Wednesday, July 12, 2023

On the Importance of Comparing Notes

My wife and I were briefly involved in a group that has since become rather infamous for institutionalized abuse. It's a pretty sad commentary on the world in which we live that I've just described at least a dozen organizations.

While we were in the group, we never really compared notes. We wanted to think the best of this group that we joined. Although neither one of us suffered the worst abuse that has since been reported, we nevertheless paid witness to petty abuses that stood in stark contrast to the stated aims and goals of the group. What led to our departure from the group was finally, at long last, comparing notes.

Patterns of abuse emerge. "You saw that happen? Well let me tell you about this thing that happened!"

When you hold that stuff in, you can begin to doubt yourself. "Did that really happen?" "Am I overreacting?" "Am I just recontextualizing a memory of something that was benign at the time?"

I've been nursing a grudge for a little over thirteen years. It grew out of another group, one my wife and I started this time, rather than joined. I've come to think of it as "nursing a grudge," I should say. I was frozen out, bullied, yelled at, and ultimately bailed on a group I put a significant amount of sweat equity into. The grudge is completely justified.

But years have passed. An ocean has flown under that particular bridge. And so I came to believe that, to some degree, the grudge was on me. Actually blaming myself for the way I felt.

As it turns out, you can still compare notes a decade later. You can hear about others who have suffered very similar (though not identical) treatment at the hands of a particular person. Someone who bullies, belittles, and bellows. Someone who will smile to your face while assassinating your character behind your back. Someone, it would seem, who may just get his comeuppance.

Sunday, April 03, 2022

Echoing into Nothing

 

Photo by Marcelo Jaboo
One of the damndest things about theater happens to be its greatest strength: it lives and breathes in the moment. If you weren't there, you missed it. When I think about how many original works have faded back into the shadows, never to be heard of again, it makes my heart hurt. I recall so many nights, sipping cheap wine in storefront lobbies, looking at dusty framed posters of such shows. I have some such posters on my own walls at home (which reminds me, I need to do some dusting.)

To quote the poet, "This isn't meant to last/This is for right now." It's just the nature of the beast, and like I said at the top, it gives live theater its particular strength. Our audiences are present witnesses to the creation of our art. Sure, we meet and rehearse and build sets and hang lights and all of that. But the whole thing doesn't mean anything until at least one warm body watches as it all comes to fruition.

And when it's all over? It's all over. Unless some forward-thinking person took pictures at a rehearsal, or some packrat happened to hold on to a program, there is precious little evidence that anything magical actually happened. We have our memories.

Oh yeah... and we have reviews.

Let's say you see one of those dusty posters. Maybe you recognize an actor's name. Maybe you just like the art. You whip out your mobile device and see what else you can find out about that show. You might find some archive on the theater company's website. But maybe that company went through a nasty divorce with some past members, and petulantly deleted all reference to them. Maybe you find a resume line on an actor's website. Maybe, just maybe you find a review.

I'm somewhat inclined to rev Mad Theatrics back up, if only to keep a running record of productions that won't live past their original run. If only there were more hours in a day.

Sunday, February 21, 2021

This is just to say...



I have changed
the theme
that was on
this weblog

and which
you were probably
annoyed
to look at

You're welcome
this is much better
so dark
and theatrical

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

'Tis Drama Tech*

My wife and I started this blog back in 2006. It was a place for our idle thoughts about theater, and eventually grew into a middling source of reviews and opinions of and about Los Angeles theater.

We effectively killed it off in 2016, around the time we decided to move to Texas. I've posted a couple of times since then, mostly to direct folks to our "new digs" at Wordpress.

I haven't really done anything with the Wordpress site.

Mad Theatrics is staying up as an archive. Mostly for the reviews. Apparently my old design doesn't work on mobile, so I picked a boring design that does. Boy howdy, does the blog look like shit now. Yikes.

 *(an anagram of Mad Theatrics)

Thursday, March 09, 2017

"Acrobats of the Soul": A Revisitation and Review

I recently revisited a book I haven’t read since college, Ron Jenkins’ Acrobats of the Soul: Comedy & Virtuosity in Contemporary American Theatre. It is a time capsule from the late eighties, each chapter sketching a portrait of a variety artist or circus. Performers such as Paul Zaloom, Penn & Teller, Spalding Gray, Avner the Eccentric, and the Flying Karamazov brothers; Circuses ranging from Cirque du Soleil's then-nascent techno rock show to the scrappy one-ring Pickle Family Circus.

When I first read the book, I did so with the wide-eyed wonder of a teenager in Arkansas, amazed that such performers exist. Coming back to it about a quarter of a century later, as someone who follows in the variety arts tradition both as both a solo artist and as one-half of Mr. Snapper & Mr. Buddy, my appreciation for the performers and their acts is much deeper. Jenkins’ book is a great jumping-off point for further discovery, providing descriptions of acts and some script excerpts.

Where it fails for me is in Jenkins’ attempt to politicize the performers and acts. Granted, he doesn’t have to read much into the politically charged work of Zaloom or Gray, but his analysis of Cirque (as a for instance) feels particularly contrived. Jenkins is attempting to make an overarching point about the resurgence of variety artists in the ‘80s as a reaction to Reagan conservatism.

Without a doubt, opposition to the powers-that-be has always been and always will be a powerful motivator for great art. The fact that these same artists continued to thrive through the Clinton years and beyond speaks to a more fundamental quality, something that defies mere politics. And this is the greater lesson I take away from the book now: commitment to one’s craft, and active concern with audience engagement is more lasting than the heat of the political moment.

It speaks to our moment, as well. One of my greatest pet peeves is when performers make a meal out of low-hanging fruit. Going for the obvious gag, playing fan service to an audience who already thinks the way you do. Low-hanging fruit is at best a light snack; a fun size Snicker bar that gives you a burst of endorphins but little actual sustenance. The acts in Jenkins’ book had and have staying power precisely because they provide sustenance.

Off-the-cuff jokes about Reaganomics may have given audiences to The Flying Karamozov Brothers a jolt of delight; the mind-blowing synchronization of various and sundry objects passed between the “brothers” hits on something way deeper. The force of Zaloom’s stage presence, his lateral-thinking satirical observation is more resonant than the party affiliation of whoever is in the White House at the moment.

The lesson I take from Acrobats of the Soul defies the political patina Jenkins washes over everything. Rather, it’s the dialectic between Jenkins’ approach, and the longevity of the performers he profiled that reaches the slightly less wide-eyed adult who read the book most recently. Focus on your act and focus on your audience with fierce dedication.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

"... there of their own accord and acting from their own free will."


"I think of the security of cages. How violence, cruelty, oppression, become a kind of home, a familiar pattern, a cage, in which we know how to operate and define ourselves …"
- Eve Ensler, Insecure at Last

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Defined Through Its Effect

"Entertainment -- the cause -- is thus inversely defined through its effect: a satisfied and happy psychological state. Yet, somehow, it matters not whether the effect is achieved through active or passive means. Playing the piano can be just as pleasurable as playing the stereo." 
- Harold L. Vogel, Entertainment Industry Economics

Even when viewed through the cold lens of economics, it's about the audience.

On the Importance of Comparing Notes

My wife and I were briefly involved in a group that has since become rather infamous for institutionalized abuse. It's a pretty sad comm...