Summarizing Gaimon's advice:

1) Ignore all advice.
2) Read outside of comics.
3) Read all the comics you can.
4) Make good art.
5) Keep moving, learn new skills, enjoy yourself.
6) Make mistakes, and respect them.

Obviously, substitute "theatre" for comics, and apply as needed.

Scott

Jess -- As I think we've talked about, I also did Playboy, and I was shocked to realize it has been 25 years since that production! I had been avoiding the play out of concern that my memories of the production would color my ideas too much, but when I read the play again, I found that I didn't remember very much at all. Ah, the blessings of early senility.
I haven't yet begun a formal analysis, but I can give you some first impressions.
The play lives in a real world, but dwells in the mythic that makes it seem just slightly "off." It is a coming-of-age play about the necessity of killing one's father. Oedipal perhaps, but not really, because Oedipus' killing of his father leads to his destruction, whereas Christy's murder leads to his transformation. The first time he kills his father, it is done half-heartedly we eventually discover. The second time, it is intentional -- but it is done as a way of holding on to what he has discovered. When his father arrives a third time, Christy shouts "Are you coming to be killed a third time, or what ails you now?" I think this is the moment that the father realizes that Christy has changed and become the man he wanted for a son. My image is of Old Mahon looking at Christy after he says this line and breaking into peals of laughter, which Christy joins in on. Father and son go off together, with the son now taking the burden of leading from his old father at last.
Here's the thing I need to grapple with: while it is clear than Christy is the protagonist (isn't it?), the climax seems to indicate that the Opposing Force is Old Mahon, which is problematic since he doesn't show up until Act Two. The other alternative would be to make the Opposing Force Pegeen, which would shift the climax to the moment when Christy takes his leave, no longer needing her love.
For the Christy vs Old Mahon idea, the Climax is "Go with you, is it? I will then, like a gallant captain with his heathen slave."
For the Christy vs Pegeen, the climax would be "Ten thousand blessings upon all that's here, for you've turned me a likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I'll go through a romping lifetime from this hour to the dawning of the judgment day."
Still lots more thinking to do.

Scott

having done Playboy, I can attest to there being several huge challenges for young actors - playing the natural setting of the bar without distancing the audience, finding two strong actors to play christy and pegeen and two good character actors to play the dad and the widow, playing the humour (it's a funny-ass play!), getting a good grip on the dialects....will you do it in dialect? I kinda think you have to - those words would sound strange in a southern drawl.

Unit set, naturalism - this ain't Frankenstein, huh?

I just found the script online at bartleby.com. I'd love to hear your input on MDQ, Climax, Inciting Incident, Moment of Engagement. also - something I've found to be of great help when approaching the beginning stages of directing work, what do you see as the major thematic conflict(s) in the play? I know this isn't part of your playscript ananlysis book, but it's been a good place for me to start in order identify major themes, get a step back from the play, see a bigger picture. Not at all helpful once you get to the nuts and bolts, but...

Of course, if you don't want to share these, that's cool. I'm just a playscript nerd with nothing better to talk about (not like I have my own play to write or anything...) - plus, I love this play and I think it's a great choice for your directing sensibilities, Scott.

I guess i should read Hawk's Well, too.

Playboy would be a great play for which to have a dramaturg onboard.

Jess

Brian -- Up until a few days ago, it had been my intention to direct an evening of Yeats, including some of his poetry and writings. But for some reason, I just couldn't get a foothold, I couldn't get excited. At that point, I decided that it had been a long time since I had directed a traditionally structured play ("Master Harold" was the last time), and that I wanted to do it again. So I will be directing Playboy of the Western World by Synge. I have just started to work on it, and am very excited.

I like some of Yeats' stuff -- I'm more of a fan of "Purgatory" and "The Hour-Glass" than of "At the Hawks Well" -- but for some reason, it just wasn't speaking to me at this moment.

But I could definitely see how Yeats' No-inspired Plays could serve as a model for "Nine Modern Cantos" -- at least pieces of it. In some ways, "The Hour-Glass" might be an interesting lead-in!

Scott

"On the stage one must have reality, and one must have joy; and that is why the intellectual modern drama has failed, and people have grown sick of the false joy of musical comedy, that has been given them in place of the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality."

J. M. Synge, "Preface to The Playboy of the Western World, 1907

No, I haven't seen an internet theatre production. I've been trying to find something about the guy I know about, but with no luck.

Scott

More from Kushner -- this is on hope -- and I wonder if there isn't a signpost toward an aesthetic here:

"But hope isn't a choice, it's a moral obligation, it's a human obligation, it's an obligation to the cells in your body, hope is a function of those cells, it's a bodily function the same as breathing and eating and sleeping; hope is not naive, hope grapples endlessly with despair, real vivid powerful thunderclap hope, like the soul, is at home in darkness, is divided; but lose your hope and you lose your soul, and you don't want to do that, trust me, even if you haven't got a soul, and who knows, you shouldn't be careless about it."

From Tony Kushner's Commenecment Address at Vassar:

The answers you provide for yourself to the question WHY ME will be of great consequence to the way you answer WHAT AM I DOING HERE, but if I may succumb to the immemorial nasty habit of commencement speakers since back in the days when the robes you are wearing were street clothes, and offer you advice: one of the answers to the WHAT question ought to be: I am here to organize. I am here to be political. I am here to be a citizen in a pluralist democracy. I am here to be effective, to have agency, to make a claim on power, to spread it around, to rearrange it, to democratize it, to legislate it into justice. Why you? Because the world will end if you don't act. You are the citizen of a flawed but actual democracy. Citizens are not actually capable of not acting, it is not given to a citizen that she doesn't act, this is the price you pay for being a citizen of a democracy, your life is married to the political beyond the possibility of divorcement. You are always an agent. When you don't act, you act. When you don't vote, you vote. When you accept the loony logic of some of the left that there is no political value in supporting the lesser of two evils, you open the door to the greater evil. That's what happens when you despair, you open the door to evil, and evil is always happy to enter, sit down, abolish the Clean Air Act and the Kyoto accords and refuse to participate in the World Court or the ban on landmines, evil is happy refusing funds to American clinics overseas that counsel abortion and evil is happy drilling for oil in Alaska, evil is happy pinching pennies while 40 million people worldwide suffer and perish from AIDS; and evil will sit there, carefully chewing pretzels and fondly flipping through the scrapbook reminiscing about the 131 people he executed when he was governor, while his wife reads Dostoevsky in the corner, evil has a brother in Florida and a whole bunch of relatives, evil settles in and it's the devil of a time getting him to vacate. Look at The White House. Look at France, look at Italy, Austria, the Netherlands. Look at Israel. See what despair and inaction on the part of citizens produces. Act! Organize. It's boring but do it, the world ends if you don't.

Kate -- Difficult? Actually, no -- I suspect that, in a relationship, you are wonderfully loving and devoted. But I also suspect that, for whatever reasons, you try to keep guys at bay until they are identified as non-hurtful. So you put on a difficult exterior -- sort of like running through a field of glass before arriving at the Elysian Fields. (Also, I suspect you act a little tougher in DDS than you actually are.) On the other hand, I've been divorced, so obviously my judgments about women can't be wholly trusted...

Scott

Maybe we need to do a PMI (plusses, minuesses, and interestings) about internet theatre. By the way, internet theatre has been going on for quite some time now. There's a guy in Chicago who is particularly active in it.

Scott

check out charles mee's (re)making project for a good example of theatre on the net.

