Rant #2
On the Self-Centeredness of the Modern Theater
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It's all about the audience, innit? That's why I preferred film to theater, at first. A play has a chance of being seen by one tiny group of people. A film, if it's a well-known one, can reach an entire country and more. Still, as I started writing and acting in plays, I noticed the one thing film doesn't have--the act of being LIVE, of having living, breathing, sweating people in front of you, who you can take out for a drink afterward, make love to, and be crushed when they don't call you the next day.

Not exactly a huge revelation that--that's what theater is all about, right? Live theater.

But as a performer, and as a writer, I keep coming back to the "audience" issue. Not just in terms of numbers, but in terms of type. Here in DC, at least, most of the new plays that premiere are About the Writer, generally a sardonic gay man, who hangs out with actors and so forth. And the only people who go to see these plays are sardonic gay actors.

Perhaps that's a bit of an overstatement. But it seems to me that if one only writes what one is familiar with, instead of something universal, one can never break out of a solipsistic trap. They always say, of course, Write What You Know, which seems to be an excuse to write about the same topic all the time. I wish creative writing courses would also say, Know New Stuff!

In any case, theater these days seems to not care that it's utterly irrelevant to the rest of the world. Come on folks. If all you write is stuff that appeals to other theater people, you'll never grow beyond your borders, and tourists will watch the Disney musicals on Broadway and the next Tennessee Williams will write for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Of course, this might just be the bitter sour grapes of a failed playwright. Who knows? Maybe I don't like any current theater and that reflects on me, not theater.

Maybe, but then....

I helped found an improv group. We performed not in theaters, but bars. We had audiences full of not actors, but folks who otherwise would have been watching "Survivor." We packed the houses (at least some times). People are starved for live entertainment. If someone wrote a play that was as entertaining as an improv show, you wouldn't be able to keep folks away!

Who the hell is gonna write that play?