1 hour ago
Friday, August 14, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Ulysses' Crewmen
Hey,
I'm on the road with Ulysses' Crewmen right now. This show is in a way an experiment applying some of the ideas i've been pursuing on this blog. Its unlikely I'll post here while that's going on, but will be posting there frequently. Check it out ulyssescrewmen.blogspot.com.
I'm on the road with Ulysses' Crewmen right now. This show is in a way an experiment applying some of the ideas i've been pursuing on this blog. Its unlikely I'll post here while that's going on, but will be posting there frequently. Check it out ulyssescrewmen.blogspot.com.
While on tour I'm reading a bunch of stuff, including Douglas Rushkoff's 'Life INC' and Schumpter, and some zines about insurrectionary anarchism and nihilist communism n shit. I'm also working on writing an essay that looks closely and thoroughly at Marxist theory and where i depart from it.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Irony at the Courthouse
A while back i was given a citation for being in a public park after close. This was a fairly humourous story, which started with a maoist souvenier and happened while i was in the middle of reading SOFT COPS by Caryl Churchill, so it's already rife with irony, i'll tell it to you some time.
Anyway, today was the second (or perhaps third) chapter in this story. Tim and I went to the courtroom to contest the ticket. We continued our argument about whether or not No Country For Old Men is fascist propaganda (i've been convinced it is and won't relent until Tim agrees) and talked breifly about "From Riot to Insurrection" by Alfredo Bonanno, which I've just started reading (get your free copy at the CCC today!). Having such discussions in a courtroom is only a little ironic, but don't worry, there's more coming.
After twenty minutes of waiting while a line of people with petty infractions filtered into the room, the session got underway and we watched as nearly a dozen young people pleaded no contest to our same charge and had their citation cut in half. They walked out probably feeling like they'd gotten a bargain because the state only extorted $100 rather than the $200 it originally threatened to extort without just cause. Even the court commissioner was cracking jokes when a group of friends each took their turn approaching the bench. "Expensive party, eh? Hope it was fun!" Again, her playfulness is only a little ironic. Wait for it.
I, on the other hand chose to dispute the citation. I'm not about to pay even half of this thing without even having a chance to express either the technicality (inaccurate county website) the emotional appeal (a kid was shot dead a few blocks away while the cops wrote our citations) or the philosophical (constitutional, even) issues i have with this. I might regret this, because the second bureaucratic hoop will mess up some of my travel plans after tour, and i probably won't even be around to jump through the third, not to mention forth fifth and however many more there are. Tim took the path of least resistance, which is what brings us to the wonderfully ironic part of this chapter.
While Tim paid his citation, the cashier waxed nostalgic about times before this law was in place, how her family used to sleep on the beach on hot summer nights. "It's really too bad, we can't do that anymore. I guess things are just too crazy out there!" If i was a bit more quick-witted i would've said something along the lines of "yeah, things sure are crazy 'out there'. We were really taking a foolish risk, being in that park after dark, I mean, a man with a gun might have come and taken our money. I'm so glad you guys protected us from that craziness by... sending a man with a gun to take our money."
There it is you irony junkies.
Anyway, today was the second (or perhaps third) chapter in this story. Tim and I went to the courtroom to contest the ticket. We continued our argument about whether or not No Country For Old Men is fascist propaganda (i've been convinced it is and won't relent until Tim agrees) and talked breifly about "From Riot to Insurrection" by Alfredo Bonanno, which I've just started reading (get your free copy at the CCC today!). Having such discussions in a courtroom is only a little ironic, but don't worry, there's more coming.
After twenty minutes of waiting while a line of people with petty infractions filtered into the room, the session got underway and we watched as nearly a dozen young people pleaded no contest to our same charge and had their citation cut in half. They walked out probably feeling like they'd gotten a bargain because the state only extorted $100 rather than the $200 it originally threatened to extort without just cause. Even the court commissioner was cracking jokes when a group of friends each took their turn approaching the bench. "Expensive party, eh? Hope it was fun!" Again, her playfulness is only a little ironic. Wait for it.
I, on the other hand chose to dispute the citation. I'm not about to pay even half of this thing without even having a chance to express either the technicality (inaccurate county website) the emotional appeal (a kid was shot dead a few blocks away while the cops wrote our citations) or the philosophical (constitutional, even) issues i have with this. I might regret this, because the second bureaucratic hoop will mess up some of my travel plans after tour, and i probably won't even be around to jump through the third, not to mention forth fifth and however many more there are. Tim took the path of least resistance, which is what brings us to the wonderfully ironic part of this chapter.
