Where is Our Milton Friedman?

I had this thought earlier today... Where is the Milton Friedman of theatre?... and no, I don't mean a man whose disasterously misguided theories s will negatively impact trade economics, foreign policies and the sustainability of Democracy around the globe for decades to come... what i mean really is "where is theatre's ambassador the way Friedman was free-market economics' ambassador?"

When Milton Friedman died, all of his obits happened to mention that he helped make (or perhaps almost-singlehandedly made) economics a popular thing to talk about in the public discourse, rather than this gnomic discipline that no one wanted to really consider (obviously quite a bit of the credit for should also go to Keynes, but Friedman also existed in the age of television). Who will do that for theatre? I used to think it would be Frank Rich, but he clearly is wants to write about politics through the lens of a former theatre critic rather than use his critic-emeritus status to try to further popularize the form (this is not a criticism, just an observation). So if he's not going to do it, who will?

But then I read this from K-Drum and this from Ezra Klein and I realize that perhaps the issue has to do with the popularity and weight given to public intellectuals period. After all, the vintage copy of Robert Brustein's The Theatre of Revolt currently staring at me from my bookshelf was published by The Atlantic Monthly's imprint of Little Brown & Co. (which is another way of saying a major monthly magazine's division of a major publishing house). Anne Bogart's books are now published by Routledge, the top-line academic publisher and cost ridiculous academic prices to buy (they are, I should note, worth the cost, even if I bristle at paying $35 for a paperback with a badly digitized b+w photo on its cover that is less than 200 pages long).  Although Harold Clurman's On Directing is considered a directing textbook today, in its time it was written for the casually interested theatre goer to explain what a director does. That we can only conceive of that book as a textbook for aspiring theatre professionals says a great deal about the status of public dialogue about theatre all on its own.

In politics, this can be traced to things like the  internet and the Wingnut Welfare system and the democratization of the flow of information etc. etc. and so forth.  Where before we might have Milton Friedman and Noam Chomsky and a few others, we now have a long long list of people to turn to for comment on an issue. In theater however it's not like we now have this huge number of semi-successful public intellectuals rather than a hand ful of household names. We don't really have anyone. When I was a kid, Frank Rich was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment. I can't imagine that happening for Ben Brantley. 

I'm guessing there's some people out there who feel that this is completely unnecessary but I find it kind of interseting to muse about. Who would you want that person to be? What qualities would they have? Is such a person totally unnecessary?

Comments

[Scott Walters]

This is a fascinating question, Isaac. In some ways, I think the theatrosphere is an attempt to create a diffuse version of this person. But there needs to be a face, I think, someone who is called for the TV shots. It needs to be someone who is a thinker, but who is able to express himself or herself in a clear, dynamic style, one that is not defensive nor self-involved, but rather engaged in ther big issues. Who? Tony Kushner is the person who spring to mind, but his baggage amy be too heavy (although he would be GREAT). Jill Dolan would be my next choice -- articulate, open to all types of theatre, generous, likeable.

And by the way, you are right about textbooks. I am teaching a course next semester that will include some Boal, but I won't be using one of his books because Routledge charged $50+ a book. When we are getting pressure to keep our required textbook orders to a reasonable level, I can't go there. And I speak as someone whose 120-page book sells for $32 by McGraw-Hill -- but not for long! It goes OP soon, and we are going to bring out our own version at about half that price.

[Mark]

I was going to say Kushner too. Scott: what do you mean when you refer to his "baggage"? (I'm genuinely asking.)

[Adam]

In our celebrity culture it has to be a movie star who also cares about theater deeply and is intelligent. Sam Shepard if he was more involved in theater conversations today. Someone charismatic and intelligent and good looking.

I guess someone who is now in theater has to become famous through other venues.

Or Wallace Shawn.

[Rob]

I'll do it.

[Mark]

In the absence of a response, I am forced to conclude that Scott used the term "baggage" to mean one or more of the following: gay, liberal, Jewish.

I denounce his remark.

[Mac]

Well to be fair, Mark, Scott may not have been back here since yesterday morning, and it's possible that he means that Kushner is a figure so associated with political causes that his political associations overwhelm his theatrical ones in the public eye, diluting his effectiveness as a theatrical spokespeerson. I don't actually know what Scott meant; I'm just musing.

[Ken]

In France, you can turn on the TV any night of the week and see chat shows where philosophers and other public intellectuals debate each other for two or three hours (to the delight of a studio audience!). Are you saying that the US, with its proud theatrical history of O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Shepard, Wilson, Kushner, Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, et al, can't muster something similar? I don't just mean a TV show, but a consistent public examination of the current health of theater all across the US.

[Ken]

I forgot to mention that not only do we have this glorious PAST of theatrical creation, we also have still with us great thinkers/philosophers of theater, such as Robert Brustein, Michael Feingold, John Lahr, Peter Brook, Anne Bogart, Richard Foreman, Andre Gregory, etc. Would love to see any or all of those folks in the media on a regular basis.