You, Artist
I hadn't planned to write today, though I suppose I should a bit before my energy is taken up by ETI, when I'll be journaling about that in the unadvertised (but not secret) blog. A thought I wanted to write down came up so here I am.
I was finishing an essay by Tennessee Williams used as a preface for The Glass Menagerie, in which he wrote of his emotional meltdown and excursion to Mexico to write A Streetcar Named Desire, after experiencing the sudden success from writing Menagerie. It is a frank and disturbing welcome into his psyche as an artist. He mentioned various types of art and their importance.
I was struck by theatre as I read this. It is collaborative like nothing else. A painter creates a painting, artists display, organize, and light it. Sculpture is much the same. A singer creates dynamically, and much of the support is the same. With theatre there is the writer. There is a director who interprets, frames, and tells the story, and the actors who live it. All artists, more akin to the painter, each creating a piece of art, inextricably entwined with the other artists.
By no stretch of the imagination am I running down the artists who support and display the creative magic, these technicians and crew people are every bit as essential and often beautifully creative. The more creative the better, but I believe that is true in any pursuit. I am one of those type technicians I hope, and I love doing it and am every bit as proud of my accomplishments there. It is the artistic, the acting which I must have for my spiritual and emotional balance. It makes me better at the rest. Serves my writing too (though you'd never know it with the current hiatus).
Thinking of art in this collaborative light I had a realization as to why theatre draws me more than film, and maybe as a way to honor film more. In a theatre there is the 'other' player. The audience. It is my thought they are more in the class of the actor, director, and director than the crew. I've had inklings when I stage managed, tech directed, and/or designed and fabricated set and props. For all of us backstage, cast and crew, there is always talk of a good or dead house. How the audience is responding. It drives the experience on both sides of the apron.
When I saw The Crucible a week and a half ago there was a young couple sitting in front of me, playing with their cell phones a bit, IM'ing. The second half they spent most of the time playing with them, the lcd's creating a cold aura around them. One even made a call, and I hope they were thinking nobody would notice the whispers. After the show I tapped the young woman who was closer to me, and told her I was an actor and we can see the light of their phones from stage. They looked at me slackly, disinterested. "And we talk about you a lot." That caught their interest. I told a couple of the my friends and others on the cast, and one of them (Heather, Cathleen?) said, "Oh I can't believe you did that, you're great!" I was a little taken aback by the enthusiastic response and hug.
People forget they are not watching a television. Understandable, and in the bit above, I was as polite and kind as I could be while delivering the words which in themselves which were admonitory. It became gentle training I hope. I don't care in a movie theater, as long as I can still hear. The audience in live theatre is every bit as important as the cast, so when they check out it can be pretty deleterious. When they are there, it is a joy that makes the work and heartache worth it all. Ultimately, it really is all about the audience.
Didn't realize that audiences were artists before. Even the most sedate and prim audience become that. I don't know if I've clearly communicated the beauty and importance this has for me. It makes me more interested in film. The films that affected me the most have been those where the cast and crew pulls you in. Special effects, editing, acting, directing all play their parts. The truly great films are best in a theater, because that indefinable artistic energy from the rest of the audience is ignited. I don't believe it can ever fully match a good live production, but it is not to be sneered at. It is a bit of lovely trickery in which I would love to participate. Like people who only go to musicals and light comedy thinking they'll avoid the discomfort of audience demand in more dramatic productions. It is a matter of degree, they are still engaged in art, however much they'd like to deny it.
I suddenly find myself no longer disdainful with dedicated movie, musical, light comedy goers. They are still drawn by the art they make, but only in small doses. I have found with the more discerning perceptions of theatre thanks to getting so deeply involved, that the shows people respond to the most are those with the most truth and art. I believe well done drama will enthrall most people, but also when it is done badly it can turn them off for good. Like the fellow in my Kiwanis Club who unconsciously drives the other folks away from shows I've worked on. Nobody came to the last show. I gave up promoting when I was telling people about it and Jeff piped up, "Chekhov is ALWAYS too dark and depressing. No humor. Pure despair." Surprisingly I didn't get upset or hurt about it. He's a bright, generous, and giving person in most ways so I just figured it was one of the bits of stupidity and ignorance which pop up every so often in all of us. I think the concept of audience as artist was percolating even then. All I said was "I don't think you've ever seen Chekhov done right, because he is full of humor, albeit much of it is dark."
I was told I was tone deaf by a teacher and a parent when I was a kid. Absolutely wrong I found out a few years ago, but it kept me from ever taking music seriously. I was told I couldn't draw or paint. Don't go all weepy, it is an absolutely average and common experience for most children. The disservice of artists or non-artists stifling creativity creativity in others. A bad show can do the same thing to an audience member. They walk away thinking "I can't appreciate Shakespeare/melodrama/musicals/fringe/etc." It creates high stakes. If you screw up a show bad enough you could stifle the creative art of a budding audience member. I think about Jeff, and want to thwack the folks who destroyed his art for Chekhov.
