Stages

Resilience

noreply@blogger.com (David Winkler) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:25:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of optimism that you tend to see in theater practitioners. It is a cheerful, steel-willed, almost reckless optimism that is best summed up by the recognizable phrase: “The show must go on!”

The pronouncement has become such a cliché that anyone who has so much as watched a sitcom knows it well. But even given that familiarity, it still sounds grandiose, doesn’t it? It conjures images of tireless vaudevillians with sleeve garters and boater hats, possessed by that 1930’s Mickey Rooney-esque “Hey gang!” type of attitude that Mark is fond of invoking.

Or maybe—and this is more what it is for me—it brings to mind a sort of British Shakespearean-actor kind of mentality. People talking like those dashing Great White Hunter archetype characters in old movies…you know the kind? The mustache, the monocle, the walking stick, spouting things like “Tally-ho, old boy! Into the breach! Damn and blast, I say, buck up and give them what for!”

And, “The show must go on!”

This all renders the whole thing pretty ridiculous, like all clichés, and archaic. Maybe we’ve discarded it in modern days in favor of different kinds of optimism. Whatever the case, here’s why I bring it up.

Working in the theater you find that you pick up bits of wisdom here and there—everything from “Maybe you should say your lines so that the audience can hear you” to “Disregard the obvious and show what’s underneath”. But for me, the one that was most surprising and the most reliably true was, believe it or not, “the show must go on!”

It’s real. Theater happens in spite of the most ridiculous, gut-wrenching odds. In fact, theater artists come to expect that to be the case more often than not, and will embrace and somehow enjoy the fact that their whole enterprise is hanging by a thread.

I’ve seen it myself. I directed an outdoor production of The Winter’s Tale in college and was informed by the producer that we would have to completely scrap the set, a large curtain which was opened and closed throughout the show. We realized this because, go figure, Chicago is windy and the weighted curtain would billow up and hit actors in the face. And we realized this 5 minutes before we were supposed to start the final dress rehearsal on the night before we opened. The actors were warming up for the final dress, a couple of audience members had settled down to watch, and all of a sudden we had to re-stage a couple of the most important moments of the show.

Somehow we did, and the show went up. And I came out of the experience ulcer-free. I don’t know which was more surprising.

The Suicide, our first and most recent production, is a case in point. Not as dire as my college show, certainly, but there were so many reasons throughout the process that the show might not have happened. We couldn’t initially track down the translator to get the rights. We had to recast two of the roles, two times each. Getting the theater itself finished in time for opening night was a race against time, and a few of us were there from the night before until 5 in the morning painting the walls and floor. Not to mention the shaky-at-best financial situation that all incipient theater companies find themselves in.

But it happened.

Now, it would be ungrateful and simply untrue to suggest that it was just those of us directly involved in the production of the show that made it happen. The support of many in the community—monetary contributions, labor, moral support, and just coming to the show—was nothing less than the foundation upon which we built the show and the theater at large. This must be emphasized, first because it’s an important fact, and second because as we navigate our way into our sophomore show, we will need that support possibly more than ever.

I’m not writing this specifically to request continued (and gratefully appreciated) support from you, the community. Mark does that more articulately and concisely than I could, below. I’m just marveling at the sheer resilience of theater in the face of what can sometimes be pretty sickening odds. It gives me reason to keep believing in it.

You know, as I write this, it occurs to me that “the show must go on” doesn’t quite capture the real spirit of it. If anything, it’s “the show will go on.” There isn’t really a choice. And given the sort of bleak and infertile environments that we’ve seen theater is able persist in, it makes me realize that with support from the most important party in this whole game, our audience, there is almost nothing we can’t do.

Tally-ho.

Invest!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Krikstan) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:19:00 +0000

I read recently that the original producers of Avenue Q were a pair of 20-somethings with not-a-whole-lot of money who—long before it hit Broadway--saw something they liked, believed in it, and decided to throw everything they had at a show with puppets. Their friends and family thought they were out of their minds and other, more “seasoned” producers scoffed at the folly of it all. The two neophytes thought otherwise and took the chance that they would get a big return on their money. Now, six years after the fact, the pair will be reaping big financial rewards from Avenue Q for the rest of their lives. Every seat filled in every theatre producing Avenue Q—and they’re everywhere around this planet—will add a few more bucks to their bank accounts. And, more importantly, every laugh and every smile in an Avenue Q audience will be, in part, produced by them.

