Does theatre matter? Well, that depends on who's talking. According to Robert Brustein, The New Republic theatre critic and past dean of the Yale Drama School, it matters profoundly, at least to him (and should to all serious people), although he contends the public at large has lost its passion for it. And Brustein cannot help but contrast the contemporary sensibility with that of medieval Europe, Elizabethan London, or the golden age of France, "where audiences would no more miss a new Molière play than miss a meal."
During a freewheeling symposium, held on April 23 at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Brustein, along with actress Kathleen Chalfant, foundation head and former executive director of Lincoln Center's New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Robert Marx, and director Joanna Settle, debated various aspects of the question at hand: Does theatre matter? To whom? How does one define theatre that's worthy of concern? And, if theatre is no longer a grabber, why?
Brustein, for example, asserts there are a host of culprits, with social insularity—fed by technology (e.g., home entertainment systems)—heading the list. Nonetheless, audiences still go to Broadway musicals in droves, he continues, and that's another part of the problem. In its determination to hold up a flattering mirror to its audience—as opposed to one that provokes—"Broadway cannot provide a sense of community or penetrating purpose."
The National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP), the Program in Arts Administration at Columbia's Teachers College, and the Theatre Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University presented the panel discussion. The moderator was Joan Jeffri, director of the Program in Arts Administration.
Although each of the panelists had his or her own spin, a degree of consensus was voiced. To wit: Broadway is largely contemptible—"parochial and insular," Brustein said—and the not-for-profits (with a few exceptions) don't fare much better because boards, funders, and the subscribers control them. The major hope for theatre in America, it was agreed, will emerge from small grassroots theatres that tend to be political in nature—e.g. the global, antiwar Lysistrata Project—and experimental theatres (like the Wooster Group and lesser-known companies) that are not beholden to a board of directors who tend to have more conventional aesthetics and politics. Still, Marx pointed out, the best experimental theatre in America has not produced anyone equal to such European artists as director-writer-adaptor Ariane Mnouchkine.
One reason for a declining interest in quality theatre, Marx suggested, is a shift in America's collective worldview. "We're in the most commercial moment in our history. If one third of newscasts is given over to finances, if the common culture is market-driven, how does the nonprofit exist in a profoundly marketplace world? Perhaps our relationship to the world has dumbed down."
Marx, who serves as the vice president of the Samuels Foundation, suggested that perhaps theatre is not really connected to the society, spiritually or politically — certainly not the way pop music, film, and TV are. That said (and as if to prove his point about a market-driven culture), Marx noted that theatre matters (matters profoundly) to the economics of New York. "According to the Port Authority, Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre have a greater economic impact than all New York sports combined."
Joanna Settle, artistic director of Division 13 Productions, made the point that she and other young directors have no objection to pop culture or seeing elements of pop culture—e.g., from video monitors to rock music—incorporated into a theatrical aesthetic. Indeed, she said its absence in most mainstream productions contributes to dull theatre, graying audiences, and apathy among younger theatregoers. "This is the era of sensory immersion," she said. "It's a changing aesthetic and I welcome it.
"In the theatre, you buy a ticket, the lights go down, and then they go down some more," she continued. "The newness is gone. I don't feel that in a sports stadium or at a rock concert."
Robert Brustein was not in synch with Settle. Indeed, at one point he quipped that in the wake of economic cuts, an appreciation of music is the first thing to go. "As a result, we believe graffiti is art and rock is music."
"It is!" Settle retorted.
That exchange garnered a big laugh from the audience.
Later, they disagreed over the talents required to perform on film. Settle does not eschew movie acting, if for no other reason than because it reflects and is part of a cultural sensibility. Brustein, on the other hand, said, "It's not acting. It's behaving."
Another laugh.
In addition to writing critical pieces about the theatre, Brustein was the founding director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and American Repertory Theatre (ART) in New Haven and Cambridge, respectively. He is a professor of English at Harvard and is currently an NAJP senior fellow.