Jess

[Another sidenote: I clicked on a "recently updated" blog because I was curious. Kate, you might find it particularly interesting, and Brian, you might find it enlightening. It is a blog called "How to Date a Difficult Woman," and it is quit funny. Address: http://www.nazifem.blogspot.com/

Scott]

[Sidebar: Check out this link, Brian. An interesting way of using interviews. I wonder if you might do a similar thing with interviews of famous directors...]

http://www.nowpossible.com/speak.htm

Jess -- I did, it just got put underneath your post about the math.

Scott

Scott- will you do your plus, minus, interesting as well?

OK, now let's discuss this proposal. Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that there was $500M available for this, and that it represented 80% of the arts budget. As a way of advancing the arts, does this proposal have any merit? Could it be strengthened by the addition of any provisions?

Scott

I know we've all figure this out by now - but the math is wrong. 50M = 10,000 to 5,000 artists. 500M = 10,000 to 50,000 artists. 50M = 1,000 to 50,000 artists.

I'm just sayin'.

Jess

My turn:

Positives:

Provide research and development funds for young artists when they really need it -- when they have energy and new ideas.

Provide enough money to do something substantive, but not so much that complacency would result.

Art would be spread across the country, and not be centered in the major cities.

We would be supporting artists rather than institutions.

By supporting artists, we might break out of the "edifice complex" of big, shiny buildings -- a more locally-based artistic community.

Negatives:

We're supporting artists when they are too young to really have developed their craft.

If we give them money, what happens to the 35 - 45 year old artists?

Isn't economic struggle part of the dues an artist pays?

Interesting:

Would artists band together and pool their grants in order to create, thus strengthening collaboration and community?

Would existing institutions be more inclined to hire young artists if they brought with them a $10,000 grant?

If artists were supported until their 35th birthday, would we have an upsurge in quality art?

P.S. By the way, my math was way off: 50,000 X $10,000 is $500M, not $50M. Oops! My calculator didn't have commas.

The NEA should devote $50M of its budget to giving $10,000 each to 50,000 young artists between the ages of 25 and 35 with the proviso that the money must be spent producing art, not on living expenses. What would be the positive effects of this? The negative effects? The things that are interesting. Take 3 minutes to make your list and post it.

Assuming I am one of the 50,000...

Positive:

I can make 9MC with no worries about how I will cover my end of the shared financial burden.

I can afford to bring 9MC to a wider audience, either by renting a bigger theatre, spending more money on advertising, both.

I can now afford to rehearse 9MC the amount it requires, by paying actors a paltry sum for the four weeks of their rehearsal committment - and paying myself for my time. Here's where your "not for living expenses" statement is vague. For an actor or director, producing art is not buying materials, it is spending time in the rehearsal room. Actually this is true for all artists. You have to take the time to do it. Paying for an artists living expenses is paying for the production of art.

Generally, now: as Kate said, art reaches farther into the rural areas of this country.

this offers a "one time chance" to an artists who may not otherwise get the chance to pay serious attention to their art due to financial considerations.

for working artists, it offers the chance to expand their vision, raise their sights for a moment.

Negatives:

I don't see any negatives in giving artists money to pursue their work. yes. 10.000 ain't much money, esp. for collaborative art like theatre - I'd still take it and not complain.

Interesting:

We always have the risk of crap art. In fact, we need it so we'll know good art when it bites us. 50,000 artists? it won't all be crap.

Give me 10,000 dollars to pursue a project, I'm gonna quit my day job and devote myself to the project until the 10,000 runs out. Shit, that's more than I claimed on my taxes last year. Is that good for the economy? Is that "good" for me?

I find it interesting that you would make a distinction between "living" and "producing" - I fail to see how they are seperated in any sense. Maybe a good thing for the government to do would be to set up artist "tenements" or "projects" or "communes" - take care of an artist's basic living expenses (nothing fancy - rent, hot water, electricity, food stamps), allow an artists to devote themselves to the work. If they find commercial success, they can move on to whatever greener pastures they wish to embrace. If their art is not "commercial" - at least they won't starve and can continue their work.

The question, in this model, would be how to gauge whether one was working enough as an artists to deserve the dole. Art case workers? Heh. That's a funny notion -

But there are lots o' people living in gov't project housing that take advantage of the situation - the program isn't erased because some group of people sit in their free apartments and sell drugs. It is a program that is kept up because of the single mother working two jobs with four mouths to feed at home. I think this is applicable to the art community right now. Welfare art.

Jess

Here's the problem with the economic argument for arts funding: if you can replace the primary terms with terms that are clearly unacceptable and still make a valid argument, it isn't a convincing argument. Observe: We should subsidize crime, because crime creates billions and billions of dollars of work for lawyers, judges, court clerks, prison guards, prison food service providers, architects and construction workers who build new prisons, security system makers who help prevent crime, policemen and security guards, locksmiths and lock makers, gun manufacturers, motels where prisoner's families stay when they visit...see the problem? I could make an argument that without crime our economy would collapse. Do you think I'd get a lot of support for devoting $120M to subsidizing criminals?

In order to convince our citizens that funding the arts is important, we need to convince them that the arts make a valuable contribution to some important aspect of society, AND that that contribution wouldn't happen in the free market system. Here's the problem: up until the mid-60s, the free market system did provide that valuable contribution, and most of our major playwrights worked within the commercial system. Now, we COULD make the argument that without subsidy the live arts wouldn't make it outside of NYC -- that we need to subsidize the regional distribution of the arts. Of course, what would make that argument stronger is if the artists working outside of NYC actually lived outside of NYC, rather than being bused in for a single show...

Kate, thanks for playing the game. We'll wait until everybody plays before we discuss further.

Scott

"It is not subsidy that is responsible for the theatrical quagmire. More subsidy would alleviate this problem. For an example, I point to the golden age of subsidy in England (and this country) in the middle of the last century."

It is true that the Angry Young Men (and the Second Wave) revolution in England benefitted from subsidy (although it was also a time of censorship until 1968 -- I think we have to be wary about post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments). Although let's also be honest about it: there was a very small handful of theatres getting subsidized to any extent: the English Stage Company (Royal Court), which is where the revolution in playwriting really developed, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where the young directors developed. The National Theatre came later. So: should we choose a couple theatres in the US and divide the $120M between them?

Now, as to the "golden age of subsidy...in this country...in the middle of the last century." I am going to assume you are talking about the birth of the NEA in the mid-60s and on into the boom of the 70s. So let's compare those decades to those that had preceded it: the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Let's see: Clifford Odets and the Group Theatre, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, William Inge, Eugene O'Neill, Sherwood Anderson, Maxwell Anderson. Now, 60s, 70s, and 80s: Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Terrence McNally, Wendy Wasserstein...I'm running out. Marsha Norman? Help me, I'm drawing a blank. Am I missing somebody? Compared to the previous list...well, can they compare? Maybe Shepard reaches to early O'Neill. We have lots of theatres -- where are the plays?

Let's do an mind experiment that I stole from one of Edward de Bono's books on thinking: PMI -- plusses, minuses, and interesting. You make a list in order (i.e., first the plusses, then the minuses, then the interesting -- don't skip around) on the following proposal (don't jump to judge it -- make the list): The NEA should devote $50M of its budget to giving $10,000 each to 50,000 young artists between the ages of 25 and 35 with the proviso that the money must be spent producing art, not on living expenses. What would be the positive effects of this? The negative effects? The things that are interesting. Take 3 minutes to make your list and post it.

Scott

Brian - you're absolutely right. This play only serves a purpose as an exercise for playwrights. As a produceable piece, it seems to have no sense of an audience. I can't believe they're producing it. But I still don't think the cutting of the scene that I posted is that bad all by itself.

Hear that? "that bad". now I'm rationalizing. Okay. It sucks.

Jess

But, I'm always right, Scott - or I wouldn't believe what I believe!