Now it's back to The Glass Menagerie, one of the six or seven plays I'm to read before class starts. The rest are short plays, all by Williams or Pinter.
I was finishing an essay by Tennessee Williams used as a preface for The Glass Menagerie, in which he wrote of his emotional meltdown and excursion to Mexico to write A Streetcar Named Desire, after experiencing the sudden success from writing Menagerie. It is a frank and disturbing welcome into his psyche as an artist. He mentioned various types of art and their importance.
I was struck by theatre as I read this. It is collaborative like nothing else. A painter creates a painting, artists display, organize, and light it. Sculpture is much the same. A singer creates dynamically, and much of the support is the same. With theatre there is the writer. There is a director who interprets, frames, and tells the story, and the actors who live it. All artists, more akin to the painter, each creating a piece of art, inextricably entwined with the other artists.
By no stretch of the imagination am I running down the artists who support and display the creative magic, these technicians and crew people are every bit as essential and often beautifully creative. The more creative the better, but I believe that is true in any pursuit. I am one of those type technicians I hope, and I love doing it and am every bit as proud of my accomplishments there. It is the artistic, the acting which I must have for my spiritual and emotional balance. It makes me better at the rest. Serves my writing too (though you'd never know it with the current hiatus).
Thinking of art in this collaborative light I had a realization as to why theatre draws me more than film, and maybe as a way to honor film more. In a theatre there is the 'other' player. The audience. It is my thought they are more in the class of the actor, director, and director than the crew. I've had inklings when I stage managed, tech directed, and/or designed and fabricated set and props. For all of us backstage, cast and crew, there is always talk of a good or dead house. How the audience is responding. It drives the experience on both sides of the apron.
When I saw The Crucible a week and a half ago there was a young couple sitting in front of me, playing with their cell phones a bit, IM'ing. The second half they spent most of the time playing with them, the lcd's creating a cold aura around them. One even made a call, and I hope they were thinking nobody would notice the whispers. After the show I tapped the young woman who was closer to me, and told her I was an actor and we can see the light of their phones from stage. They looked at me slackly, disinterested. "And we talk about you a lot." That caught their interest. I told a couple of the my friends and others on the cast, and one of them (Heather, Cathleen?) said, "Oh I can't believe you did that, you're great!" I was a little taken aback by the enthusiastic response and hug.
People forget they are not watching a television. Understandable, and in the bit above, I was as polite and kind as I could be while delivering the words which in themselves which were admonitory. It became gentle training I hope. I don't care in a movie theater, as long as I can still hear. The audience in live theatre is every bit as important as the cast, so when they check out it can be pretty deleterious. When they are there, it is a joy that makes the work and heartache worth it all. Ultimately, it really is all about the audience.
Didn't realize that audiences were artists before. Even the most sedate and prim audience become that. I don't know if I've clearly communicated the beauty and importance this has for me. It makes me more interested in film. The films that affected me the most have been those where the cast and crew pulls you in. Special effects, editing, acting, directing all play their parts. The truly great films are best in a theater, because that indefinable artistic energy from the rest of the audience is ignited. I don't believe it can ever fully match a good live production, but it is not to be sneered at. It is a bit of lovely trickery in which I would love to participate. Like people who only go to musicals and light comedy thinking they'll avoid the discomfort of audience demand in more dramatic productions. It is a matter of degree, they are still engaged in art, however much they'd like to deny it.
I suddenly find myself no longer disdainful with dedicated movie, musical, light comedy goers. They are still drawn by the art they make, but only in small doses. I have found with the more discerning perceptions of theatre thanks to getting so deeply involved, that the shows people respond to the most are those with the most truth and art. I believe well done drama will enthrall most people, but also when it is done badly it can turn them off for good. Like the fellow in my Kiwanis Club who unconsciously drives the other folks away from shows I've worked on. Nobody came to the last show. I gave up promoting when I was telling people about it and Jeff piped up, "Chekhov is ALWAYS too dark and depressing. No humor. Pure despair." Surprisingly I didn't get upset or hurt about it. He's a bright, generous, and giving person in most ways so I just figured it was one of the bits of stupidity and ignorance which pop up every so often in all of us. I think the concept of audience as artist was percolating even then. All I said was "I don't think you've ever seen Chekhov done right, because he is full of humor, albeit much of it is dark."
I was told I was tone deaf by a teacher and a parent when I was a kid. Absolutely wrong I found out a few years ago, but it kept me from ever taking music seriously. I was told I couldn't draw or paint. Don't go all weepy, it is an absolutely average and common experience for most children. The disservice of artists or non-artists stifling creativity creativity in others. A bad show can do the same thing to an audience member. They walk away thinking "I can't appreciate Shakespeare/melodrama/musicals/fringe/etc." It creates high stakes. If you screw up a show bad enough you could stifle the creative art of a budding audience member. I think about Jeff, and want to thwack the folks who destroyed his art for Chekhov.
Now it's back to The Glass Menagerie, one of the six or seven plays I'm to read before class starts. The rest are short plays, all by Williams or Pinter.
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