American Players Theatre: “Much Ado About Nothing” (Photo courtesy of APT)

Why Theater?

A Young Man Weighs the Promise of Live Performance, and the Need for Connection

By Asa Fris

This article is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship

I can remember when my family first got an iPod Touch. I was homeschooled at the time, and us and many of the other homeschool families were slow to pick up these new devices. However, the change in my siblings’ and my behavior was stark. Before, while waiting for our mom to finish taking care of her foster cats at PetSmart, we would bounce around the store and get up to no good, now we all crowded around my older sister as she attempted to master a game called “Doodle Jump.” Hunched, stationary, our focus drawn into the device.

These devices have revolutionized how many of us interact with our worlds — and I was born in 2000. I do not know a time pre-Internet. In a few clicks, I have access to some of the finest works of art known to our society. Movies, music, visual art, video games, and more, are all at my fingertips; I just have to choose.

With all of that available, why would one choose theater?

On a Sunday night in LA, a local theater is putting on a well-known, full-length play. I know it to be full of heartbreak and love. Patrons are advised to show up early and catch an immersive display, so I do. The display is full of knick-knacks and other items related to the show’s themes and cast members, books and photos and such. I take a few minutes to explore the display, then I make my way into a small, well-aged theater.  I take my seat and the show begins. Ten minutes later, I am walking, after having left the show. I feel disconnected, as though I’ve lost out on something, almost as if I’d been ignored. I also feel a little guilty, as if I had done them wrong by leaving early. Hadn’t I noticed how much energy and care and thought had gone into the display alone? Had I been quiet enough, leaving in a transition, so as not to distract their performance? Was I being disrespectful to the audience which might be enjoying the show?

As I walk, I notice my local cafe is open later than usual. I stop in to find a young woman playing a piano and singing covers and originals, with some minimal lighting. A modest crowd sits, eats, and listens to her play. As she introduces her next song, she accidentally says ‘wroting’ instead of ‘writing’. She’s quite embarrassed and lets us know just how foolish that was: she’s an English major. The crowd and I chuckle and the energy of the joint is warm. She plays a few more songs, but then during an original piece she forgets the lyrics. First, a sincere apology, and next, a quick look at the lyrics on her phone’s notes app. Soon, she returns to performing, but now she looks more focused than before, as if to say “I’ll do better, for you.”

In the short span of time that I had been there, for this casual coffee shop performance, I had witnessed her standard for her art. When she fell under that standard, I saw an obligation from her to uphold it. An obligation to connect with those who’d chosen to come. I left the theater performance because, despite all the effort I know went into rehearsing, memorizing, renting the space, and so on, I felt that the reality of how the play was meant to be experienced had been forgotten, or set aside, or was never in view in the first place. For this production, a lack of time or resources could have played a large part in that outcome. Still, there was no acknowledgement that I was in this space with them hoping to experience a play. No obligation to what I was receiving. This is what I meant before, when I said that I almost felt ignored. Sadly, I find I am often missing out on the experience of what a play could be when I attend live theater of all shapes and sizes.

Summer before last, I was living in New York City. Brooklyn. Every morning I’d submit for various Broadway ticket lotteries. I was excited to observe and learn from America’s heart of theater. The very first show I saw was Shucked: A New Musical. Although the production was full of skillful acting, powerful vocal performances, and intricate and beautifully crafted set pieces, I found the show to be shallow, lacking truth and empathy. I felt let down, like I’d lost out. Perhaps it was on me, consumer responsibility and whatnot, but this was Broadway? Why, when a production has access to the resources and reach of Broadway, wasn’t the heart of the art the priority? The limitations placed on the show I saw that Sunday night were not part of this equation. Why was this work on Broadway and receiving critical acclaim? The answer, seemingly, was because it got laughs and applause, and so was successful. This metric for measuring success is dangerous, and in fact, our regional theatres were originally founded, in part, to break away from the commercially centered environment of Broadway.