I think that the "quality of life" argument is the best that can be made for gov't subsidy.

Scott, in your post you hint to the responsibility that artists have to the community. This responsibility, when taken seriously, means that the community's artists are "critical insiders", not outsiders. Doesn't this dispel the faint smell of hypocrisy? To follow up on Kate's fears - couldn't the gov't make money available to those artists that are proving valuable to their community, proving to be artists of quality? Allow them to make the next step in their artistic vision? Every theatrician I know always has great big plans for the future - if they are ever able to secure the money.

I am getting weary and wary of all of us bashing every theatre artist earning a living at their craft. There are lots of theatres and artists perpetuating the status quo. Sure. Bash them. I do it plenty. There are plenty more artists working to achieve a worthy vision. AT's most recent issue has a cover story on Erick Ehn. Breadline in Chicago. On a smaller scale, NC Stage and their subsidized Catalyst Series.

It is not subsidy that is responsible for the theatrical quagmire. More subsidy would alleviate this problem. For an example, I point to the golden age of subsidy in England (and this country) in the middle of the last century.

I think there may be an issue with how we are identifying success in such theatrical ventures. What is theatre worth doing? How do you know when you have succeeded?

Jess

You know, I wonder if we are ever going to grow up and have a real conversation without having to rip each other's throats out and then apologize. Jess, don't posture about the "right" side of this -- if it was that cut-and-dried, we wouldn't be discussing it.

As long as artists see themselves as critical outsiders while at the same time taking government handouts, our theatre will have a faint (or not-so-faint) smell of hypocrisy. If there is a parallel, it isn't Shakespeare's Globe, but Lear's Fool.

My opposition is not because artists don't deserve government support, it is because I see very little (if any) artistic experimentation on the dole. I see regional theatres rolling out the same warmed-over classics and ignoring contemporary theatre. I see massive edifices being built to house artistic boredom. Young artists work hard to survive for the requisite three years before they can apply for grants, and the sign of having made it is getting a grant.

As for the economic argument for the arts, I think it is the weakest argument available. The arts exist so that restaurants, parking attendants, and babysitters can make money? There's gotta be a better argument than that. Like that the arts have something important to contribute to the community, which is exactly the argument nobody wants to make because that would imply we have a responsibility to the community instead of to our own personal psyche.

Changing the subject a bit, I have an idea for the theatres on Asheville that would actually contribute to an arts community. Instead of each theatre company competing for an audience and trying to sell their own season tickets, here's what they should do: sell a discounted season ticket that is comprised of a ticket for several different theatres in town, and then double the price of their single tickets. This would provide a strong encouragement for people to attend plays at a variety of theatres, and also create a sense of cooperation among theatres. It also would allow a theatre to focus its artistic mission on a type of play, instead of feeling they need to "balance" the season. Think of this like subscribing to cable: you pay for a variety of channels, even though you don't watch most of them.

And if anybody does that horrible chain play, I will personally picket the theatre!

Scott

I'm sorry, Kate. I jumped up like I'd been bit and started lashing out at the closest thing to me - which happened to be you.

I think you and I do the most apologising on this blog. I think this is because we feel the things we feel so strongly and are so used to dealing with abject dunderheads in our real life. Let's make a pact that we won't act like dunderheads to each other, huh?

I think you have every right to be suspicious of money going to any artist who is a better CPA than a theatrician, painter, dancer, whatever.

I wish that more millionaires in this country helped subsidize the arts. there are lots of foundations, but, as was quoted in the TCG article, such foundation funding is decreasing as well.

Of course, 2002, was a bad economic year - I hope that as our economy improves, the numbers for the arts go up as well.

The fact is that money is something artists have to be (painfully) aware of in this day and age. It is great to do "two boards and a passion" work. I think my Pinter shows were an example of it. But, eventually, one will burn out, without having real measures to gauge one's success. These measures could be critical acclaim, a wider audience, outreach programs producing tangible results in a specific community -- but all of them, every single one, is accompanied by the accumulation of dinero. Maybe not oodles of wealth, but if you're truly doing it - if you are an artist all the way -- you're eventually making you're living at it.

No hard feelings, Kate. I love you, and I know you. That's what matters.

If you are feeling the need to prove McNally and Guare to be the insufferable hacks they appear as - go ahead and blaze out a few scenes for 9MC. As long as Tennessee Williams doesn't show up with an umbrella....

At the risk of starting another shitstorm (but, oh, how I love to do it) - I think I liked the Guare section of the play! If no one else agrees, I'll give it up right now. But I thought it was witty, scaled back (not typical for Guare)--I found the characters to be charming, if a bit stereotypical. As far as Williams' entrance - I think I would have liked it better if he'd come in on a winged steed, or some such. If you're gonna play the fantastical card, don't pull your punch. How do we even know it's Williams, and not, say, Col. Sanders, until he is identified in the dialogue?

Jess

"(Scott - didn't we say this was a bad way to write a play? good gimmick, huh? "Fuck you - let's see if you can write after THIS!!!"):"

I'm sure Scott got this reference to our earlier conversation re: writers collaborating, writing to "punish" the other person, trying to set impossible scenarios that someone else has to write to....

It's like improvising and always saying "No."

I can't say I'm a big fan of this idea - but it doesn't really sound like two hours of torture. In fact, it sounds like a great exercise for writers!

However, Kate, if you would like to continue on from Mr. Guare's point of departure, as your post suggests you will, I'm sure we'd all be willing to read your next scintillating stanza. God knows this "Direct Line Play" could use a good writer above the caliber of Norman, McNally, Guare and Durang.

Jess

You know, Kate, for a smart girl, you sometimes have diffculty seeing the forest for the trees. I didn't say there is an exact parallel between the Aeschylus example, the Shakespeare one and the NEA. I said they received subsidy from their government. Of course they are different circumstances. But is there anything we can learn from those instances of government subsidy?

Why did the Greek city-states feel it was necessary to support their religious festivals? What did such provide for the citizenry? How could such a government-supported artistic endeavor be applicable to our own place and time? How much of the success of Shakespeare (and the increasing quality of his plays over time) can be attributed to his receiving royal patronage?

How about, instead of finding picayune historical inconsistencies to rail on, you apply some critical thinking to this topic?

"We created the NEA because we don't want to be responsible for Van Gogh's situation. When the great artists of our time show up, we want them to actually be successful rather than ending face down in a gutter somewhere, so we don't have to feel guilty about it, and so we can confirm our belief that we are definitely smarter than people of previous centuries."

What? I'm not even sure how this fits into the conversation. I am sure that the NEA was created for different reasons than this.

Maybe you could address the salient points of my earlier post? The success of subsidy over the past century in helping turn out the best theatre in the world? The responsibility of the government to provide for our society's quality of life? The amazing economic impact of art funded by the government? Or did you, as attested to by the focus of your reply, only read the first half of my first full paragraph?

I don't have any patience with being insulted, esp. when the reply is as inane as you are trying to make my own comments appear.

Jess

From NYTimes Online (Scott - didn't we say this was a bad way to write a play? good gimmick, huh? "Fuck you - let's see if you can write after THIS!!!"):

When Terrence McNally started writing "The Direct Line Play," he had no clue how it was going to end, which was exactly the point. Mr. McNally was responsible only for the first scene of this unusual experiment, known as a chain play, in which a dream team of 25 playwrights (among them Christopher Durang, Charles Busch, Wendy Wasserstein and Douglas Carter Beane) each wrote a different scene of the same play.

