A Good Post From David Dower

Can be found here, in which he talks amongst other things about the positive value of institutions. I hope I've been clear here over the past couple of weeks that even when discussing what so frustrates me about institutions, I recognize the positive value that they can have. I just think it's worth understanding them and their (perhaps inherent) drawbacks as well.

I think most of the post is really good stuff, but I have to part ways with it around here:

The point, in my view, is missed and as a result, an opportunity lost. The issue is not locked boxes for actor endowments or blowing up the buildings or turning more artists into administrators or whatever zero-sum proposal-du-jour causes a mini-stink in the blog and theater presses, (again, in my view). It is about a collective failure of the field to marshall all our abundant resources around rational models of working together to advance the form. 

The idea behind, say, endowed chairs for actors is about more effectively marshalling "our abundant resources" around a rational model of working together to advance the form.  The idea of funding people over buildings is that the previous way of doing business is not a rational way of working together to advance the form. David may disagree with this for whatever reason, but to dismiss it as beside the point is to miss what the point of it is. 

Then David asks:

It is a new day for so many communities and industries in this country. Perhaps we can make it ours as well.  Can we stop grinding the same old tunes, working the same list of complaints, move beyond the competitive frame, and start moving purposefully toward effectiveness as a field? Can we celebrate and engage successes, even if they aren't our own? Can we look up from our own desktops and beyond our own immediate horizon to find the things that need to be done and set about doing them?  And share what we discover in the doing? 

To which all I can say is... Sure, yes, I would like that.  I think most theatre bloggers would like that. In fact, I think there are a lot of ideas that have been generated on theatre blogs over the past five years that would be interesting and worth trying out.  I think a lot of people involved in the peripatetic theatre communities would like that and have tried generating some intersting work, models, theories etc. In fact, the ideas that David is so quick to dismiss in the earlier quote are all examples of that.

The point, ultimately, of this post of mine about how separate different kinds of theatre have gotten was to argue that they should be less separate.  But here's the thing, and here's where I think David and I might disagree.  I don't mean to sound like a victim here, but the burden of action is on the institutions. They have the money, they have the power, they have the press coverage and they are what represents "theatre" to the public eye.   I think that smaller theaters and independent artists also need to be doing the things that David is talking about, but it's worth noting the amount of impact their actions are going to have is going to be greatly reduced if larger theaters aren't also trying to answer David's questions with "yes".

Some are, and deserve enormous amounts of praise.  But some are simply attempting to hold on to their fiefdoms (or empires, depending on size) for dear life.  I think the reasons why they're doing this are understandable (again, I don't hate all institutions or anything) but it's worth talking about when it happens. When you direct a show, you don't only give positive feedback, when you talk about solving something, you have to talk about what you're trying to solve. 

I can't help but feel that David is essentially arguing that people should stop complaining about what institutions are doing wrong, recognize the things they do right and move forward with trying to affect positive change. But I can't help but feeling that only doing that would lead to perpetuating the status quo. Positive change that I enact at the Red Room on a tuesday night at 10PM does very little to affect our industry. One of the things institutions need is people outside of them fighting with them a big to keep them honest. I think successes need to be recognized, sure, but there are some systemic problems with our industry, and they have to be discussed. 

Comments

[David]

Isaac-- just for clarification: I'm not looking for people to stop complaining so much as I'm looking for people to engage problem solving. And though the hasty construction of the post doesn't help make my point very effectively, it was an attempt to ask the general readership of the NPDP blog to engage the work of the theater bloggers.

The NPDP blog is, by design, a "positive inquiry into the field"-- this is actually the language of the contract we're working under. So that will be a place where the priority is placed on celebrating things that are going well. It absolutely requires other avenues of inquiry that challenge those things that are going wrong.

So, if I didn't make it clear, I personally enjoy the work of the theater bloggers who are kicking up dust and calling attention to things that are not what they could be. The NPDP blog only makes sense in the context of that larger conversation. Thanks for holding up your part of the space.

As for the scolding little close to the post about looking up from our desktops, etc-- I was trying to reach the hundreds of readers of that blog that read along but never enter the discussion. I hear from a colleague familiar with Shirky's book that there's always a small group of people who do the heavy lifting. So perhaps it's naive to think the bystanders will start to join the fray. But when I see you writing about burnout and 99seats wondering if there's any point to continuing, I worry.

[isaac]

David,

thanks as always for the clarification (and i should note that I am always impressed by your willingness to cross the institutional barriers and engage in this conversation)

I think I may have also read into your post a little bit due to past experiences as a blogger. I usually find that after awhile of raising issues, there's some kind of backlash (usually in my comments or on another blog) that when you boil it down is essentially like "why don't you shut up and get to work instead of bitching all the time". So, after having been through that cycle a bit, I think it's likely that, reading the desktop quotes, i thought it was bloggers, not general readership you were talking to. So thanks again for clarifying.

Oh, and Shirky's book does make that and many other really interesting points. i'm reading it right now!

[David]

I've ordered the book and look forward to hearing what he has to say. He gave a very compelling presentation from it to kick off the Under the Radar Festival in January and I've been meaning to sit down with it since. Will you review it here?