1st Stage could use a few 20-somethings—or for that matter any-age-somethings—to believe and invest in us. We’re a non-profit so the return on the investment will never make you rich but we can guarantee it will make you proud and satisfied.

We’ve built a theatre--and by “we” I mean all those who contributed their time, talent, money, wisdom and encouragement to this project. This has been no small accomplishment. Peter, David and Lucas produced a video recently--found elsewhere on this website--as an update on the construction of our space. When I first watched it, I thought, as the first few minutes of David in a spotlight rolled by, “Okay, that David…he’s pretty charming, but what else is new?” Then, with a crescendo of Philip Glass music, a shot of the theatre exploded—big word but appropriate—on the screen. Have you ever looked at something you’ve had a part in creating but felt, “Wow, where did that come from?” It’s the new parent feeling after the first look of a newborn. Labor aside, I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. And it’s amazing.

Well, “we” want to—need to, have to—share a little of that “wow.” For you see, the glory of it all is sitting on some very wobbly financial legs. We’ve got the place up and running and our first show, The Suicide, under our belts (with some pretty strong critical acclaim, I might add: “That a brand-spanking new Washington theatre would inaugurate itself with this wonderful, hilarious, completely unknown Russian play, and would do it as well as 1st Stage has done, is bracing, profoundly satisfying news for those who love theatre.” (dctheatrescene.com)). But now the really hard part is ahead…keeping it going.

As of now, our two biggest sources of income have been from our “Theatre-by-the-Square-Foot” campaign (about $18K) and our ticket sales to the first show ($15K: We started off fairly strong the first weekend (friends and family), took a suicidal (pardon the pun) dip the second weekend, built back up to about 50% capacity the third (word-of-mouth kicked in), and actually sold out two of the performances in our last weekend. So we emerged feeling pretty good about the size of future audiences but were still chastened by our actual ticket sales--about half of what we hoped for.) If you’ve ever taken a look at the back pages of a theatre’s program you’ve noticed that the biggest financial gifts are corporate and foundation sponsorships. Now that we’ve actually produced a show, we’ve begun applying for their assistance. Until their help arrives, we nee to depend on our local community, i.e., you.

So back to my story of the Avenue Q investors: The two 20-somethings apparently sat on a couch in the ground-floor, NYC, studio apartment of the show’s lyricist one hot day, listened to 60 minutes of songs played on an electronic keyboard and sung by two not-so-fine voices, walked out the door without saying anything, took a walk around the block, came back, and said, “We’re in!”

And now my segue to you: After finally finding the darn theatre on Spring Hill Road, walking through the doors and being stunned by the wild color scheme, sitting in the most comfortable theatre seat on the east coast, watching a huge cast in a “wonderful, hilarious, completely unknown Russian play,” why not walk around the block, come back, and say, “We’re in!” And just think, no puppets!

Throw your money into another square foot or two of 1st Stage. We need you. You’ll reap benefits for years. And it will certainly produce a better return than the stock market. Even now, I can hear the music of “I Want to Be a Producer” welling up in the background.

The End of the Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Lauren Friedman) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:10:00 +0000

Dearest Friends, we know it's been very quiet on our ends. We hope you all made it to The Suicide and had just as much fun as we did. I don't think I can put into words what the past month has been like. In my last post, I said that creation was a conversation, and it bolstered a community. I believe these words more than ever, after seeing people pour into our theatre and fill our seats. People we knew from before, people just discovering us, and my personal new best friend, Tim Treanor from DC Theatre Scene.

We're just climbing out to be able to jump right back into The Violet Hour. (And yes, that "we" is intentional, Mark, peter, Lucas, David and I will all be involved again, and we hope many of you will be too.)

There isn't much else I can think to say, but a large thank you to all of you who came out and saw us - we couldn't have done it without you.