In Mr. McNally's breezy scene, set on a sunny Provincetown day, an English instructor named Frank poses nude for a painter, Tom. The script was then passed to John Guare, who turned the play upside-down, disrupting the budding romance with a surprise appearance by Tom's husband, Dwight. He also adds a fantastical touch with a supernatural cameo by one of Provincetown's famous (and late) summer residents.

"I just tried to make it as difficult as possible for the next writer," Mr. Guare said by phone from Rome, where he is working on his next play

"The Direct Line Play" inaugurates the Provincetown Theater, a new $3 million space that will house two companies, the Provincetown Theater Company and the Provincetown Repertory Theater (which is producing "Direct Line"). The play, directed by Phyllis Newman, will run on Friday and Saturday, but for those looking for a chain play closer to Manhattan, there is, by coincidence, another option. "Play," at the Kraine Theater in the East Village through Saturday, features a shorter but still impressive list of playwrights, including Robert O'Hara, Kia Corthron, Edwin Sanchez and Tracey Scott Wilson.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Guare's scene for "The Direct Line Play."

DWIGHT: I thought things would be different when we were married.

TOM: Why would I change?

DWIGHT: Because what else is marriage for if not to change? What is the purpose of marriage? Why are all the hundreds and hundreds of couples like us flocking up here to P'town to find wedded bliss in the all too common Commonwealth of Massachusetts? For health care benefits? Is that all?

TOM: I married you to shut you up. We came up here to get married and instantly you turn into Laura Bush reading to the children. They weren't children you grabbed on the beach. They were German midgets on a sex tour of America.

DWIGHT: I was reading them de Tocqueville. I'm sorry to disturb your idyll——

FRANK: Frank. My name is Frank. Can I borrow a hat? The sun is making me quite dizzy——

TOM: You said your name is Sebastian.

FRANK: I'm sorry. I came up to find spiritual nourishment and not——

TOM: Stumble into a lost touring company of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

DWIGHT: Frank, let me be frightfully frank, there's no romance after marriage. It's instantly George and Martha.

TOM: I want to be free.

FRANK: How long have you been married?

TOM: Too long. Our 12th anniversary.

FRANK: Twelve years?

DWIGHT: Twelve hours. Not even a full day. It's not even a 24-hour anniversary. Midnight last night all was champagne and vows and hot tubs and belonging to a whole greater than its parts. And now it's noon and it's just like old horrendous times. Beware of the noonday devil. I wanted someone I could depend on.

TOM: I want to be free.

FRANK: I want a myth. I want a myth. Please don't do this to me. I'm sorry for both of you. I came up here to see life, to have someone find me something as banal as attractive, to pose for a portrait I could take home and look at all winter or else give it to the artist on the hopes that he'd remember me. You don't know what it's like in Scranton. All my life I've wanted to come here — a place where life happened — where my heroes lived. I'm getting sun stroke.

(Tennessee Williams appears, dressed in a white suit and carrying an umbrella against the sun. Wind chimes.)

TENNESSEE: Here it is that magical time of 12 o'clock noon. The time of the amputation of shadows. The bright youth of morning is over and the foreplay of old age will soon begin. Enjoy what we have right now. Mix me a margarita while the evening prepares to drop her velvet cloak of fireflies on the skin of lonely lovers. Look, the line between ocean and sky vanishes in the glare——

FRANK: Tennessee? You've come! Give me shade? Let me get under your umbrella?

Peter Hall - "The Necessary Theatre"

"Subsidy is vital if theatre is to take the risks necessary in order to find new directions."

Theatre has always been subsidized. Aeschylus? Government subsidy. Shakespeare? Huge government subsidy. Especially in this country, where the almighty dollar is the reason everyone is hitting a wall, we must have subsidy or the theatre will stagnate. Well, it already is slowing way down, isn't it? If we make theatres rely solely on the money they can generate, we are sounding the death knell for any creativity - theatres will only do what is tried and true - what they know is going to sell. How do you think Charlie and Angie are able to do this Catalyst Series? With a grant from the Arts Council.

Not a loaded question - I really don't know the answer: Where did Wonderful Town and Sly Fox start? Chances are, it was an NPO - receiving federal funding. The four major Tony categories this year were won by shows started in NPOs.

From TCG:

"...2002...was a year in which local and city funding fell by 44 percent, in which the number of corporate donors fell, in which foundation funding slipped and in which field expenses grew more quickly than earned revenues. It was a year in which 54 percent of theatres finished the year with a defecit."

Don't give me the "lazy artist" crap. If they're the lazy ones, they don't deserve the subsidy. Why do you think the application process is so strenuous? To weed out those fuckers. No brain-dead half-wit sits around and says. Hey! I'll apply for an NEA grant - they'll just give me the money, and then I won't have to actually do any work!

The best theatre of the past century is a direct result of government subsidy. Peter Brook never writes The Open Door or The Empty Space without it. Brustein never opens ART. The Royal Shakespeare Company doesn't exist. Michele Saint-Denis never opens The School. Tantalus never makes it onstage in Denver. Go do it yourself in your spare bedroom? Please.

How about, instead, the government recognizes the huge economic machine not-for-profit art is for local communities and helps support it the same way it does small businesses? The economic impact of NPO's in Asheville alone is staggering. 63 million dollars last year! This is the type of recovery vessel you would think the Republicans would eat up! Nationally? arts industry - $134 billion dollars in economic activity generated. $24.4 billion in state and local tax revenues. 4.85 million full-time equivalent jobs. This is an industry, if gauged like others in this country, would have the government throwing fighterjets full of money at it.

We rely on the government to provide for our quality of life in thisd country - everyone screams for better health care, education, social security, less military (okay, not everyone screams for this last one). Quality of life goes up significantly with more art. And it's not like the NEA is a gold mine in whcih artists can pan for a mansion, six-figure income and a retirement plan. This year, the NEA's op budget was 105 million. This is a paltry sum, at best. The highest it has ever been was under Clinton, and it still didn't break 200 million. Compare this to the entire budget. For your own sanity, DON'T compare it to the money spent in Iraq.

Folks, I think you need to come down off your high-horses for a minute or two. You're on the wrong side of this argument - please be on the side that encourages artistic growth, not the one that serves to make it infinitely harder to accomplish such.

Jess

Uh-oh -- the Consistency Cop! "Step away from the contradictions."

Listen, copper, I've been framed! There ain't no inconsistency here! You got the wrong man!

I think theatre craftsmen (*sigh*) first and foremost need to work in front of an audience. If that means creating theatre pieces that benefit from "two boards and a passion" (as opposed to simply doing cut-down versions of traditional plays), then that's what they should do. I don't like workshops because they are half measures: a traditional play done without the traditional trappings. "The Frankenstein Project" was a traditional play and it benefitted from a traditional production. So I'm all for that. But if the choice is between only doing traditional productions of traditional plays and not working because (a) nobody will hire you, or (b)you don't have enough money to produce traditionally, then I favor simplification.

Do plays (or create plays) that benefit from a couple cubes and simple lighting, rather than sitting around waiting for the world to notice you, and whining about how our capitalist society doesn't appreciate artists. I am starting to believe that our society doesn't appreciate artists because artists don't appreciate our society. Instead of working on their art, they're having too much fun being the unappreciated, misunderstood outlaw, and the best part about that game is that you can play it without having to actually produce anything! Hell, rather than do that, rent an apartment with an extra bedroom and do plays in it for a small invited audience. Just keep at it, and keep working!

That's why I applaud Jeremy. He didn't say, "My art is just too important to be done in a bar with drink specials," he took advantage of an available space and wrote for it. (He wasn't interested in writing the Great American Play, so there's no point in dismissing him over that. We're talking about the approach.) Jess got NCStage to give him their space -- that's also admirable. But sitting around whining about not being given "a chance" is a waste of time. When you first started driving, you probably had a crappy car that you learned, and maybe later you got a nicer one. Why is theatre any different?