Unfortunately, I find many of our regional theaters today to follow the same structure as Broadway. This is an understandable choice on the part of regional theaters, which are, for the most part, in financial straits. Still, I have to wonder who are the teams of marketers and their artistic directors so determined to traffic in timidity. And two follow up questions: Is this timidity truly commercial? And is bravery at odds with commercialism? The answer to the first question is “sort of.” But the answer to the second question is a full-throated “no.”

Plays such as Dial M For Murder, The Wolves, Native Gardens, Clue, and Million Dollar Quartet, sweep across America’s regional theaters not from coincidental artistic inspiration but due to their risk-aversion. These plays are straightforward, and therefore easy to interpret. They are like a snake plant in a way, requiring less care while displaying a charming flora. This is not to say the aforementioned plays are easy. Skilled companies can still do meaningful work with these shows. Yet the capacity for great, daring work is not why they are some of the most produced shows of late. They’re chosen more from expedience than inspiration, so that they come more to resemble fast-food — the same, measured dish served around the country — than provide an incentive for my generation to get off their cellphones. Less risk might provide safer economic success, or seem to, but then, why theater? Why not a bowling alley, or a roller rink, where patrons may create their own unique experience each night?

The woman playing music was able to make her art the priority. It’s not a one-to-one comparison, of course. It takes much more for a theater production to fulfill and exceed the demands of its form than a coffee shop performance. Yet I wish our artistic leaders worked harder to challenge the conventional wisdoms of their marketing departments, and to make the connection demonstrated so powerfully in Hamilton —that singular and unique visions can lead to the most commercial and accessible enterprises.

There are qualities of theater that make it important and unique: empathy, poetry, and breath, to name a few. Unfortunately, these theaters’ choices and standards for success are connected to their economic survival. Can they be faulted for their timidity? Yes, when some artistic bravery might lead to a more meaningful rather than facile experience for open-hearted audiences? And commercial. If not, then what’s the point of any of it?

 

About two hours west of Milwaukee, into the beautiful rolling green fields of rural Wisconsin, you can find Spring Green. It’s a small town with a population of around 1500. As I drive through it I pass by various small stores, homes, and parks en route to my destination: the woods. In the woods is a path, and at the end of this winding path, through a tall forest, atop a hill far away from city noises and phone signals, is an amphitheater. The event tonight is Ring Around The Moon by Christopher Fry (an adaption from 1950 of Jean Anouilh’s Invitation to the Castle). On the surface, the play is a comedic romance about twin brothers (cast with the same actor) who seek the love and attention of the same woman. The heart and protruding underbelly of the play is a story, a soiree, of dissatisfaction in extreme wealth. It is a long, text-heavy play. I was unsure about who would be here tonight. Who was coming to watch a French comedy on a Friday night in the rural Midwest?

By the time the lights came up, the house was full.

Spring Green has a population size of 1500? The theater seats around 1100. How could a 1100 seat theater sustain performing shows eight times a week here? Regional theaters can struggle to fill smaller houses. What makes this possible?

American Players Theatre (APT) makes this possible. It is an anomaly in commercially successful theater. Their shows are not host to great technological spectacles. They do not put microphones on their actors. They perform text heavy, poetic literature, with an emphasis on Shakespeare. They perform (in their main theater) in open air, through wind and rain, only halting performances for serious downpours or lightning (this does shorten their outdoor season to the summer months). They are a true repertory, performing up to five different plays in one weekend. They are missing the traits most important to Broadway: marketability, spectacle. Yet their plays still shine and charm audiences. That night I watched the richest and poorest characters in the play ravenously rip up a large sum of money underneath (and coincidentally) a gorgeous, luminescent full moon.

I return the next day worried that a performance of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa will be cancelled by rain, but no call is made by the theater, so I make way to my seat. I don a pancho, too. Dancing at Lughnasa tells the story of an Irish family in 1936, dealing with love and survival in changing times. Eventually, a sprinkle starts and begins to pick up a bit, but the actors keep performing so we keep watching, though considerably colder than before. Toward the end of the first act, there’s a moment when the family breaks out into a lively song and dance. An already high energy, highly emotional dance becomes all- the-more heightened as they jump on and around the kitchen table, kicking and stepping and splashing in the rain. It is thrilling; like a ritual meant to be performed in the rain surrounded by woods.