Let there be Light(s)!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:05:00 +0000

This baby is sitting on a shipping pallet in Detroit. It's a 24 ch dimmer rack (which, for the uninitiated, does exactly what it's name suggests -- offers variable intensity for 24 independent channels of stage lighting). It will be coming into our Spring Hill location sometime next week.

We were lucky enough to find a top-notch supplier, Tom, at his Dimmerrack.com.
Tom is a former lighting designer/technician who was sick of ordering expensive units from major corporations, units that never offered the customization he required. So, what did he do? He started his own company, selling personalized dimmer-rack systems over the internet.

When I call Tom to talk about the system (yes he takes orders personally) you can here the bustle of activity from employees and machines on the shop-floor from which he works. He tells me his business is booming (all without advertising, corporate bloat, or mark-ups) and that he can't expand shop-space and payrolls fast enough.

As it is, Dimmerrack.com is one of the few businesses in down-and-out Detroit that's employing more and more skilled-laborers each year. It's a real triumph of American ingenuity, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the internet's ability to bring customers to the suppliers who truly deserve them.

If it wasn't for people like Tom, 1st Stage would be THOUSANDS of dollars poorer, a handful of Detroit's unemployed manufacturers would be TENS-OF-THOUSANDS of dollars poorer, and we all would loose the Art that so many more can now make at a much-reduced cost... ...and all that art is probably PRICELESS.

This is a real hope-inspiring bright-spot in these somewhat darker economic times. And I am proud to share it with all of you.

Thank you Tom.

Hoaxes, Propagana and Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (Lauren Friedman) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:08:00 +0000

For those of you who saw me listed on the side of the blog and were wondering, I am the Stage Manager for The Suicide and Mark and Peter thought I may have something to say. It's a little bit of a break from the norm of this blog, but I want to start with how I got here.

My personal journey into theatre is a bit of a strange one. At the age of ten, I became a historical reenactor at Claude Moore Colonial Farm in Langley, Virginia. I spent 5 years there, pretending it was 1774 while I wore a costume, picked hornworms off of tobacco and got progressively more leathery feet. My mother still talks of my first week there, when she picked me up, filthy and exhausted and I blurted from under my white linen cap, "You know what I like about the farm? It's an elaborate hoax."

I left the farm and tried my hand a bushel of other artistic endeavors; cello, singing, tap and ballet, pottery and creative writing. But I always came back to theatre in the end.

When I went to college in 2003, it was with starry eyes and the aspiration of becoming a professional Stage Manager. I was pretty sure I was somehow going to win a Tony for it. Don't ask me how.

I did a lot of theatre in my college career. But somewhere, I lost the drive to keep going. It was too hard. The hours were too long. I had a thousand excuses for why it wouldn't work, for why I was unfit to Stage Manage even crazy people screaming in the park.

So when Mark approached me to do this, you'd think I, knowing all I know, would have hidden under something until the scary went away. I won't lie, I was excited. But the fear came upon me and shook me by the shoulders. You'll fail, it told me. And then what?

And yet, when I approached a friend of mine, Esta, she knew exactly what I had to hear. "Feel the fear," she wrote, "and do it anyway."

This has become my mantra in the past few weeks. Every time I feel overwhelmed or confused or anything of that nature, I just remind myself that I can feel this fear, and I can do it anyway.

First Stage is one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of. I am terrified and elated, worried and calm, frustrated and excited. I am learning, more than I ever did in college, that this is what is right for me. And in the end, it all comes back to a dirty little girl in the passenger seat of her mother's car and her precocious "elaborate hoax."

None of us are prepared for what this show will bring us - we can't be. The more I see of the performances our cast is bringing out, the more I realize that we are subversive and subtle. Every conversation with Mark or Peter or David or Lucas leads me down a new side road of this odd, creative labyrinth. And in the end, if it is an elaborate hoax, if it is scary, if it is done, than it must be right.

There is no reason not to create this art. I've read philosophers who spend volumes trying to define man's need to create. But I want to challenge the idea that it needs a reason. Why, with all that there is in the world, should we not make something wonderful?