You'll never take me, copper. *bang bang* Top of the world, ma!

Scott

Interesting. Your comparison to film and television seems important, somehow. Do you expect different things from theatre than you do from film and television? You saw two shows that showed actors and designers at the top of their game -- their technique was flawless. What was missing?

Scott

Lope de Vega -- two boards and a passion. We have created a mythology surrounding theatre that requires tons of "stuff" in order to do it. I've always liked the title of a book I used to use in Directing II: "Hi Concept, Lo Tech." Imagination. Just perform -- for anybody, anywhere. Perform for each other, for one person. Disconnect from the theatre machine. Go back to the source. Make the work itself the end, not the means. Connect to the power source of theatre, and eventually people will find you because of the bright, bright light shooting into the sky.

SCOTT

I think getting together a few of your actor-friends to read your play out loud can be valuable. I think giving your play to a knowledgeable person to read can be valuable. But workshops seem to me to be the blind leading the blind. A bunch a bozos who haven't done diddly sitting around telling playwrights how to write so that they can understand it.

But here's my main thing: playwrights who submit their work for workshop productions are being passive and cowardly. Wanna see your play in front of a paying audience? Rent a theatre and get it done. Don't wait for The Gods to come down and bless you with a reading.

And that will probably take some extra work -- maybe working a second job to make the money to rent the theatre. So do it! I was watching Inside the Actor's Studio when they were interviewing Jay Leno (what he has to do with the Actor's Studio, I don't know). The interviewer was asking him about his long work days -- he arrives at 7:00 am and goes home after midnight. And Jay Leno said, "Hey, it's writing jokes, it ain't heavy lifting." Well exactly. I get tired of artists whining because they're too tired after working a full day to do anything and wah wah wah why doesn't somebody give me enough money so I can do my work wah wah wah. Theatre ain't heavy lifting. Get off your ass and do it. Get out of bed before noon and do it. Stop wasting all your money buying alcohol and CDs and use it to follow your dreams. Find the freedom that comes with independence -- with not having to ask anybody for permission to do your art. To hell with the NEA, to hell with the Asheville Arts Council -- figure out a way to get it done yourself. If it's that important, work hard until you can get it done. Got an award winning play that can only get workshopped? Stop waiting for the power-that-be to decide they can take the risk of a production and take the process into your own hands.

I've been teaching about the hero's journey for years, and there isn't a single hero who triumphed by waiting for somebody to help them. Where are our theatrical hero's? We've got a generation of Cowardly Lions.

Scott

I think the whole workshop idea is a symptom of the artistic cowardice that is rampant in the American theatre, and that is also seen in the regional theatre reliance on old classics, many of which were second-rate in their own time and haven't improved with age, and in the multiple productions of whatever small-cast play won the Pulitzer during the past year. That's why I was adamant that "The Frankenstein Project" not be billed as a workshop. It was a production, and everyone benefitted from seeing it on its feet with full lights, sound, and costumes. Where are the new plays being done in Asheville? No guts, no vision.

Scott

I don't know. I've always found it kind of odd that all these disparate things were pulled together under the umbrella title of "Arts." [Says the head of the Arts and Ideas Program...] Maybe we can call them something connected to the muses... Musers!

Scott

Until you're dead you're an actor, a director, a designer, a painter, a sculptor. The title "artist" comes from others.

Scott

For those of you who aren't aware, Laura Facciponti's father had a heart attack over the weekend and she flew off to PA to be there for the bypass surgery. She left after week one of her 4-week summer Arts and Ideas class. As proof of the power of DDS, I called Jess and asked him to take over the class, which he has done beautifully the last two days.

Today I came to class with Jess, and exploded stinkbombs all over the place as they were trying to discuss the age-old DDS question "What is art?" When they all seemed to agree that art "was subjective," meaning that it was anything that anybody said was art, I thrashed and crashed all over for the next couple hours. Afterwards, I decided that rather than simply calling their relativistic ideas into question, I shold actually take a stab at answering (something Socrates never felt compelled to do, but maybe if he had he wouldn't have had to drink the hemlock). Anyway, here is what I wrote that I asked Jess to forward to the class. I thought I'd share. We'll have milk and warm cookies after.

WHAT IS ART?

Ever since class, I have been thinking about our discussion about “What is art?” For some reason, even though I have engaged in that discussion many times before, I found myself stimulated by you to think more deeply. After all, it is one thing to harass you all about what you think it is, and another to actually propose an idea myself. So here are my thoughts at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, June 15th.
I was thinking about something that Georgia O’Keefe, the great 20th-century painter, once said. She said something like, “It is the height of presumption to call oneself an artist. Artist is something other people call you, and they only call you that after a certain amount of time has passed and you have earned it.” To O’Keefe, then, “artist” was an honorific title, something that was bestowed by posterity on someone whose work had been of high enough quality to merit that appellation. Similarly, by extension, to call something “art” is to say that it is something that has stood the test of time, and been found worthwhile by many people.
If “art” is reserved only for what has been designated the best by posterity, then what do we call more current works and the people that create them? Well, why not be plain? Why not name them after the medium of the work: if there is paint on a canvas, it is a “painting”; if it is a story on a stage, then it is “drama”; if it is tones arranged in an order, then it is “music.” Similarly, those who create these works are painters, dramatists, and musicians. So we can all stand in front of the Nikes-and-lamp-on-a-shelf piece and say, “Yup. That certainly is an installation.” And we can agree about this, because it is descriptive, not evaluative. My six year old comes home with her drawing from school and I can say, “Yup, that certainly is a painting. How do you like being a painter, Buffy?” And I wouldn’t be flattering her. But I wouldn’t say, “How do you like being an artist,” because I don't want to deceive my kid.
So I suppose I have shifted the question “What is art?” over to the artistic hierarchy question: what is deserving of being called art? What is good enough to stand the test of time? I am reminded of one of the last lines of James Joyce’s novel “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”: “I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” Perhaps works that deserve to be called “art” are those that most powerfully express the “uncreated conscience of my race,” in other words, that powerfully express something about who we are as human beings at a particular moment in time. When I say “most powerfully,” I mean to create a ladder of value: good, better, best; some, more, most. Most powerfully. And most powerfully express something about “us,” not just the artist himself, but the people around him. The artist must be in relationship to a community, a people. But that relationship is not simply that of a mirror. Rather, the artist “forges in the smithy of his soul” – puts the base ore of daily life through the heat and pressure of his personality and mind to create something new, something stronger than the original with the impurities burned out, like iron being forged into steel. Maybe that is art.
Are there music/movies/novels/paintings that aren’t art, but that we enjoy? Of course! They aren’t the best, but we enjoy them nonetheless. So what? Sometimes we want a McDonalds burger and sometimes we want a Porterhouse, but no one would argue that they are the same. Just like we wouldn’t say that a Mozart quartet and an armpit version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” are the same. But at a drunken party, armpit music may be what you want, and not a soaring Mozart melody. It wouldn’t stand the test of time, or appeal to a large number of people, though. Alas, armpit music probably ain’t art.
OK, my brain is tired now. If you’d like to comment on this, feel free to email me at swalters@unca.edu. Otherwise, thank you for being patient with my outbursts this afternoon, and good luck with the rest of the class.

Tony Kush---WHERE????!! Oh, fuck - it's just that sexy John Jacobs mumbling incoherently again.

I like you, Kate. Tony's just jealous cuz we have nicer tits than he does.

Jess

OK, one last question (do you feel like Tony Kushner?): -- OK, no, two last questions:

1) If you could change anything about DDS and the way we do things, what would it be?