Those Damn Boards
When the discussion turned to resident theatres, how they evolved, and what went wrong (there was a tacit assumption among the panelists that something indeed did go wrong), Settle suggested that the problem was the theatre's staid and stodgy aesthetic, which was not open to new blood.
Settle is a 2000-2002 recipient of an NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors and a graduate of the inaugural Juilliard Directing Program; nevertheless, she said she felt rejected by the larger resident theatres because of her youth. She compared those attitudes with those expressed in the world of film and television where youth, as everyone knows, is at a premium. (Indeed, there's no secret that writers who worked on such mega-hits as "M*A*S*H" feel compelled to hide that noteworthy credit because it dates them—or so it has been alleged.)
Settle further bemoaned the fact that resident theatres feel obliged to mount four or five productions a year, meaning that a show that requires a long rehearsal period cannot get done.
Kathleen Chalfant, best known for her multi-award-winning performance in "Wit," observed that the problem, from her vantage point, is not a lack of funds. "There are vast sums of money, but they are spent in peculiar ways. It's always easier to raise money for capital projects than human capital."
Marx offered an analogy: "You can build the library, but not pay the librarians."
"Theatre functions like corporations," remarked Brustein. "The only way to get money is to have a board [whose members are contributors] and the board then demands to see certain plays. I want to see the de-institutionalization of theatre."
He added that when resident theatres first started cropping up across the country, audiences were attracted to institutions that had an identity—which have largely been lost—and audiences were interested in the development of actors, directors, and plays that were identified with those institutions. "There was an organic relationship between audience and artists."
Brustein believes that with rare exceptions that symbiotic relationship no longer exists. Equally troublesome, he said, "Once a theatre is perceived as a civic institution—the only one in town—there's a problem. We at ART were liberated when the Huntington Theatre in Boston was formed because we were losing subscribers in droves. Fifty percent walked out when we staged Lee Breuer's 'Lulu.' Our problem was solved when the other theatre was created and started producing the kind of plays that audiences [lost by ART] want to see."
Towards the end of the symposium, the panelists talked about how an underfunded, undervalued, and diminished serious theatre scene affects the actor in a market-driven economy. An audience member wondered about acting training: What exactly are acting schools training students for, and does the training have any application if you can't make a living at it?
Chalfant, currently starring Off Broadway in Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads," maintained that art is the core of the culture and therefore acting (and acting training) has meaning, regardless of monies earned; the others agreed. Still, it was noted that unless the young actor has family money, the odds are he won't survive, certainly not as an actor.
All the panelists emphasized that most actors will have to work in movies and TV in order to support their theatre habit. (Again, an unvoiced consensus was at play: Movie and TV acting is a necessary evil, serious artists don't consider it an art form, and the celluloid gigs are there for the picking.)
"I'm asking my students to wear hair shirts," Brustein said. "I point to Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, who won't give up the theatre even though the rest of the time they have to be photographed [appear in movies]."
A puzzled member of the audience suggested that getting work on TV and in movies is very difficult, that unemployment among Los Angeles actors is inordinately high.
"Getting the job in Hollywood is hard," Chalfant said. "But the scale is so good." She stressed that she took a low-paying job in a more modest TV series ("The Guardian" at $10,000 an episode) so that she could have more time to do theatre.
"But I can also afford very good haircuts."
Big laugh.
Chalfant is optimistic about the future of theatre as both art form and a tool of dissent, especially among smaller theatres, where "they are under the radar and can get away with it."
Marx believes the pendulum will swing and serious theatre will come into its own and matter again to the public at large.
Brustein pointed out that "America's loss of innocence through an act of radical evil two years ago on Sept. 11 has not yet been chronicled on stage or off. We're still waiting for clarification." He suggested that that kind of clarification exists in theatre, citing Iago in "Othello" and Edmund in "King Lear."
"Shakespeare tapped the depths. And yes, dramatic art still matters."