I was looking for Soviet Propaganda a while back when I came across a video produced in America in 1948 called "Make Mine Freedom." You can watch it below:

This video stirs so much in me. The blatant fear mongering, the subtle racism and the obvious stereotypes are one of the most wonderful examples I can think of for why we must create. We have something to say, something we need to get out, and once we do, there is someone who must disagree with us. Creation is a conversation, it is a community act. And that, I think is why First Stage is so important. A community like Fairfax County must be in communication. We must be collectively creating. We must find the lies and bring forth truth through creating art. The greatest compliment, I think, would be for there to be a second professional theatre in Fairfax County.

So I'd like to end this with a challenge to all of you; go and find something that makes you angry or sad, and use it to converse. It can be as old as Titian's paintings, or as new as the Olympic opening ceremonies. I ask you to dissent, to argue and to create. Then come back here, and tell me about it.

Continuing our series of internet-found odd but inspired performance...

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:13:00 +0000

I give you BEARDYMAN!

Construction

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:52:00 +0000

Update:

1st Stage is proud to announce that it almost has a working toilet. This and other developments have enthralled all of our employees. As of now, our space (I think we need to start calling it "the theater") is on target for a September Grand Opening!

Here are some artsy stills of our dedicated construction team:

Street Theater

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:26:00 +0000

Prankster/artist, Mark Jenkins, in Washington DC:

And Then in Barcelona:

Renderings

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:54:00 +0000

Nat Krause, who made us this model:

Has also put together a spectacular virtual model.

It can be seen on the "Our Space" page.

Enjoy!

More Видео!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:42:00 +0000

New videos are up. These are part of a series of status updates regarding our construction.

Enjoy!

Only about 6,200 remaining!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Donations now seem to be running smoothly. You can pick square feet, buy them, and put your picture on them! Go on, mark some territory.
Click the button at left.

If, however, you have a slower Internet connection or an older computer, I would recommend using the simple donation option. Here you can specify the number of squares desired. We can randomly place your purchase or you can email us a location (go crazy counting coordinates: 42,123, or just tell us a general location: "center stage"... "the actor's shower stall"). Email to questions@1ststagespringhill.org
Simple donation can also be reached through the button above.

Видео!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Lauren Friedman is our brand new stage manager. She brought this important video to my attention. So, I thought I'd bring it to you.

And if that doesn't make you thirst for the warm theatrical embrace of Marxist Entertainments ... maybe these fine gentlemen will:

Donations

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:12:00 +0000

Some of you have expressed a desire to make a donation to 1st Stage. Many of you have vainly clicked on the donation foot on the home page only to be disappointed with a plain text page that says: "Web donation will be available soon." To all of you, I'm sorry. Until we were sure of our time-table and location we refrained from taking the offerings of the generous masses.

All that changes this Friday.

Update: Thanks to some issues with paypal (that are now rapidly being resolved) the donation site may not be up till Saturday.

On Friday we will be unveiling our Theater by the Square Foot campaign. Clicking on the foot will take you to a very exciting web donation application that Alex Withrow and myself have poured all our tech know-how into (read: Alex's Tech know-how, and my exuberant strings of computer-confusion induced profanity).

So, if you'd like to make a donation or would like to see the progress of our fundraiser. Stop by the website this weekend!

Socially Networked

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:05:00 +0000

We have a facebook page. Have a facebook account? Become a fan of 1st Stage, today. And then, invite your friends.

Opening Credits

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:58:00 +0000

In just about every artistic conversation we've had over the past year the word "immersive" has bubbled up from the collective depths of our networked right-hemispheres. Good art is (to my mind) an assault on the senses. The artist takes his inspiration (sensory stimulus real or imagined) and then finds a medium through which to pass that sensory stimulus into an audience. To immerse them.

That's why I'm most excited about how new technology can bring to the theater the kind of sensory bombardment we've come to expect from imax films, pixar animations, and big-screen TVs with home theater sound-systems.

I want to score our performances with images, as well as music. Using digital projection we will provide rich, vivid images that (without distracting from the action) put people deep into the world of the play.