2) [And this has been addressed a bit previously] Now that most of you have graduated, what do you think you have gained as a result of DDS?

Scott

John! Good to have you back!

Would any of you be interested in going to see 'Glass Menagerie' at NC Stage this evening? immediate theatre project, a dual-locale company split between NYC and Asheville - and run on this end by Willie Repoley - is presenting the work, starting tonight and running this weekend and next. Hans Meyer (the NYC connection) is directing. I met these guys earilier this past week (well, I already knew Willie) - they seem to have a good sense of, um, things. I think they fit the DDS mold pretty well.

Jenny Prather is playing Laura, and Ryan Madden is SMing. Willie is Tom, CJ Breland is Amanda, and The Gentleman Caller is some import from NYC.

I'd love some company - and {scolding} ya'll should come out and support live theatre - especially when it is intelligent, thinking artists doing the work.

Please? Scott? John? Anyone else in asheville?

Jess
also, it's a damn good play.

IF DDS were to be used as a model for other groups, I think something worth pointing out is that this is not a class you can sign up for. There is no credit, there are few tangible (or obvious) benefits. I would posit that most college-age students get their fill of critical thinking in the classroom and in dealing with homework. That's the point though, right? none of us were getting our fill. I'm still not fucking full, and I wish ya'll were still in Asheville so we could meet outside of cyberspace.

Sometimes I would so look forward to Monday DDS meetings - just so I could pick a fight. Honestly. It feels so good to be able to lambast someone who has a fair chance of fighting back and possibly kicking your ass. Some of my favorite and most infamous moments go something like this (does this sound familiar?):

JESS - "Goddammit, so-an-so! You are a nitwit because (fill in the blank). Obviously, it is proven that (fill in the blank). "

RANDOM DDSer - "Um, Jess, you moron. That's never been proven. Stop making shit up and read a book, will ya?"

JESS - "Oh yeah? Well.... (brief pause whilst Jess spends hours in the library) ...you're right! And you know what ELSE I learned?"

My classes never challenged me to learn outside of the given rubric. There was no reward for such further exploration. DDS offers this to me. EVERYTHING I read, hear, learn, explore is bound to come up in DDS. There is no syllabus, or conversely, everything ever printed is on the reading list. We discuss what interests us, not an assignment. In another setting, with different people, this may not have nearly as much to do with theatre - although I would say that it damn well should. We gossip and decostruct ideas. We share recipes and POV's on script analysis. We are critics of culture and the status quo is an obsolete term at our round table discussions.

Another bit of honesty - I, in turns, equally adore and detest this bit of group masturbation in which we are currently indulging. Perspective? Pfffttt.

Jess

John -- Absolutely not! Chime in when you can! I look forwar ot hearing from you. Post it to the blog -- all is good. Great to hear from you!

Scott

By the way, Jess, I know that Jennifer never does the blog, but would you pass these questions on to her as well? Maybe she could email me or something. I think her viewpoint would provide perspective. Thanks!

Scott

Kate, Brian, and Jess -- I'm not going to wait for John to post, as I think he only intermittently can get at a computer. So I'm going to move on to a couple other questions (I hope I;m not overstaying my welcome with this topic).

DDS was by invitation only. In fact, our name was coined to make fun of what was considered out elitism. Did that have positive or negative ramifications, or both? Should the group have been larger? Smaller? Jess has mentioned what he considered the impact on the rest of the department -- do you agree with his evaluation? Were there negative impacts as well?

I'm only going to ask one more round of questions after this, and then we can get back to our regularly scheduled program...

Scott

My family has always considered me to be a dork. I think this is because I am so easily excited over ideas. When I read something, or listen to somebody speak about something that I have thought of all by myself, I tend to get emotional. I like to know things, and I like to surround myself with people who like to know things.

DDS seemed like a good way to engage with people who know things. I cannot, for the life of me, remember how the whole shebang began - but it is easy for me to describe the purpose it serves in my life. I found myself leaving my classes wanting nothing more than to continue the discussions we had within the confines of the classroom. It seemed absolutely ludicrous to me that there was a fucking time limit on exploring ideas. 9 times out of 10, I would end up in the lobby of CBT following these classes, talking away to anyone who would stand still and pretend like they were listening. The most frustrating times were when I would walk through the front door and see that Scott was not in his office, or that there was not a Kate, or a Brian, or a Mary, or an Angela Koon, or a Jeremy Burgess in the immediate vicinity. These people would always engage with me. Granted, with Jeremy, I had to usually buy him a beer first - but then, I was also bartending at the time and actually had some money!

I felt that as we started meeting formally we all tried really hard at the beginning to impress each other with our knowledge. I remember a particular discussion at AtlBreadCo centering on hyperrealism that simply flew over my head. Ah! I thought. I guess I better bone up or be left in the dust. That afternoon, I went to the library and read up on Boudrillard (sp?). As with this example, I have often found the discussions in DDS to be challenging. I learn things because of you all.

DDS also served to promote an intellectual atmosphere within the Drama Dept. While some managed to get their undies in a bunch over our perceived exclusivity, I think that overall the timbre of the dept changed for the better. I would point to the postmortems for Ryan's and Kim's shows, as well as that for Frankenstein as examples of such. Also, I remember the general disgust our dept felt in regards to the critique from that fuck-knuckle who came to assess Music Lesson. no one was interested in generalized, feel-good inanities. We all hungered for criticism. We KNOW it wasn't great, tell us the truth! We can take it! Let's explore how this could be better - let us learn!

DDS is also permeating into a wider community in Asheville. Here's an eerie thought - both Charlie Flynn-McIver and Andrew Gall have read portions of the DDS Blog. In fact, just today, I received a call from Andrew to discuss Miss Firecracker, and in the conversation he mentioned that last night he was googling for "contemporary theatre" and ran across the DDS Blog. He said he was particularly engaged by our recent discussion of Kushner's NYT 10 questions -and went to the NYT website to read them all. This lead to a 1/2 hour conversation between us about why there have been no quality plays written yet about the events of 9/11. He suggested I read Neal LaBute's (sp?) new play on the subject, and I suggested he NEVER read "The Guys".

DDS also gives me a chance to bounce my creative ideas off of intelligent people who both respect me and are willing to tell me the truth - or at least their opinion of it. Tis has helped immensely in my ability to self-critique. I am a better director fro having My Thing of Love and Death and the Maiden dissected at UB. I think the success of the Pinter plays has a lot to do with these processes.

I also like that we tend to now seek each other out for the exchange of ideas. Now that we don'tr have a weekly sitdown lunch meeting, we all seem to frequesnt the blog regularly to get our fix. While I may not post every day, I do read it that often. Honestly, I am often intimidated by the clarity of thought presented by Scott and Brian in their posts. I think I post less because of this - but, alternately, I also think more for the same reason.

That's it.
Jess

Rob sent me this, and I thought I'd share it. I think you are all in danger of a similar fate...

"It all started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then, just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone -- "just to relax," I assured myself -- but I knew that wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening when my thinking got out of control, I even turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

"Then I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "Exactly what is it we're doing here?"

"One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I happen to like
you...so it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you're fired." This gave me a lot to think about.

"I came home early after that conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely my thinking isn't that serious!"

"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as any college professor, and you know that college professors can't make any money! If you keep on thinking, it's going to ruin us!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.

"She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door. I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors. They didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I
believe a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

"As I sank to the ground, clawing at the unfeeling glass and whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster. Seeing that poster at the lowest point in my life is why I am what I am today: A recovering thinker.

