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.