Visually, this style artistic endeavor is already well represented by what might seem an unlikely source: HBO original series opening credit sequences. Each one prepares the viewer for the action to come with evocative colors, objects and scenes. They aren't explicitly storytelling ("A three hour tour..."), most aren't even literal; instead, they fill the audience, perhaps without their knowledge, with an heightened awareness of the world they are entering.

I've embedded a bunch of my favorites (episode after episode, I never get sick of seeing these):

First, of course, is...

Even more in this vein of immersion is...

More scenic...

More symbolic (with heart-starting music)...

With somewhat overzealous application of digital editing techniques...

And with a more seductive application of the same techniques...

The rich visual imagery and the emotionally charged musical scoring effectively and insidiously transport the viewer to a new setting, filled with all the details and emotional undercurrents necessary for impending drama.

All of them are beautiful, simple, and effective works of art in their own right. They inspire me constantly to bring a similar ethic to the stage.

The Silver LCD Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:49:00 +0000

As you may have noticed, we now have a jobs page (for employment opportunities) and a video page.

The video page will hold all of our video updates (only the most recent 4 stay on the home page). It will also have higher resolution versions of some of our clips. (Like the demolition video)

Note:If you are a content provider (TV station, news website, etc.) you can download these high res clips to use in video reports.

DEMOLITION

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Video of us doing demolition is on the HOME PAGE!
It was as fun as it looked (plus a whole lot of not-fun/pain).

Photo: Kelly Williams

Words, Words, Words

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:04:00 +0000

This is the "Wordle" for our first play, The Suicide. A Wordle is an image made on this site from any amount of text you provide. I provided the entire script (hence the majority of the wordle words being names). Thank you to my friend Kelly Williams for showing me this wonderful wordlefull thing!

You can also do it for a blog's xml feed.
Here's Stages! We seem to be a real positive-thinking kind of place, and oh the number of dreams!

What it is to perform

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:39:00 +0000

I came across something just now that I'd vaguely heard of years ago. A woman, Jill Bolte Taylor, was a neuroscientist, self-described intellectual, and a very logical and linear person. One morning she woke up and was changed.

This is her story:

That last slide of her presentation is a stained-glass brain. She makes them by hand. After her stroke, she was deluged with creative energy and an intense desire to express herself in non-traditional ways (for a scientist).

Her Bio at the TED pages says:
"From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the 'Singin' Scientist.'"

'Singin' is right! I've seen only a handful of one-man shows that come close to the emotional truth, showmanship, and beautiful communication of this speech. Her transformation seems to have given her that most divine and rare of performer's gifts: the ability to loose sight of oneself and offer up every ounce of personal energy to the audience.

Her message of "Right Brain Nirvana" is immensely instructive to anyone engaged in the live performance arts. If performers and observers can sit in a space and truly breath, think, feel, and exist together (forget where our molecules give way to the universe's molecules) there is a serendipitous moment in time when artistic endeavor can cross the realms of science and the spirit. It can help us understand what it is to be. What it means to exist, and how we can live together in peace.

I wonder if she's ever thought about writing a play...

When we're not hanging drywall...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Krikstan) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:10:00 +0000

Sort of gets you in the mood for a good Russian comedy, doesn't it?

Our Source

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Krikstan) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:31:00 +0000

We have six barrels on order. It will be a great season.

We have the keys!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Krikstan) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:15:00 +0000

Our apologies for abandoning the blog the last few weeks. The whole purpose of the blog was to keep folks up to date and hopefully excited about what we're doing. And for months--long, long months--not much was happening except for the dreaming. But now... NOW...this theatre thing is actually materializing. The permits from the county began falling into place about two weeks ago. We were about to take possession of the space on Spring Hill Road when yet another unforeseen problem--this time about fireproofing the space beneath us--suddenly reared up throwing all of us into some dark pit. (I don't think we could have handled another long wait.) Our architects, ButzWilbern, came to the rescue yet again, solved the problem with a simple solution, and cleared the way for the takeover. We picked up the keys on Tuesday, June 10, and started demolition of the previous tenant's buildout right away. We decided to handle the demolition ourselves to save some money. Thankfully--and I don't think I've ever been so full of thanks--word spread and we've had a whole stream of hardworking friends and neighbors tackling a quite sizable demo job. It's pretty much a big, empty room now but you don't have to dream too much to begin seeing the outlines of a theatre...an actual, living, breathing theatre. Our 1st Stage. It's hard to find the words...