"I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non educational video...last week it was "Porky's". Then we share experiences about how we've avoided thinking since the last meeting. Because of my membership in TA I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seems...well...easier, somehow, now that I've stopped thinking. Today I even registered to vote Republican, so I know my road to recovery is nearly complete. Please...won't you join us?

?You have received this testimonial email because someone who cares
about you has identified you as a thinker, and wants to remind you of the many problems thinking can cause. Excess thinking has ruined many lives: Please remember this the next time you feel compelled to think."

Kate, that is exactly what I am looking for, and thank you. Others? We'll move on to other questions after this one has been investigated a bit. Again, thanks, Kate.

Brian -- Your instructions about contacting Kushner are wonderful. I may try to figure out a way to use them for one of my history classes. [No, I'm not going to have my students contact Aphra Behn's agent.] I'm thinking about having an assignment where students are assigned to contact someone who is currently, or in the near future or recent past, directing/designing/appearing in a play from, say, the Restoration and do an interview, or provide them with research, or something. Anyway, your how-to might come in right handy!

Scott

Brian and all -- What do I want you to do? Hmmmm. Well, maybe we should start with a question about the early DDS: why did you decide to participate? What purpose did it serve for you? What gap did it fill? Why did you decide to continue?

Scott

Jess -- It is OK with me if you want to move the discussion to 9MC -- just don't everbody stop checking DDS!

Speaking of that, I have a request. I notice that a while ago we passed 700 posts -- a pretty darned impressive number. At one time, we had talked about doing a staged reading, which I suspect will never happen. However, I do think there is something extraordinary about this group and how it has developed over the last year and a half. I would like to write an article about DDS. How we did it, why it works, what doesn't work, what we had to figure out, how it has affected everybody. I don't see this as you sending me a big honkin' essay or something, but just as another thread on the DDS blog. Would you all be willing to participate?

Scott

As of now, the 9MC blog consists of Jess Wells, Brian Santana, John Jacobs, Jennifer Croke, Ryan Madden, Ron Bashford, Scott Walters.

Invites have also been sent to David Novak, Carly Knight, Meg Hale and Kate Yuhas.

Any one else that should be included?

Would you guys mind moving this conversation to the 9MC blog? It is elucidating a number of things about this process for me. I'd like to open it up to other minds.

Kushner, man. Kushner. Think he'd come see 9MC if I asked him? Brian - how do I get in contact with Tony Kushner?

Jess

I don't want to move the conversation until ya'll say okay, so...

Also, Kate - I need to send you the invite to the 9MC blog. In checking the roster, I noticed that you weren't on the list. How the fuck did that happen? Who the hell is the administrator over there at that wannabe discussion site?

Madam, which e-mail address shall I use for such?

Brian -- Where did you find this Kushner piece? What part of the NY Times? Arts? For July 7th?

Scott

Brian -- Thank you so much for posting that -- I would like to have it made poster-sized and hung on my office door! Ir confirms for me that Tony Kushner is the most brilliant essayist the theatre currently has. He is a joy to read.

Kate -- That is an interesting idea, and since I have been reading a lot of Jean Houston and Deepak Chopra lately, I think we should always be on the lookout for "coincidences" -- they are rarely accidental, and they are probably trying to tell us something. Your idea also gives me a interesting view of Six Characters in Search of an Author -- stories needing to be told.

Scott

P.S. Thank you to you both for extricating us from the political discussion...

Brian -- A metaquestion before I address your post: are you trying to have a conversation, or win an argument? If the latter, then I'll clear the field. The reason I ask is that one technique that people who are trying to win an argument use is to take a point made by another person and trivialize it. You did this by comparing what I was saying to a high school student promising no homework. Now, that's irritating, because it tells me that you're not listening, but just looking for points to attack. It is the way that we are taught to have discussions, so I'm not PO'd, but I am starting to see how useless such an approach is. So my question is: discussion or argument?

Community isn't something a president does; it is something we do. What a president can do is set a moral agenda -- use the "bully pulpit" to say what is right, set a course for the future, and inspire individuals enough to do something. Universal health care is not a principle, it is a policy -- it points toward a very specific solution, and defines the problem in a very specific manner. "I believe that everybody should have an equal right to live a healthy life" is a principle. It could be solved in a variety of ways, and could lead to creativity. If a candidate placed this at the center of his campaign, then we would know where he stood. The problem as I see it is that nobody prioritizes -- instead, we a get a laundry list of things to be done. I say: pick one or two, and focus. If a politician focused on righting one major wrong each year he was in office -- well, we might actually have something.

My thing about community is, at root, the same thing I feel about a "national conversation." I think "small is beautiful," and small conversations are beautiful, and individual communities are beautiful. We create a ocmmunity by defining a set of values that those in the community subscribe to, and then we use our personal relationships to enforce those values.

Perhaps if the high school student had promised to encourage a broader idea of learning, we might have actually had some change...

Scott

I'm going to make a radical statement here -- brace yourself: capitalism is not the problem, a lack of moral philosophy is. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea of independent competition in the marketplace, but it becomes a monster when there are no strong community standards that keep people in check. We lack a sense of community, and a sense of common morality, that would enforce socially standards of decency. If the community rejected the explanation that a bad action is justified because it is a "business decision," and held people personally responsible for such actions by making them social pariahs, then perhaps things would be OK. The problem with global capitalism is the loss of community responsibility.

The secular American society has abandoned the power of principles, of ideas. This affects our politics ina very negative way. The insistence of policy-wonks that a candidate provide specific details of each plan leads the average voter to go cross-eyed. I can't examine all the ins and outs of a candidate's policies -- without a graduate education in the subject, I can't tell what is truth and what is smoke and mirrors. But I can understand a principle such as "Unilateral action against another nation in the face of fierce international opposition is wrong." I can understand a principle such as "Someone who works 40 hours a week ought to make enough money to support a family."

For that reason, I'm not all that impressed with the fact that Kucinich has a complete withdrawal plan all worked out. Big deal! I'd be more impressed if he said he would evaluate the details situation when he arrives and develop a plan according to the following principles: X, Y, and Z. I hate that we are in Iraq, but I am a little queasy about our decision to just bail out. What are we leaving those people to deal with? Who is most likely to come to power? What level of terror are we subjecting them to? I think there needs to be a principle stated that I could agree with -- not just a plan.

Going back -- I think we need more emphasis on spirit, morals, and community. Our society has become impersonal, which makes the "banality of evil" much more likely.

What makes me extremely uncomfortable about Nader is the Manicheaen underpinnings of his ideas. At the level of philosophy, he sees the world in terms of good and evil, black and white to the same degree that Bush does. The world is too complex for that. We need someone who understands the world is built on good-and-evil, black-and-white, both-and not either-or.

And we need a stronger sense of community.

Scott

Kate -- I'm sorry, you're too late. The offer has been withdrawn. I will only allow you to marry someone whose politics I agree with. You should have read the fine print when you signed on to DDS -- you would have seen that I have ultimate decision over your mating possibilities.

Brian -- I'm not sure why I'm arguing with you -- I'm all about principles. Hell, Dennis Kucinich was my guy.

But it seems to me there IS a pretty serious difference between George Bush and John Kerry, and anyone who says there is not had better back up the opinion. Yes, Kerry voted for this war -- the questions is: would Kerry have started it in the first place? No, because he has a sense of being part of an international community. Would Kerry have started some misbegotten "war on terrorism" against an undefined foe with an undefined goal? No, only a end-time Christian fundamentalist would have thought of such a thing. Would Kerry have created disastrous ecological laws to benefit the oil companies? No. The list could go on, but you see my point. Aslo, there is the supporting cast: Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfeld -- fascists all. No way Kerry would surround himself with such dangerous ideologues.

I fear for our future. And that future is now.

