Beliefs create reality. Assumptions define relationships... I’ve spent a considerable amount of time lately examining what I like and don’t like about theater. In doing so, I’ve also looked at the beliefs that bind the community together.
Even if you don’t share these beliefs, you still have to deal with the prevailing attitudes. To be honest, I find that I’m often at odds with about half of them.
Generally speaking, people who decide to work in theater are honest and idealistic. The art of theater comes before the bottom line. Since theater practitioners value art before money, this leads to the following assumptions.
If money changes hands, it should be distributed fairly. In theater, people don’t speak to each other through money. The payment for our work is spiritual or artistic; it isn’t financial. The result is that many theater people have a difficult relationship with money. Either they believe that they must work on a poverty level to validate their art, or they must sell-out to live.
Selling-out can be defined by becoming involved in a project that doesn’t put art first, or by leaving theater entirely. In fact, if you are a playwright who chooses to work in other literary forms, then it appears that you aren’t as committed to theater. Perhaps you aren’t a true playwright after all.
What is a true playwright? I have no idea. At a Cherry Lane Theater seminar in 2003, Edward Albee claimed that there were only a handful of “true playwrights” in the U.S. When I’ve mentioned my “novel-writing habit”, my commitment to theater has often been questioned. Those who don’t work in theater wonder why I can’t write in both forms.
The only answer I can figure is that people who work in theater regard it as being a calling. We take a vow of poverty and promise to work diligently, like monks. Poverty and loyalty seals our status as outsiders of mainstream culture.
Our role as outsiders allows us to say whatever we choose to say. In exchange for that freedom, theater remains on the periphery of mainstream culture. In an urbane environment, it is allowed to parody, provoke, and present unpopular opinions. In smaller communities, it allows amateurs a chance to act or direct. Freedom provides this kind of democratic art.
Democracy is what attracted me to theater. Putting art before commerce appealed to my idealism. But as I mentioned before, I find that these beliefs also hinder my ability to be a playwright. Obviously money is an issue, but so too is the rigid belief that in order to work in theater you have to be completely and exclusively dedicated to it. If I ever made money in theater, would my guilt over it be intolerable? Would I be less of a playwright if I worked on my novel, my screenplay, my poetry? Would my “street cred” go down in flames?
Sometimes I think that the religious fervor required to be a “theater person” is too intense, too pretentious, and too rigid. I wonder how many other people – potential audience members and practitioners – are completely turned off by these beliefs.
As I’ve already mentioned, I’m at odds with over half of what I’ve just written. There just has to be a better way…