But you have to see it for yourself. Please stop by anytime and take something more than a virtual tour. We're going to have a party very soon--we just have to figure out how a party meshes with the construction folks. Keep an eye on the website for an announcement. We have so much to celebrate. This is going to be a good thing. What a world!

Put a Little Science in Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:05:00 +0000

This Sunday's New York Times has a really special op-ed piece from Brian Greene, string theorist and author of many popular non-fiction bookson scientific topics.

Greene writes about Science's mis-characterization in the public sphere as a method/world-view that is useful (produces technology) but ultimately difficult to grasp, boring, or unable to inspire real wonder or 'spiritual' satisfaction. He writes about faults in the ways science is often taught: "Like a music curriculum that requires its students to practice scales while rarely if ever inspiring them by playing the great masterpieces."

Here's my favorite bit:

"It’s one thing to go outside on a crisp, clear night and marvel at a sky full of stars. It’s another to marvel not only at the spectacle but to recognize that those stars are the result of exceedingly ordered conditions 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the Big Bang. It’s another still to understand how those stars act as nuclear furnaces that supply the universe with carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, the raw material of life as we know it.

And it’s yet another level of experience to realize that those stars account for less than 4 percent of what’s out there — the rest being of an unknown composition, so-called dark matter and energy, which researchers are now vigorously trying to divine."

Beautiful.

Anyway, I just really liked all this. But, it also relates to our endeavor at 1st Stage. One play I'd very much like to do in our first season is a charming, fascinating, and odd work by Charlotte Jones, called Humble Boy. Humble Boy's main character, Felix Humble, is a troubled string theorist. Jones, aside from writing a touching story on the human level, manages to expound on the intricacies of String Theory through a number of Felix's cryptic, fascinating, and vaguely metaphorical monologues.

It, like Brian Greene's writing, is useful for provoking curiosity and yielding greater understanding in scientific realms, but most importantly it's also just a fun, entertaining experience; it's exactly what science themed works can and should be.

At last!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Krikstan) — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:56:00 +0000

It's been more than a year since we began the search for space and permits but it seems (fingers-crossed here) that we are on the verge of a party. To be truthful, none of our permit applications have actually been stamped "approved," but we have enough winks, nods and smiles from the powers-that-be to believe they are all forthcoming. Our next step is to obtain something called a "stud permit" so that we can begin demolition of what's currently occupying the space and, at the least, begin our own construction. This may happen as early as next week. Wow.

I'm told that our blogs are often long and ponderous. We apologize for that but that happens when the wait is long and...ponderous. You just keep talking, hoping that enough words will push open the door. Now that we're nearly there, I find myself speechless. I can't think of the Yiddish word that describes the feeling but it has to do something with emotion clogging the windpipe and the mind. I'm at that place: incredibly happy and incredibly scared.

Keep an eye on the website early next week. We're going to need some help!

Bingo, Bond!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Van Valkenburgh) — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:44:00 +0000

I've been reading through some plays of Edward Bond, who's bizarrely mesmerizing work, The Sea, we're hoping to do in one of our early seasons. Yesterday I came across an inspiring passage from his introduction to a play called Bingo (which is a loosely written biographical sketch focusing on some of William Shakespeare's crooked business dealings). The introduction is a stunning affirmation of the need for Art --theater especially-- as political ammunition, as a mirror to hold to society, and (most applicable to myself and my colleagues) as a means of maintaining personal sanity in an uncertain world. To be fair and honest, I read it with a certain super-natural gusto (sitting with goosebumps under a sunset, listening to apocalyptic music, and having consumed far too much espresso), but my enthusiasm for the passage has not waned a day and some mental distance later.