When I asked patrons what brought them to APT I received the same response again and again: the acting. I learned that folks would come back year after year, from hundreds of miles away, and through all sorts of weather because nowhere else could they experience theater the way they did here. Nowhere could they understand and connect to the stories and characters quite like they could to the ones that APT puts on stage.

Sure, they lack the technical thrill of a movie or rock concert or Broadway, but APT offers searing, quality performances, which the audiences dig. Each performance is full of real emotional sport. It’s like watching a fervent, dynamic tennis match except the ball and points are the hearts and souls and desires of the characters. This effect on the audience is not the result of coincidence, but that of hard work from skilled artists. But Broadway also has skilled artists, and so do many regional theaters, so… what gives?

On APT’s website, there is a page titled “Missions & Values,” containing a mission statement and a bulleted list of values core to the work of the company. At the end of that list is this message: “This is what we know to be true: the “magic” of APT doesn’t just happen. It’s hard work. And it’s on purpose.”

I find what they do to be holistically inspiring: that a theater with infinitely less resources than Broadway can achieve powerful, relatable work. That they can sell out their shows despite their rural location. What we can gain from APT’s example is that the responsibility of bringing people to the theater is found in a kind purity of purpose. Why else do we do theater? If we want people to choose theater, we must give them a real reason to choose it. Audiences commit their valuable time and energy to witness stage performances, and when they often leave mildly engaged or indifferent about what happened and why, or worse, with no opinion at all, why would they choose to come back?

I feel that a sweeping change, a restructuring of many of our commercial theaters is needed. Our institutional leaders, artistic directors, executive directors, and trustee boards could learn from APT (or East West Players, or Playwrights Horizons) that patrons would prioritize theater over other forms of entertainment if it prioritized them. Despite the woeful lack of fiscal patronage and public funding of the arts, full houses are still possiblewith a different structure, a different strategy. That instead of focusing so single-mindedly on “money makers,” we could underscore the essences of theater that have been left behind. At least our theater could have a purpose worth fighting for.

This is based on the assumption that other people feel the same as I do and want/see the need for change. I don’t know if this is true. Some theaters see returning audience members come to —  and inevitably enjoy, as is their right — a show, and our current standards are seemingly validated. What is missed are the numerous other attendees who don’t choose theater, who don’t want to make concessions about what they’re receiving because they could receive something else with much higher industry standards (sports, films, concerts, YouTube, etc.). With our current, risk-averse approach, we also miss our ability and our responsibility to respond to what is happening to our country.

I deflate when I hear my elders tell me the various ways that theater has faded. It’s disheartening when my peers can’t see what’s faded and what could be. It is heartbreaking to watch as our leaders continue to shrug off their responsibility to the work, directly causing our new artists to have less and less to learn and grow from. I am grateful for the artists and leaders who are passionate and aspirational. I am grateful to the mentorship of professors, and to organizations like Stage Raw and Unusual Suspects, individuals like Dana Martin (my mentor for this fellowship), who do offer their time and energy into offering truth, insight, empathy, and a model for quality work.

If I could answer the question “why theater?” in one word, it would be: connection.

Theater thrives with teamwork, empathy, truth, presence, tact. It’s even fun. These are qualities our culture desperately needs. Theater, more than any other medium, provides the opportunity to break down our walls, personal and collective, and to expand our hearts. I shun the notion, pattern, and practice that theater is only entertainment. But until our leaders, our economic modelers, make changes to aspire to unique, meaningful work and to the hard-earned magic of theatre, I understand why potential audiences choose other mediums — when our phones, laptops, watches, give us access to the finest music, photographs, poems, games, books, people, and more. When I can go to the movies, a restaurant, or sport event and know what I’m going to get in return. With all of that available, why theater?