Ummmmm...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - It's tough for scholars to be taken seriously when their subject is a TV show about a California blonde fighting evil in a high school built on a gateway to hell. Particularly when the title is as campy as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
But enough professors and writers study the comedic drama and its spinoff, "Angel," to hold a deadly serious academic conference here this weekend attracting more than 325 people.
Buffyologists from as far away as Singapore were presenting 190 papers on topics ranging from "slayer slang" to "postmodern reflections on the culture of consumption" to "Buffy and the new American Buddhism."
There was even a self-conscious talk by David Lavery, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, on Buffy studies "as an academic cult."
Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox, a professor at Gordon College in Georgia, co-hosted the conference and are known as the "father and mother" of Buffy studies. They acknowledged they've endured a lot of ridicule from colleagues, but said that's part of the topic's allure.
"It keeps the uncool people away. If you can't get past the title you have no business watching," said Lavery, who co-wrote a book on Buffy with Wilcox.
"It's a badge of honor," said Wilcox, adding that the feeling is similar to a central theme of the show. "The main characters are outsiders. Others are looking at them funny, but they know they're doing the right thing so they do it anyway."
When Wilcox first heard the show's title, she thought "it would either be stupid or the anti-stupid. Within the first few minutes I realized how wonderful and clever it was."
Wilcox, who wrote her doctoral thesis at Duke University about Charles Dickens, compared the show's depth and texture to his 19th century serial novels. "I think it's a great work of art."
It's also become quite a teaching tool.
College courses across the globe are devoted to the show, which was canceled last year, and secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand also provide Buffy classes. Episodes often are used to reach troubled teens, Lavery said.
Geraldine Bloustien, a professor who teaches Buffy among classes on communication studies and media production at the University of South Australia, coordinated a similarly popular academic Buffy conference last year in Adelaide.
"It's fascinating that here is a piece of television enjoyed all over the world," she said. "It has a coherence and a depth I hadn't seen for such a long time. It's like `Sesame Street,' which you can appreciate on several levels."
About a dozen scholarly books on Buffy have been written, including one from the prestigious Oxford University Press coming out next year.
Jana Riess, a religious book editor for Publishers Weekly, said she's gotten tremendous response to her book "What Would Buffy Do? A Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide." On Friday, the conference bookstore sold out its copies and she had to bring extras in from her car.
She said she first got "sucked" into the show when she was pregnant and up late one night. "I was so entertained, and then I was embarrassed that I was so entertained.
"But then some of the best conversations I had about spiritual and moral issues were sparked by scenes from Buffy, like what happens after we die and whether the needs of one should outweigh the needs of the many."
Riess was thrilled with the opportunity to connect with fellow Buffyologists:
"We are the few, the proud, the lonely."

I saw Trey Anastasio on Charlie Rose the other night, missed Kushner.

Kate -- Will you marry...Brian (well, I'm already married!).

Scott

Thank God Kate knows hockey -- I was afraid that we were going to have to do sex object metaphors so that she could relate! ;-) Anyway, I think Kate has got a great idea to increase the attention that theatre gets nationwide. Or another idea: Playwright Survivor. We put a bunch of playwrights on an island and vote off the least interesting one each week. Who would be left?

By the way, if you want to look at Jeremy's shows in another context, read the chapter on "Rough Theatre" in Peter Brooks' The Empty Space. Or A Good Night OUt by English playwright John McGrath.

Scott

What inning are we in, anyway?... --SW

I'm with Jess on a couple things:

1) I don't think you should ever try to write the Great American Play. I think you should try to write the best play you can. It seems to me that one of the reasons Tony Kushner hasn't written much since Angels in America is that he is trying to write the GAP -- or worse, trying to live up to Angels. The focus should be on the work itself, not the evaluation of that work. That should be left for others. If you're trying to hit a homerun, you have to keep your eye on the ball, not on the scoreboard. Following that analogy, every hit doesn't need to be a grandslam homer. There are times when a bunt single is just as valuable. You all can figure out what the heck that means...

2) I think Jeremy is doing exactly the right thing. He is writing. Constantly. Like the pianist who every day must do his scales. One would assume that Jeremy's goal is not to become the best Manor Daze writer in history, but rather that the process of writing Manor Daze is helping him to strengthen his writing skills. Bunt singles, perhaps, but putting players on the bases and moving them around the diamond. Does he care whether he is being noticed by Hollywood? I don't know, but I doubt it. He is focused on the work, and on what he is getting from the work. Is he influencing other people? I suppose he's demonstrating that theatre can be done in places other than theatres, and for people who wouldn't normally buy a ticket. Is he advancing the dramatic art? Probably not. But he might, after he develops his writing muscles. Hard to say. Me? I prefer Kate's aesthetics to Jeremy's, but that isn't the point. The point is his approach to the process, and that is something I admire.

