Is participation the defining characteristic of political theater?

Italian guy – Likes the question.  Is the act of participating in something together political?

TV-sitcoms-are-political-theater lady says there are many ways of engaging an audience, and getting them to participate is just one of them.

THUNDER STARTS

DL – The standard model of theater in the U.S. depends on passive spectatorship.  In order for it to be political, doesn’t it have to do something? Doesn’t the audience have to engage in some other way?

The audience wants to know what that means.

Usher Sophie points out that being passive doesn’t necessarily mean being stupid, just as being active or participating doesn’t necessarily mean your intentions are better or more meaningful.

Zing. Good one.

And on that note, over to Simone Weil for the last word.

And just in case it hasn’t be said, I think we all owe audience member Tess a thank you for bringing Colleen to a pitch of wrath on Thursday night that completely changed her monologue in the best way possible.

Closer to home

Blackwatch 3 – non-profit theater.

What happens when the theater you’re watching contains topics and characters that you have greater access to in your own life?

Does anyone want to see a play about that?

Nina – my honest feeling when this scene started was “oh god, please, I really don’t want to see this.”  When asked to choose, she says it would be harder to see a play about non-profit theater than, say, “Blasted.”

DL – “Blasted” raises the same issues about character advocacy.  How do you feel after doing that show night after night after night – either as one of the victims or as one of the perpetrators.

Lady of the young theater major couple – the political point of “Blasted” was lost because it was such a gross-out fest.  Her friend saw the people indulging in this “horribly audacious piece of trash.”

DL – Is this a Brechtian model for audience reaction – keeping your distance and commenting on the gore in a very removed fashion.

DL moves on to talk about virtuoso suffering, in terms of Reed Burney in “Blasted” and Christi as Violetta post-sacking.  Another example is Heath Ledger playing the Joker.  What’s in it for the audience?

DL – And then let’s extend this to an analysis of Simone Weil and her consummate method acting in her life.

Mary – Why isn’t this political theater?

Colleen – we’ve never said it wasn’t.

Playing the part

DL: Is there a part that you would be morally opposed to playing in this play?

Colleen talks about being embarrassed to participate in a reading a few months ago – she’d made the commitment, but she really wanted to back out.   The show featured a song called  ”Who’s misogynistic now, you stupid fucking bitch?”

Colleen: I make choices about what kinds of characters I think are worth playing.

Character Advocacy – understanding a character’s motivies and living inside them.  (So, believing not just in the role, but believing the things the character believes.)

Italian guy – The question for a performer is not what they think of a particular character, but what is the playwright’s intention with the entire play. It’s ok to play an asshole, but if the playwright doesn’t believe that the character is an asshole, then they might not want to participate in that production.

DL – the example of “24″ – all these probably left-leaning actors participating in a TV drama that’s very conservative.

What’s missing from the play

Christi posits that the most interesting part of the play is the part that’s not shown – how was everyone convinced in the first place to participate in that revolt.

PESSIMISM OF THE INTELLECT; OPTIMISM OF THE WILL.

Gideon’s quote from (?) – you can recognize on an intellectual level that the situation is fucked, but you can decide to engage anyways, believing that action always has the potential for being amerliorative.

OK, you wanna talk about finance?

On to Blackwatch 4, the Wall Street version of the documentary theater set-up.

DL: OK, so who do you guys blame for what is happening on Wall Street?

Jon blames Christi!!  The truth comes out!

Jeff blames Alan Greenspan.  But also de-regulation.  Which Greenspan initiated.  Black t-shirt guy – was Greenspan the man on the tower orchestrating the downturn (a la Reynaud and Jaffier)?

Mary’s lawyer friend – points out the differences between the first three scenes, in terms of who can you blame.  How hard is it to pin it on someone.

DL:  In all the scenes, everyone’s got their reasons for what they do.  Which lines up with audience member who says that it’s probable that Greenspan was acting with the best of intentions.

Christi doesn’t care if Milton Friedman is nice in his personal life or a dick. But his philosophy has had a negative effect.  The results of that philosophy speak for themselves.

DL: But how do you want to see it played out in theater?  Do you not want to see a nice play about Milton Friedman?

DL:  Brecht’s problem is that the tropes in drama of “this is the cycle of humanity that can’t be changed and it’s hopeless” or “this is an evil person with this human side” is capitalism’s way of putting the man down, making sure you don’t feel like there’s no point in trying to upend the system.

