddenly, in stomped a character who stomped to center stage and shouted "Shut up!" Nothing -- the chaos continued. "SHUT UP!" Again, no change. At the top of his lungs: "SHHUUUUUUUTTTTT UPPPPPPPPP!!!" Suddenly silence fell. Somebody shouted, "What?"

The character said: "Thank you for your attention. I have been hanging around this production process for a while, and it is clear to me that this is going to be a disaster." General hub bub. Quiets down. "People come to the theater to hear a story. I have read the script, and there IS a story in there, but it is being buried inside of all kinds of fat and gilt and spectacle to the point where the story is being completely lost. That's why I've been sent to take over."

"You? Who are you?," someone demanded to know. The central character turned, steely-eyed: "I'll tell you who I am after you tell me who you are." "The director," he said. "Former director," the central character said. Commotion. Then: "So who are you?" "Me? I. Am. The Dramaturg."

Silence. Another voice: "The Dramaturg? What the hell does a dramaturg do?"

"What does a dramaturg do," the Dramaturg repeated calmly. "What do you _think _ I'm going to do?..."I'm gonna save the fucking day."

Suddenly, the voice of a TV announcer says "Get your tickets to the smash Broadway hit, _The Dramaturg_ by going online at DramaturgonBroadway.com..." The orchestra swings into a song.

And....dream.