Scott

I think some of this stuff should go to the 9MC blog. It seems relevant.

Courage. That is exactly what theatre needs, and something that society lacks. I see it on stage in performances (the lack of it), I see it in the opinion polls conducted about terrorism, the economy, gay marriage; I see it everywhere in the writing of our time that focuses on the nit-picking. It is easy to bash, hard to create,to lead.

I think we need plays of higher quality. I think to do that, we need more plays. I think Jeremy's work inspires others to write differently. I think it serves as chaff for Jeremy himself to weed through and find better material within.

I don't suffer the illusion that 9MC will be the great american play. I think shooting for such only limits us.

Jess

I would concur that most new plays aren't very good. I was also a reader for a new play festival -- finding something that was even relatively stageworthy was a huge challenge. The question to ask is why? Maybe I'll get back to this...

I have nothing against old plays -- hell, I spend my life teaching them! But cultures are remembered for their plays, not their directors and actors (well, there is the Romantic era, which was great for actors and lousy for plays). But I think our attachment to old plays is a belief that a contemporary playwright can't write plays that entertain us, stimulate us, inspire us. So we look back to those who do.

The point I was trying to make was not that we shouldn't have old plays on Broadway (I became a fan of Tony Randall as a result of his attempt to create a theatre for classic plays on Broadway) or in the resident theatres, but that we also should have new plays that speak to now -- by which I mean about universal themes placed within the "local sphere" of contemporary language and imagery. Adolf Bastian, a German anthropologist who influenced Joseph Campbell, made a distinction between what he called "elementary ideas," which come out of the collective unconscious common to humanity, and the "folk ideas," which were the specific versions of the elementary ideas as they were adapted for a particular society. So should a playwright try to speak to America or humanity? They should write about elementary ideas through the local forms. In other words, I think a playwright speaks to humanity through his own culture. Shakespeare wrote for the English -- his history plays are obviously culture-specific, but in many ways all of his plays are about England even when they are set elsewhere. Sophocles wrote for the Greeks, and we still find a source of inspiration in the work. What would happen if the elementary idea of, say, Aeschylus' The Oresteia was given the language, metaphors, and images of the 21st century? I'm not talking about an updated version of The Oresteia, but rather a re-visioning of the elementary idea for today.

I think the reason we dislike modern playwrights is that their work rests on a conception of their role as an artist as being a provocateur, a gadfly. So the work is mean-spirited, aggressive, more interested in aggravation than communication. I think we would be better off if playwrights started thinking of themselves as a shaman, someone who strives to open himself to the eternal, and express those eternal ideas in forms that can be grasped by the people sitting in the seats. Artists have become a group of finger-wagging moralists whose goal is to make the audience guilty, rather than to illuminate what is best about them and point them toward it.

Studies have been done (oh, God, I sound like Jess) that show that when student writing is responded to by teachers, they learn more when teachers point out the parts of the paper that was good and encouraged them to do more of that, than when they single-mindedly point out all the flaws. Perhaps this is true of human activity in general, and the arts in particular. Modern playwrights are finger-pointers, nit-pickers, cranks. They are people we don't really care to be around, and the things they have to say leave us with a bad taste in our mouth. Think of how powerful David Mamet could be if he stopped telling the same damn story over and over again about how capitalism leads to deception and betrayal, and instead used his enormous talents to point us toward some faint light of redemption.

So I don't blame Brian for going to revivals -- hell, the one play I went to when I was in NYC last year was Long Day's Journey INto Night, and it was splendid. But I think our theatre lacks the excitement that only new plays can bring.

Scott

FYI - Highland Rep is doing Topdog/Underdog as part of their next season. Brian, you should be interested as the resident Lori-Parks fan. I like her too. I also think Jose Rivera is writing important plays. And Howard Barker. Scenes From An Execution just played at Clarence Brown in Knoxville.

Also, maybe we can't comment on how good the plays are that are being written right now, until we read them. It is proven that there are exactly a jillion and four new playwright's festivals in this country. I don't think I've read any of their produced works. Of course, the rumors I hear is that these aren't very good, usually. Angie worked for three years at Playwright's Horizons in NYC, and said that, in that time, she saw maybe two good scripts.

Jess

I think it is a circumstantial thing that has given us fewer good plays. It has much to do with our earlier discussion of how artists have to do other things to support themselves, in this case, while they try to write the great american play.

Not interested in writing the great american play. I just want to write a play. There needs to be more crap. More plays. Jeremy Burgess is helping us work toward the great american play by producing the quantity of work that he does. He has written over forty-five different plays (most of them Manor Daze scripts) in the past year. He has decided to live poor, working at Cyber Cafe three evenings a week in order to give himself time to write. He no longer has a car, his only bills are rent (which he shares with as many people as possible), utilities and feeding himself. He writes, and writes.