So, I will now quote a great quantity of it here on the blog while interjecting some of my own modest cometary:

"Shakespeare created Lear, who is the most radical of all social critics. But Lear's insight is expressed as madness or hysteria. Why? I suppose partly because that was the only coherent way it could have been expressed at the time. Partly also because if you understand so much about suffering and violence, the partiality of authority, and the final innocence of all defenseless things, and yet live in a time when you can do nothing about it - then you feel the suffering you describe, and your writing mimics that suffering. When you write on that level you must tell the truth. A lie makes you the hangman's assistant. It betrays the victim and this is intolerable - because you are mimicking the victim, and the most important thing you know is the innocence you share with him. So if you lie the world stops being sane, there is no justice to condemn suffering, and no difference between guilt and innocence - and only the mad know how to live with so much despair. Art is always sane. It always insists on the truth , and tries to express the justice and order that are necessary to sanity but are usually destroyed by society. All imagination is political. It has the urgency of passion, the force of appetite, the self-authenticity of pain or happiness - imagination is a desire that makes an artist create. The truths of imagination are strictly determined and necessary. They aren't 'revealed' to artists, they have to work and train and learn so that they become skilled at discovering them. But every artist often feels that what he's created is 'right' and he's not free to alter it. It's life that in comparison seems arbitrary and random - because society is usually based on injustice or expediency but art is the expression of moral sanity. Philistinism is so shocking because it assumes that, on the contrary, creative imagination is arbitrary and random, a self-satisfying game, mere fantasy - instead of being vital to human development. And of course, what artists more frequently lack is enough of this creative imagination. Or perhaps they only play it down because they're told art is for the rich and intellectual, that science is work but art only luxury or play. Perhaps also because many people do in fact 'exist' without art. Well, they've only had to do so in modern industrial societies and that's one reason why these societies are stagnant and inhuman."

Frederick Nietzsche once said “That is the kind of artist I love, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art — panem et Circen.” If you've ever read any Nietzsche you know he didn't confess love too often. His reverence for the artist is a rare exception to a generally cynical critique of all men who live in the public sphere from priests to scientists to politicians. In Bond's writing, I appreciate this particular portrait of the artist: a man or woman who struggles always to understand the disparate qualities of the world, to run those observations through his or her own moral sense, and then to communicate that end-product to an audience. That communication is most significant and imperative when it operates bellow the flaccid plane of intellectualized rational appeals and acts directly through passions, instinct and innate moral senses. What generates a moral response? -- a cold radio broadcaster recounting the horrors of Nazi concentration camps or a film (Shindler's List for example)? I think most people can easily tune out the rational appeals of a journalist, but they are grotesquely entertained (and then spurred to action or thought) by an effective film or play.

I've never had quite as dark an opinion of industrialized societies as Bond ("stagnant and inhuman") and it should be noted that he was writing this introduction in 1973, the height of the Cold War, Vietnam, and Stagflation. Nonetheless, his lamentations regarding consumerism and what has become the bizarerity of macro-economic theory are worth consideration. I don't know too what extent I agree... but there is certain relevance to our present day recessionary concerns:

"Money is an important social tool. It's the means of exchange and of accumulating the surplus necessary to create modern industry. But we've reached a point where money isn't used to remove poverty but to create and satisfy artificial needs so that consumption will maintain profits and industry activity. Keynes said that to maintain effective demand in an economy it would be better to pay men for 'digging holes in the ground' rather than that they should be unemployed, but he added ironically that he presumed a 'sensible community' would find something more socially useful for them to do. Well, a lot of the trash we produce for civilized consumption is far more silly and dangerous than holes in the ground. And that's only concerned with keeping society running - the far more difficult work of making it civilized is mostly ignored. We think we live in an age of science, but it's also an age of alchemy: we try to turn gold into human values. "

Surely since the rise of Milton Freedman's Chicago school of economic theory we've dispatched much of Keynes' disaster capitalism. But, an echo may remain in the oft-repeated appeals for increased consumption (and government deficits) and the contractionary results of saving.

Next, Bond describes the dangerous scapegoatism and dehuminzation of national enemies propagated by Governments in their natural pursuit of increased power and control. Obviously the Vietnam war is a past concern... as you read the following, I suggest substituting the word 'desert' for the word 'jungle'.