Is this plausible?

David asks for current examples of people planning a sack.  Nina proffers examples from the current financial meltdown – people planning Ponzi schemes.

Powell comes up again as Jaffier, the competent military strategist who has moral qualms about brutal action against a whole culture – except Powell ultimately does cave in.

Questions of agency – David asks is it necessary to have identifiable characters to blame.  Or can we blame systems?  This kind of came up earlier tonight when an audience member commented on the updating of the courtesan scene, expressing a certain preference for the older scene in which you can identify particular guilty individuals – in the modern version, there’s just a general world financial order that victimizes individuals.

What’s on the wall tonight?

At the beginning of the show, David always asks the audience to give some definitions and examples of political theater.  Which results in some abbreviated phrases on the wall.  Tonight:

THEATER OUTSIDE

THEATER INSIDE (INSITUTIONAL)

COMMUNAL THEATER MAKING

SITCOM TV

Back in – let’s start with a lesson in sacking

Introducing myself as fill-in blogger for Act II.  I’m Maria Gambale, Line Producer for “Venice Saved” and I’ll be subbing in for Gordon for the second half of the show.

Everyone came back from intermission, which means we have 15 people in the house, including one of our original dramturgs Nina Mankin.

We’re starting the second half with the Reynaud / Jaffier scene – advising the sack.

Who’s Special Now?

Violetta appears as a victim of the putative sack of Venice in a demonstration of documentary theatre:

DL: do characters have to be special for us to care?

W1: preferably not.

M4: I identify more with the special princess than with the token man on the street

M5: the first courtesan scene is scarier because there’s an identified villain, instead of the second, where it’s more of a system …

DL: but aren’t people actually prone to systems?  Weil specifies that the whole thing about being colonized – she’s also talking about systems.

GLK: the first scene might be more cynical because it implies an endless reversal of power – it’s more cynical; while the second, while the second courtesan is more cynical herself, the fact that it’s a clearer view of the world reveals more of an optimism

DL: the 3rd scene is both systemic and personal … how does that go over?

M1: it’s emotional – it’s about the feelings rather than the ideas – there’s tension, but also vague thought.

W2: there are numbers in the second Courtesan scene too – and you see the personal and the broader vision.

M6: to me the first scene is most moving, because you see that rape is not a by-product of war but a deliberate act, and here dictated by a victim onto other victims – a corrupt concept of justice lies behind so much of war.

DL: when we say something is political – what do we want it to do? there’s a range of possibilities that people have named -  is giving people room to reflect political?

JH: the less sophisticated the message, the more likely it is to reach a larger audience.  the more sophisticated it is, it’s going to reach less people – though it may reach people who are more educated, more powerful …

MDL: when you asked which scene people felt worked better, people are starting to participate more -

DL: which means?

MDL: so when it’s an esthetic question instead of a political stance, people are participating more …

W1: but being given a choice is empowering.

DL: but in theatre you usually get a choice in, like, the mystery of edwin drood.

[the issue of Seven Jewish Children arises ...]

DL: does the requirement of a contribution imply that normal choice isn’t enough

JH: what is churchill going to do you if you don’t make the donation?

DL: she won’t let you do her next blockbuster starring Sam Shepard.

M3: I think I already know what the play [7JC] is …

[disagreement from people who've seen/read it, the play explained as at least a potentially ambiguous piece ...]

DL: even if it’s asking for a humane collection, she is tying herself to a point of view

W7: interesting that at NYTW there was no actual passing of the hat – nothing so confrontational – I didn’t even see a collection box, only a slip of paper that gave you the information about the charity you could contribute to … it seemed really an avoidance, actually totally wimpy

- “that seems incredibly NYTW …”

[discussion of NYTW, Rachel Corrie, Homebody Kabul, etc.]

DL: does the hat-passing reduce it to propaganda?

MDL: I find that provocative – you had to go home and make a choice whether or not to contribute yourself …

DL: Eyre/McKellen production of RIII story: “Who is so bold …”

… which leads us into intermission.

Alternative Vision, Without Turks

DL: We didn’t do this with Turks, but there’s a common strategy of updating things in search of either immediacy or relevance …

A revised version of the Courtesan scene, updated:
DL: so what changes when you do that?  Your feelings about the characters, the scene?