As far as universal themes, cna we talk specifics? What are themes that are "not of an age, but for all time"? What are issues that are not this?

Yes, both of the plays are revivals. Sly Fox is by Larry Gelbart, who wrote the M*A*S*H series, and is very funny. And Wonderful Town is a wonderful old musical as well -- as you say, the 1940s. I believe Sinatra starred in the film. But when one goes to Broadway...shouldn't one have a chance to see something new? Why are all the shows revivals? Even most of the straight plays -- Long Day's Journey Into Night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Our Town. Where are new playwrights, and why aren't they done on Broadway? When do we get playwrights who write plays that speak to the soul of America, that tell the stories we all need to hear right now? When do we get producers and directors who find the money and the images to tell those stories we want to hear? Why are we living on the cold cuts of some past banquet? I don't think we get those playwrights, those producers, those directors, until we start asking the questions that lead to the heart, that lead to the soul. I don't think we get those artists until artists stop being so damned angry, and instead start listening -- start listening to something greater than the stories in the newspaper, start listening to something other than their own voices, but rather start listening to the souls of Americans and to the faint whisperings of their longings. I don't think we get those artists until artists open up to their fellow man and truly listen to what is going unspoken, to the hopes and dreams that have been packed away for fear of being ridiculed in our cynical society. Until artists stop thinking they are so damned superior to everyone around them, and recognize that they are here to give voice to the greater spirits of humanity that still live inside the hearts of every human being in this world. Until those artists come along, I guess we'll have to make do with the leftovers of other decades. But until they do, our theatre will be forgettable, a blanl spot in theatre history.

Scott

I know...I sound old and tired. *sigh*

"I've got an idea! Since we all really actually do like yelling at people, let's pick people and things that aren't us and yell at them! In fact, if we can find people and things that'll yell back, that would definitely be the best choice for things/people to attack. This would satisfy my guilty little pleasures, let me yell, yell, yell. Or preach. I like to preach, too."

Jess, you're funny. Yelling and preaching do have a lot in common, don't they: both are monologues! *L* I am now going to write something that will probably lead to my being stripped of my DDS regalia and hurled into the mist, but...I am starting to get tired of yelling and preaching. I'm starting to long for some quiet, thoughtful dialogue. Not the dialectical A against B, which somehow never really leads to the synthesized C; rather, A and B, which leads to something greater than both.

OK, throw me outa the band...

Scott

And in that 666th post, Brian mentioned "modern sorcery." Bwahahahahaha.

Scott

Brian's post, beginning, "Me too. I also promise..." was the 666th post to DDS Blog.

I arranged it that way.

You're welcome, Brian.

Jess

Nothing has been proven about productivity being higher during the first three hours of the day. I can say that with authority, now.

I've got an idea! Since we all really actually do like yelling at people, let's pick people and things that aren't us and yell at them! In fact, if we can find people and things that'll yell back, that would definitely be the best choice for things/people to attack. This would satisfy my guilty little pleasures, let me yell, yell, yell. Or preach. I like to preach, too.

Jess

You know, I wasn't saying that artists should keep their day job even after they've "made it" -- that would be kind of stupid. Nor am I saying that there is some deep intrinsic value to working as a waiter or something (although as you note, you can learn something from it). What I am saying is that I have never been able to feel good about using my talents to create work that I don't believe in -- the work suffers, and my heart suffers. And I've always felt that if I sell too many pieces of my soul, I'll eventually find I've lost it.

I think Joseph Campbell had it right. He found that with some effort a single person could manage on only a small amount of money. For five years when he was in his 20s, he worked just enough to cover his expenses by living in a spartan fashion, and spent the rest of his time reading and thinking about the things he was passionate about. Then he was offered a job at Sarah Lawrence teaching what he wanted to teach, and off he happily went. Brian, you are doing this when you work for two months in order to allow yourself 10 months without working.

Yes, a lot of work can be exhausting, but as Kate says, if you allow your mind to use that time to think, instead of railing internally about the injustice of it all, you may end the day less pooped out, and actually have some new thoughts and ideas as well.

On a connected note: I think it is time for us, as agroup, to move beyond table-thumping speeches and melodramatic pronouncements. Life is more complex than that, and being an artist demands a more subtle mind. Surely we have known each other long enough to respect the ideas we each have, and give those ideas a fair shake and intelligent treatment. We should be having discussions, not attacks. Can we all agree to that?

Scott

Well, there's life in the ole blog yet, I see! Nothing like goring the financial bull to get people in a lather. Let me start with something Brian wrote, because it might shed light on what I thought I was writing...