Scott

I have to weigh in on Scott's side on this one. There is NOTHING more important than beating George Bush in this upcoming election. That means we have to vote for Kerry. Do I wish that Kerry wasn't such a wishy-washy rich bitch? Ya damn skippy, I do. But he is the only candidate with an actual chance of beating Dubya. Besides, in NC, you can't vote for Nader.

The most important thing I can do right now politically, is go out and make sure everyone I meet is registered to vote. Then, on election day, drive the bus to people's houses and run shuttle services to the polling precincts.

A two party system will not be overthrown by lodging your vote in this election for a third party candidate. So why waste your vote? A vote that is not for Kerry is absolutely a vote for Bush. It means that you are not willing to take the one action you have available, personally, to stand up and say that you don't want this genocidal, classist, racist, fundamentalist, neoconservative, dickhead, fucking world-raping, elitist, asshole, son of a bitch, piece of shit as the leader of your country!

I hate our two party system. I will help you in any grassroots movement you like to establish a third party, or work to overturn the current system. I hate our capitalist system. I hate the egotistical, narrow-minded dipshits that make up the majority of this country. I HATE people, like my own family, who believe that we are only in Iraq for two reasons - to kick ass and chew bubblegum (and we're all out of gum) - that's an actual quote from my brother.

But I will vote for John Kerry. And I certainly hope that all of you will as well.

Jess

Brian -- If Bush wins by one vote, I'm holding you personally responsible. Long-term my ass! Another four years of Bush will lead to a world inflamed. Get your priorities in order. Voting isn't about symbolism. You want to work to get away from the two-party system -- great! But do it directly rather than symbolically. And do it when the world isn't in flames.

And no I'm not in a bad mood, I'm just tired of intellectuals with finely tuned value systems who will fiddle while Rome burns. I don't care if Kerry isn't the ideal candidate; I care that Bush is a lunatic Christian fundamentalist who sees the "war on terror" as a holy war between Good and Evil.

OK, that wasn't much like the cool, calm, rational, complex discussion I am promoting. But damn it, Hindenberg wasn't a great Chancellor, but he sure as hell beat Hitler!

Scott

Did you have a bad day, Brian? That last post was just dripping with vitriolic rancor!

Ah, semantics. I think Angels is a blatantly political/socially concious piece. We have already explored what sets it apart from Homebody/Kabul.

Political activism is required of anyone who feels that they MUST help initiate change. This means, at the least, you have to vote. There are also a myriad of grassroots groups that need volunteer help. I have spent the past six months helping out Common Cause NC, just doing cold calls and whatnot.

here's the thing, though. I am a director. While the plays I direct may not affect social change, they are influenced by my world view. The plays I write may not get more people to vote for John Kerry, but I think they should, thematically, address the things I am concerned about in America.

I don't know of anything, besides violence, that has the ability to cause national change. We can only influence our own communities. Wendell Barry says that such is all we should be concerned with affecting.

Jess

In interesting quotation from Tony Kushner:

Q: How important is it to be political in the arts right now?

Kushner: You can't find any important work of American art, in theater or anywhere else, that doesn't have a very powerful political dimension. [But] whatever you do with your day job—and writing plays is what I do—is no replacement for activism, which is a necessary part of being a citizen in a democracy. And not to be foolish and think that writing a political play is going to do it, because there's only one thing that does it—organizing and voting and demonstrating and fund-raising and e-mailing and joining groups. Art is not [it]. I mean, I admire theater groups that mobilized around the antiwar effort, but I don't think that's essential, and it can be incredibly misleading because you wind up with everybody getting up and doing sort of a performance piece about the war. What we really have to be doing now is organizing people to get out and vote for the candidate that the Democratic party nominates for president. It's the one thing that counts right now. And nothing else does.

Brian -- I wasn't contending that Brecht isn't a political playwright (if I was, you'd be being much too polite and should be calling me an enromous moron). Rather, I am saying that Brecht places his political messages indirectly. Rather than writing s play about, say, the morality and ethics surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, he writes Galileo which raises the same issues within another context. This gives us some distance. The same is true with your example of the John Wayne film -- he wanted to make a point about Vietnam, but he didn't do a movie about Vietnam, but rather created aesthetic distance by couching the ideas in an historical time and situation. [There is something kind of "ewwww" about linking Bertolt Brecht and John Wayne within the same idea...] You are right about Kushner's Angels in America, in that he set the play in the previous decade (historicization) and mythologized the ideas through the fantastical elements. Result? A fantastic play. But then he writes Homebody/Kabul which takes on the topic of Afghanistan head-on. Result? A rather uninspired play. Because the topic weighs him down.

Scott

I don't think I'm going to say much about the Buffy debate beyond mentioning that the academic attitude toward Charles Dickens was similar -- he was considered a hack not worth discussing. Oh, one more comment: for some reason, our society puts its most profound ideas into genre material (e.g., Star Trek, children's stories, sci-fi and fantasy).

I'd like to go back to the Tony Kushner interview for a second. First, you mentioned that Kushner responded to a question about his relative silence "by explaining that the ideal trajectory of a playwright can be observed in the career of Eugene O'Neil- who peaked late. He mentioned that he was a little concerned that he might have reversed the process and accomplished his best work at age 30...." I think Kushner is perhaps overlooking the real life trajectory of O'Neill, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the Horizon at age 32, and was being hailed as the savior of American theatre at that time. After several major triumphs, O'Neill went through quite a slump during the 1930s and early 1940s (while being given a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936 -- the first American author to be so honored). As onew O'Neill website noted: "By the time he received the Nobel Prize in 1936--a feat which no other American playwright had been able to accomplish--his career had begun to fizzle. The new generation of critics--Francis Fergusson, Lionel Trilling, Eric Bentley--began to subject O'Neill to a closer scrutiny than their predecessors who had been satisfied simply to find an American playwright of international stature. Pushed about by this critical storm, obscurity began to settle in on the playwright, and it deepened more and more until his death in 1953. Ironically, it was during these dark years that O'Neill's real development began. Maturing in silence and motivated only by his obsessive urge to write, he developed a profound artistic honesty which would result in several genuine masterpieces of the modern theatre including A Touch of the Poet (1935-1942), More Stately Mansions (1935-1941), The Iceman Cometh (1939), A Long Day's Journey into Night (1939-41) and A Moon for the Misbegotten (1943). Most of these were not published or produced during O'Neill's lifetime."
In fact, while The Iceman Cometh is now regarded as a masterpiece, when it was first staged in 1946 it was a huge flop. Long Day's Journey Into Night was produced posthumously as was A Touch of the Poet. So in some ways, Kushner is following O'Neill's pattern of being hailed young, then slumping -- I hope he isn't hoping to have his most important work done posthumously!

As far as his admiration of Brecht: "He loves Brecht because he gave him permission to be a political playwright. He also mentioned that it is impossible and irresponsible for artists not to address the current situation around the world in their work. On a personal level, he mentioned that it is impossible for him to not to, "write through the lens of Iraq." Again, I think he needs to reconsider Brecht's work. Can you think of any major Brecht play -- or even minor Brecht play -- that directly addresses a political issue? Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage, Galileo, Good Woman of Setzuan all address political issues indirectly either through fable (Good Woman, Caucasian Chalk Circle) or historicization (Galileo, Mother Courage, St. Joan of the Stockyards. Even The Rise and Fall of Arturo Ui, which is a direct parody of Hitler, is set in Chicago with Hitler as a gangster. I think the problem that Kushner is having is that he has a poetic imagination that he is trying to fit into the Procrustean bed of agit prop theatre. He should pay more attention to Brecht's actual example, which I think would truly serve him well.

Scott