"It seems that sometimes people can be made to behave badly with frightening ease and rapidity, but it only seems so. Their awareness of human values doesn't simply vanish. People have faults... but human values are the most enduring things we have, stronger than our rational minds. We have the need and right to to protect ourselves and our families, and in a crisis we help those we know, not strangers - but it isn't easy for us to do this at others' expense or to make others suffer. It's difficult for human beings to be unkind, and unpleasant to be arrogant. There's always a reason for aggression, and the only effective weapon against it is to remove the cause. Fear is lack of understanding, and the only way to remove it is by reason and reassurance. Even the hate that comes from fear and aggression begins as a passion for justice. That isn't a paradox. Why did Shylock ask for his enemy's flesh? Because his own had been spat on.
There are two main sorts of political aggression. The first is the aggression of the weak against the strong, the hungry against the over-fed.That's easy to understand. The strong are unjust, and to survive and get elementary rights many people are forced to act aggressively. The second aggression is of the strong against the weak. How can America drop bombs on peasants in a jungle if, as I said, a sense of human values is part of his nature? It takes a lot of effort, years of false education and lies, indignity, shabby poverty, economic insecurity - or the insecurity of dishonest privilege - before men will do that. The ruling morality teaches them they are violent, dirty and destructive, that the only decent course open to civilized man is to act as his own jailer, and that men in jungles are even worse because they're as savage as animals and as cunning as men - history proves it. So he drops bombs because he believes that if the peasant ever rowed a canoe across the pacific and drove an ox cart over America till he came to his garden, he'd steal his vegetables and rape his grandmother - history proves it. And history like the Bible will prove anything.
An old fascist (or an old miser) is always bitter and cynical. Not because his conscience troubles him! - but because he lives in conflict with his fundamental sense of human values. Men can only be content when they live in peace and shared respect with other men. It seems odd to say these things in a century of fascism and brutality, but the world is unhappy and violent not because we're cursed with original sin or original aggression, but because it is unjust. The world is not absurd, it is finally a place for men to be sane and rational in. Of course demands for justice sometimes conflict. But the reason these conflicts are hard to resolve is that the judge is often more guilty than the other parties. Most established social orders are not means of defending justice but of defending social injustice. That's why compromises inside a nation or between nations are difficult to get, and why law-and-order societies are morally responsible for the terrorism and crime they provoke."

I'm also a true believer in the innate goodness of man (when he is aware of his actions) and also a true believer in the dangers of systems that by their nature strip men of their awareness in the name of collectivized control. I'm fiercely libertarian in ideology and loath nothing more than any force that seeks to divide our common humanity into sects, be they religious, nationalistic, or otherwise. Barring my own political missions, read on as Bond finishes by reiterating his mission as an artist.

"I wrote Bingo because I think the contradictions in Shakespeare's life are similar to the contradictions in us. He was a 'corrupt seer' and we are a 'barbarous civilization'. Because of that our society could destroy itself. We believe in certain values but our society only works by destroying them, so that our daily lives are a denial of our hopes. That makes our world absurd and often it makes our own species hateful to us. Morality is reduced to surface details and trivialities. Is it so easy to live like that? Or aren't we surrounded by frustration and bitterness, cynicism and inefficiency, and an inner feeling of weakness that comes from knowing we waste our energy on things that finally can't satisfy us? That's true of all parts of society, from the theater of the absurd to the broken windows of a youth club. It's not so odd, then, to say that people are only happy when their lives are based on human values. If we survive we have only two possible futures. Firstly, as technological ants engineered from birth to fit into a rigid society. Or secondly, as people who live consistently by the values that are part of their nature."

Bonds final binary: Techno-Fascism or Jeffersonian Utopia are extreme (perhaps he'd suggest that self-destruction is a far more probable denouement), but -at the very least- his call to the artist for articulation of moral sanity is a noble one. It is a call that I personally, and, I think, all of us at 1st Stage intend to help answer.

In any case, that all was just the introduction to one of Bond's plays. I can't wait to take part in the staging of one in its entirety. And, hopefully, I've excited some of you enough to come and see his work. He's rather underplayed here in America and it's time for that to change.