One thing I often take issue with in terms of American style theater is the narrowly defined focus on storytelling. Often the story is reduced to the events surrounding a lead character and their actions upon other characters. The focus is on the egoic structures centered around a very American notion of individualism and identity. I understand why it exists as this focus permeates American culture to the exclusion of most else. It is also the aspect of American culture that I least resonate with.
Bloodshed, slavery, and genocide aside, the idea this country was founded on was not the individual against everything but a more collectivist community. As the preamble to the U.S. Constitution states: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This is the intent of the Constitution. A collective act to create a better world for those who acted and future generations. The idea of the rugged individualist is more a historical accident born from the Western expansion of the American Empire. But as this country evolved, and moved towards practical concerns and away from its idealistic origins, the focus and intent of the culture was changed along with it. Thus we arrive at the present moment where the legacy of that rugged individualism is infused into every nook and cranny of the American experience.
It manifests in the work we see on stages as well as more pop-culture. Not only do these ideas present themselves in the literal narrative of written text, but also in the visual storytelling; scenic design, clothing, lighting, sound, and so forth. Too often the focus, as a function of the typical American disposition, gets placed on the actions of the character to the exclusion of everything else. Much like “Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves” gets extracted from the rest of the constitution in a vain act of ego inflation.
While this can be fine entertainment, and certainly is a reflection of one aspect of American culture, it fails to express the fullness of that culture and, like much of American politics, ignores the founding dream upon which this nation came into being. We have lost our core belief as a country. As a result, our nation, our culture, and the world suffers.
To focus only on the egoic actions of the lead character(s) ignores the social context in which these characters exist. Social relationships are ignored or mitigated in terms of significance. Forget about social context. A set is nothing more than a representation of a place in which a person acts. Even when abstracted. The very thought of scenography as, perhaps, a resonant chamber against which actions might echo and reverberate is all but ignored.
There are two American theater artists I can think of whose entire process breaks down these problematics and builds a new potential vision of culture. Anne Bogart with her viewpoints method gives us a vector to reclaim collectivist social space within a theatrical context. The other is Richard Foreman. Probably my favorite theater maker in this country, he understands how the entire design, from scenery, to costumes, to lighting, to sound, must all work to provide a context in which action occurs. The action on its own is of no significance if it is not placed within a context.
Foreman’s notions of design as the construction of a resonant chamber could be linked to the Heideggarian notion of Thrownness. That is, an individual is born, or thrown, into a particular socio-historic context prescribed with various rules of behavior, social norms, expectations, customs, and ethics. From out of this thownness the individual must find their authentic Self. Their true way of being. Returning to a theatrical setting, the actions of a character, be they actor, singer or dancer, make no sense unless they exist within some context against which they act.
To simply “tell the story” of the lead character is to fall prey to the trap which ensnares American culture and politics. It is to see the individual as more important than the group. The now as more important than the future.
To fully embody the self we must transcend our culture. To transcend does not mean to leave behind. It means to fully incorporate it and build beyond its capacity. Foreman has done this through writing which I would characterize as falling firmly in the American romantic tradition. Yet he has taken those ideas, particularly the notion of the individual self, to such a far degree that it has moved beyond its origins and into a whole new mode of theatrical experience. His staging and scenography is a transcendent act.
In discussing theater so extensively here I do not mean to imply it is the only mode of performance which suffers from this problem. Opera and dance too are firmly entrenched in this egoic mode of storytelling. The trend in contemporary dance to tell rather pedestrian stories about the choreographer’s mundane experience is another manifestation of this. Long gone are the days of Martha Graham’s focus on myth or Steps in the Street which firmly places the individual within a social context.
American Opera is typically one of the worst in this regard. The excessive use of followspots to “tell the story” of the lead singer is a failure on the part of the creators to move beyond textual narrative and embrace a fuller notion of storytelling. Although in that world there are some escape vectors. The design work of John Conklin provides us with an American designer whose work transcends typical American storytelling.
With the traditional American mode of storytelling we miss out on some great theatrical opportunities. Real people doing real things are not interesting on stage. Realism and naturalism are far better handled by film. American performance, by and large, has forgotten the essence of true theatricality. Spectacle is certainly present, but theatricality, that magic of liveness, where things happen which are only compelling because they are live, is rare.
Perhaps we need a return to origins. Just as this country could stand to read through the constitution again and truly soak in what was actually said, so too could we, as creators, rediscover what makes live performance unique and compelling and return there. From that more solid foundation we become better able to move forwards and create strong and powerful works which engage our audiences and transcend their beliefs as to what is possible.
Tags: authenticity, dance, design, heidegger, narrative, opera, storytelling, theater
Hmm. I wouldn’t argue against that being the dominant mode, but I do think there is far more work in other modes our there, especially outside the major institutions. But even some of the larger ones like Lookingglass work outside of the dominant mode more often than not.
One of the problems is it doesn’t get talked about as much. I assume it’s partially due to the difficulty in touring work, vs. emailing scripts or pictures.
(fittting recaptcha is: sideline state)
Lookingglass is a good counterexample. I am skeptical that there is a significant movement outside large theater’s which diverge from this mode. Certainly there are some, and I think those are rather exciting works, but by and large I would wager the dominant cultural mode is in fact the dominant cultural mode.
Personally I would love for that to not be the case. I would like for this entire essay to not be true, but my experience, and perhaps my experience is overly limited, is that it is. I am aware that Chicago specifically has some very interesting work much of which diverges from this.
It would be interesting to see more small scale touring of productions. Dance companies have been doing so for decades. I don’t see why theater companies choose not to.
I was thinking today about the characters in the (pop) screenplay I’m working on, trying to figure out how they all relate to the theme of the story.
At some point I got stuck on the notion of how much I need to figure out each character’s “story,” so that they’re all as compelling as the protagonist — whose story dictates the shape of the screenplay.
And then I thought about a screenplay called The Beaver, an infamous screenplay in Hollywood, finally produced, soon to be released.
Though The Beaver focuses on one guy, a parallel story about the guy’s son creates the real emotional heat of the story. The guy’s journey and the son’s journey form a kind of reciprocal relationship — alone, each story and each character are incomplete.
That as when I realized that even though the screenplay tells a traditional story intended as popular entertainment, all of the characters are, in their own way, incomplete.
In fact, the theme of the story is “Family comes first,” and only when the protagonist realizes this can he fulfill his function: to show the people in his family how, if they just change their perspective a tiny little bit, their partial stories will fit together in a connected mosaic.
That’s interesting. I’ll be sure to check it out when released.