Brian wrote: "Scott, your passion is teaching students about theatre. What if someone told you it was only possible to work at it part-time. Suppose you had to work 9-5 at another job and could teach in your off-hours. Do you think you would do your best work? Would this be rewarding to you?"

What if someone said that I could work full time teaching students, but what I had to teach them was that they should do what they're told, never question anything anyone in authority said, and furthermore I must do this in the most entertaining, contentless way possible: would I still teach? No, I doubt it. I would probably do something else and teach informally. Because I would rather not compromise when it comes to something that sits at the center of my heart.

Now, your mileage may vary. You may feel that you can keep your soul strong in the face of compromise, hold on to the hope of better things to come, and wait. Or that you can reduce your expense to a level that allows you to keep your artistic freedom while solely doing your work.

The point I was trying to make was that, to me, it is more satisfying to devote myself to what I feel is important without compromise than it would be to make a living doing what I feel is important by making compromises.

In addition, I must confess that I don't have much interest in national ambitions. I think our national culture, such as it is, has led straight to McAmerica. I'm more interested in a conversation with people I can actually see and talk to across a table at Urban Burrito. Frankly, I don't believe that there is a "national conversation" about much, and especially not about theatre. Ben Brantley can write until he is blue in the face, and no doubt about it he writes well, but Broadway is irrelevant to 99% of America, and is no longer the center of theatrical power. Regional theatre is where the life and energy is, and if you don't believe me, take a look at how many new American plays originate on Broadway. How many of the greatest directors work on Broadway? Oh, and if you want to make a living in the theatre -- Broadway ain't it.

Finally, and most pointedly, there is nothing wrong with making a living doing other things. How many of our most important writers make their living teaching? TS Eliot was a banker -- hell, Einstein was a patent clerk! And I don't know where you materialize these "facts" about writers, Jess, but no such thing has been "proven" about the first 3 hours. And even if it was, and it was important to you to write those first 3 hours of the day -- arrange your day so that you got to bed at 7:00 pm and get up at 3:00 am to write three hours before you go to work. Or has it been proven that the best hours to write are between 8:00 am and 11:00 am?

But for me, I'd rather compromise in areas that aren't at the center of my being. Maybe I'm not strong enough to maintain my purity while working in the whorehouse.

Scott

but is complacent art ever going to be any good? somthing to be said for struggling to create - if you have no pressure, then what drives you to do it? just like the best songs are written out of angst. you get your heart broken, you write beautiful songs. plenty of actors think they have to wait tables to pay for their life until their big break - and then skip auditions to work a dinner shift. when they finally take the plunge, then great things happen in their art.

as for writing, it is proven, and taught, that the most productive time to write is the first three hours of your day. you have the most ideas, it is easiest to get them down in print - how does that work with an 8-6 job?

or what about our needs as social beings? if I work all day and write all night, when do I feed my need to interact with others?

as for my own work, it would absolutely be better if I had all day to devote to developing projects, rehearsing, having production meetings, writing, editing, etc. A forty-hour-a-week job is only going to conflict with my artistic potentiality. but I'm working really hard to secure such at the moment...

if we're stuck in this capitalist paradigm, if we must have money to survive, then why can't we get paid to do our art? I don't mean going down to the corner store to fill out an application for that writing job that just opened up -- I'm talking about our society and its financial representative (the federal gov't) recognizing that artists contribute to society just like other federally funded organizations and individuals. Guess this view solidifies me as a Democrat, huh?

Jess

Good for you, Kate. In a lot of ways, it is hard enough to be creative without having to contend with the added pressure of feeding yourself.

Scott

But maybe the key is to disconnect your art from your rent. In other words, buy your freedom through another job and do your art without worry about the rent. Sophocles had a day job. Antoine worked at the gas company. Stanislavski owned a textile mill. Even Shakespeare made a lot of his money through real estate. Maybe this is what theatre history teaches us...

Scott

Thanks for doing that, Kate.
Yes, it is sometimes difficult to escape Marx's materialist ideas. I actually think that the consumer economy would prefer that we accept his ideas (sans the proletarian revolution, of course). But I wonder...on the micro level, this problem seems pretty easy to deal with: just don't buy into the mindset. Believe that there are a good number of human being who have minds that are better than flies (your father has the funniest sayings, Kate), unplug from the pursuit of fame as an end in itself, and keep doing what you believe until you develop an audience. There's nobody to stop you. Right?

Scott

"Reading what you want, and having one book lead to the next, is the way I found my discipline. I've suggested this to many of my students: When you find a writer who is really saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere. Then go to people who influenced tya writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marveous."

Joseph Campbell, quoted in The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work

Scott