railing

There is a great speech from Eduardo Machado, and discussion going on at Parabasis.

I love a good rant. I think there a should be more 'hold your fist to the sky and rail' happening sometimes. I agree with a lot of the speech, but there are a few key points that I would like to respectfully disagree with.

"And I beg you let us stop being afraid of the audience. They are supposed to be afraid of us."

Why does the audience have to fear us? Why can't there be an adventure together? I am not out to scare my audience, unless that is the intention of the piece or role. Sometimes I am part of something that seeks to embrace its audience, other times anger them. What is more important to me is that I make them want. Make them want for more, for answers, for love, for change, for something new.

"I don't feel we are brave enough. I feel the theatre that I see for the most part is watered down."

Maybe he is not going to the right shows. I have seen many pieces that take risks and challenge me this year. Maybe he is talking about the Broadway model, and if so then he is not talking about the majority of theatre in America.

"Finally I'd like to discuss one of our biggest problems: Education. By now I think we all know we train too many people. I am guilty of this more then most of you. I run the playwriting program at Columbia and I am required to let in ten student playwrights a year. When I first started working there it was only six a year. It should really be two.

But because the university wants money. Because even at the educational level they feel art does not have to be subsidized, ten playwrights graduate every year from my program. How can they all really be playwrights? They can't and they are not. And since when did theatre people need a master to be actors, directors and playwrights, designers and producers?

I barely graduated from high school.

I went to an acting school that was down an alley in Van Nuys. I learned about playwriting from Maria Irene Fornes in an abandoned building called INTAR 2 on 53rd street, and by having my first three plays produced - not workshopped - at The Ensemble Studio Theatre. No degree. Just what came my way. What I sought out. If we have so many students graduating every year then what happens to the self taught, the inspired, the different? They are buried under piles of graduate scripts, resumes and 8X10s.

There is a wall that is making the theatre a place for only those who can afford it. But who is being kept out? The voices of the hungry and unknown. Of those who don't fit in. Of those whose future is dependent on their ability to Scream."

OK - so a) he was trained by Fornes. That hardley constitutes a lack of education. It may be true that colleges are letting in more people than they used to, but that does not lessen the importance that education holds for an artist b) I am a believer in the education of artists. It hones the talents you have, exposes you to a breadth of theatre knowledge, gives you the opportunity to perform in a place that is solely about education, about the experience of the theatre itself, with no mitigating factors. Also, in addition it serves as the first weeding out for many artists. I watched as many of my counterparts began to realize that the theatre was not for them, just as I watched as the training affirmed for many of us that this was our calling. c) To say that theatre training is available only to those who can afford it is nowhere near accurate. I went to school with mostly starving artists, who are still paying back their loans. Lastly, d)if someone who is not trained is driven enough they will overcome the hurdles and make it anyway. There are plenty who have done so and many more to come I am sure.