M3: everything seems changed – even the shift from prostitute to courtesan – the rerevenge is more general, where for the first courtesan is more specific

DL: But which speaks more to our current situation?  What are the impulses behind that move in the theatre?

MDL: maybe it seems more sentimental …

DL: but the first scene is more distant -

MDL: it is.  I can identify with the second – but when I do that, I lose my critical faculties, I take it personally and aren’t thinking so much

M4: my problem with adaptations is that the second scene doesn’t make sense – I don’t think of Venice as the source of such prostitution -

W1: but it is happening in all those cities – paris, rome -

M1: the first scene is more specific – she has the list – whereas the second woman isn’t so individual

DL: but the 2nd scene has so many more facts

M1: that doesn’t matter.  the 2nd scene is easier to grab hold of, but the first courtesan is more special -

DL: but does the person have to be special in order for you to care?

Prostitution and Rape, Our Muse’s Metaphors

We see the parade of snippets from Weil’s play, and then, lights down, the Courtesan scene:

DL: What is Weil saying that scene?  It’s a weird scene – these are tertiary characters who don’t show up again …

JH: Well, her teenage years are rough.

M2: it’s political in terms of talking politics, but it’s more romantic in terms of her being a foreigner.  maybe it seems political in terms of an analysis – that there’s a boiling point being reached -

DL: is Weil in sympathy with the boiling point?  With the outcome that’s presented …

M2: I don’t know.

M3: it seems like chickens coming home to roost.

DL: Is that relevant to Weil’s situation.

M3: maybe – relative to the Treaty of Versailles – that sort of blow-back.

JK: you think that last speech is going to be an eye-for-an-eye, but it turns out to be an eye for a gall bladder, a liver, a heart …

DL: she’s not getting us behind the victim, or not simply – she’s not advocating for the revenge

W1: it’s a more revolutionary vision

CW: I do think there’s some empathy being built for the people who are being threatened

JH: yes, you’re with her until the revenge is described, then you’re taken aback

NM: it makes me think of guest workers – Turks, mainly – in Germany, who could live there for generations without getting rights or representation

“I’m Fine! I Want to Be Worse!”

In a clean yet utterly humane line, the frame of discussion is momentarily displaced by David’s introduction to the peice, Colleen’s presentation of Simone Weil’s biography, Gideon’s presentation of Weil’s writings (with regard to the play), and James’ overview of the play itself.

This is a regular feature of Venice Saved, a sketch of seminar prerequisites, “necessary reading” for the coming discussion.  Most plays, indeed, most theatre works of any kind, contain some element of exposition, and how this element is handled is perhaps the most agreed-upon metric for evaluating a playwrights “chops” – which is to say, the degree to which the delivery of the outside information necessary to understanding the action (that is, the trick of putting the audience and the characters on the same page) has been made invisible, or at least nearly so.

In Venice Saved, there is scarcely any art to this at all, instead a truckload of facts are boldly, openly, winningly dumped onto the table-tops for all to see and consume.  Nowhere here does one actor turn to another and muse aloud, “do you remember that time when the two of us together did that thing I will now describe again, despite the fact that we both know these facts perfectly well?”

At least for this small mercy, we the dramaturgically jaded are grateful.

Dial Back the Responsibility, People!

DL: So how do people define political theatre?

[pause.]

DL: Okay … there is no political theatre?

NM: street theatre/theatre outside

JB: theatre inside – theatre economics – the institution

MDL: puppets! [for a moment this sounded like 'hobbits'] actually communal theatre-makers

W1: network television – sitcoms that address social/political subject matter (in theatres?) who’s to say what’s theatre?

DL: what’s the difference btwn tv and theatre?

JH: money!

W1: it’s populist!  it’s not about the money, but context.

M1: we’re talking more about context than content.

DL: well, is tv more important than theatre?  hold that thought!

Ongoing Testimony

It’s a gloomy overcast Sunday, the dog-end of the weekend, and the house is more sparse than normal.  Strangely, the fewer number of bodies is not reflefcted in this evening’s beverage count: 5 coffees, 3 waters, 2 sodas, 1 tea, 1 lemonade.

In the booth, Eileen has one eye on the N. Carolina-Oklahoma game.  Right now it’s half-time, with NC up by 9 …

In the house is also our very own Nina Mankin, who served with Team Venice Saved as a dramaturg until various circumstances, both local and international, intervened.  We are thrilled to have her back at the table, with every confidence that she will stir up the bees.

And as the clock ticks down The Stooges have been bumped in favor of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as the lead-in number.  This can only augur big, raw happenings.

The play is not great for the same reasons that SW’s amazing.

Colleen’s Simone Weil’s “Good evening” gets another laugh –

I can’t help but think that this dialogue needs more of an outcome, an answer. It feels so never ending.
And I think this as I am listening to SW’s thoughts on questions and answers.

Staged Suffering

Blackwatch vs Blasted

DL – Blasted is like a dare, “i’m going to throw as much stuff at you as you can take”

-It’s interesting to think of these two in the same breath, Blasted is not JUST about how much you can take – Blackwatch at the end is a play that is very romantic and about the honor of military service

DL – But they were the hits, radically different approaches and radically different politics – but when we talk about bodies in seats… it’s usually never spelled out but, “seeing, participating, experiencing THIS will be good for you and make you a better citizen”

DL – Let’s give Weil the last word

the weird rap of SW

DL – She had the equivalent of a trust fund. We’re being cool about it, but people tend to attack Weil for being a tourist.

the right to work…

-Not everybody gets to do this, we have to re-organize the conditions of the city so that people don’t need luck, or independent wealth. We are complacent that this is the way it is and the way we are going to make art. Change will come from the people who don’t have the means.
(i.e. NOT Simone Weil?)

non-profit theatre, oh man.

lots of laughs Re: Blackwatch 3

“In the end all we had was the building”
Marketing and Development vs. artists

Does every down-town show serve beer at the show?
NTUSA, David Levine = 2 in a row at ps122

-It’s such a complicated situation when theatre’s are not paying their actors a living wage try to do work that is meaningful.

-It’s labor unions who try to keep their own workers from organizing

-It’s a systemic problem that goes beyond theatre

-These are public spaces, but it’s very secretive what really goes on

DL – But that’s again this question of distance, Chorus Line is great for this very reason.

-There’s a lot of fascination about it, but that’s as far as it goes, there’s kind of this gleeful sense about the punch line, “just once i’d like to make money doing theatre”

-And those press pieces are being written by freelancers!

-And let’s talk about how much these artistic directors and executive directors getting paid!
$450,000 a year – Lynn and Barry!

-Throughout all of American society there is this inequality of wealth!

-But we’re talking about theatre that is doing politically relevant theatre

DL – But non-profit theatre is in a funny place, Block seats, with food, reception with the cast etc they only charged $100!!!
For fuck’s sake, sell them for a grand!
Where’s your outrage?

-I just don’t know where to say enough is enough, we are not above the rest of the world. It’s a mess in terms of fair evaluations. How can our dollar be doing so well when we have such a monsterous national debt

-Who was it that wanted to go back to the gold standard?

-Ron Paul!

DL – We could just outsource the theatre!

-The Living Theatre, founded in 1947, has never had a dime to it’s name, has had genius to instigate it, never made a lot more money, who lived as a broke collective, eating rice and beans, chopping carrots, living the beautiful non-violent revolution. Probably the most political theatre we have, but everything thinks their work stinks.

-But if their work was amazing, there would be SUCH a difference. People would think they are brilliant.

“Devils don’t need advocates, ANGELS need advocates!!!!!”

the money of theatre/theatre of money

DL – Do we need theatre about this?

Ilan – I don’t think we fully understand the effects of this, there’s at least 3 more crashes to come

-Reno understands more about the way this stuff works than more economists, she’s doing a show at Joe’s Pub in April

DL – Do we need to digest before we can perform this stuff?

-The form matters, Reno digests and delivers in a particular way, I’m excited to see Reno cause I want the info synthesized by a wit

-That’s why we have Jon Stewart

-There seems to be a bit of a consensus that when you try in the moment, you tend to fall short, and are less refined

-What is the point of creating the theatre? Personally, I would love to see a piece about the flow of money

-That’s all confidential!
(ha!)

-I think it would be educational, ideally it wouldn’t be political (cause I would want to make my own conclusions), but it would definitely be valid. Someone with theatrical talent could take that basis and overlay an interesting plot or with language or whatever.

there’s a new show at PS 122 tonight only

Venice Saved: A Seminar on what the fuck is going on with our economy