While Tim paid his citation, the cashier waxed nostalgic about times before this law was in place, how her family used to sleep on the beach on hot summer nights. "It's really too bad, we can't do that anymore. I guess things are just too crazy out there!" If i was a bit more quick-witted i would've said something along the lines of "yeah, things sure are crazy 'out there'. We were really taking a foolish risk, being in that park after dark, I mean, a man with a gun might have come and taken our money. I'm so glad you guys protected us from that craziness by... sending a man with a gun to take our money."
There it is you irony junkies.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Alternative Economics
It's been a while since I posted, what can I say, too busy doing shit to write blog posts. But my pal Jeff sent me this super interesting article that I can't wait to share with others.
It's an interview with Douglas Rushkoff and Kurt Anderson about their new books and the economy. Rushkoff's comments intrigue me greatly, when he describes the current economy as primarily value-extraction rather than value-creation and compares it to the end of feudalism where similar value-extraction gave "failing monarchs (the dying aristocracy) a way to make money by owning money." Such comparisons provide compelling evidence that we nearing the end of the capitalist age.
Rushkoff also says that the basic market-driven political economy "can be slowly improved as we introduce alternative methods of investment and transactions" I can't wait to read more about his ideas of alternatives and to see if extends this thinking to alternative methods of production, because that's precisely what i've been experimenting with for the last 7 years.
His prescription is not "upend[ing] the market economy. Just lots of activity outside of it." Marx and Lenin's adage that the powerful will not give up power without a fight might prove that "lot's of activity outside" the system will not be possible without at least some serious upending of the system.
In this section Rushkoff also describes how government practices effectively shut down small businesses (not to mention radical alternatives).
He uses the phrase "rather unconsciously perpetrated" but when I think of all the examples like this (polyface farm's open air abbatoir, backyard gardens, etc etc) i find it hard to beleive that big business, their lobbiests, and the senators in their pockets remain "unconsious" of this advantage.
This sort of government protection of capitalism from alternative systems is the modern equivalent of the divine right of kings, which is what necessitated the capitalist revolutionary wars. Defending against such practices is where political action becomes a reasonable justified tactic. Political action (whether legitimate, extra-parliamentary, or violently revolutionary) as means to change the mode of production (see USSR, etc) is a doomed prospect. Political action to defend an alternative mode of production that is already being lived or attempted is another matter altogether.
It's an interview with Douglas Rushkoff and Kurt Anderson about their new books and the economy. Rushkoff's comments intrigue me greatly, when he describes the current economy as primarily value-extraction rather than value-creation and compares it to the end of feudalism where similar value-extraction gave "failing monarchs (the dying aristocracy) a way to make money by owning money." Such comparisons provide compelling evidence that we nearing the end of the capitalist age.
Rushkoff also says that the basic market-driven political economy "can be slowly improved as we introduce alternative methods of investment and transactions" I can't wait to read more about his ideas of alternatives and to see if extends this thinking to alternative methods of production, because that's precisely what i've been experimenting with for the last 7 years.
His prescription is not "upend[ing] the market economy. Just lots of activity outside of it." Marx and Lenin's adage that the powerful will not give up power without a fight might prove that "lot's of activity outside" the system will not be possible without at least some serious upending of the system.
In this section Rushkoff also describes how government practices effectively shut down small businesses (not to mention radical alternatives).
You are right that the (rather unconsciously perpetrated) corporate-government alliance usually can't shut down things completely. But then I remember examples like the toy outsourcing scandal, where American toy corps distributed toys from China painted with lead. New regulations were developed by industry and government "working together," which now require toy manufacturers to test any toy being sold to an American child. The tests cost upwards of $50,000, and require a hundred or so units of the toy to be destroyed in the process. Because the regulation applies to all toys, it effectively puts small companies out of business. If the regulation isn't repealed by February, that's it. The mega-corporate practice leads to problems that in turn lead to regulations that favor mega-corporate practices.
He uses the phrase "rather unconsciously perpetrated" but when I think of all the examples like this (polyface farm's open air abbatoir, backyard gardens, etc etc) i find it hard to beleive that big business, their lobbiests, and the senators in their pockets remain "unconsious" of this advantage.
This sort of government protection of capitalism from alternative systems is the modern equivalent of the divine right of kings, which is what necessitated the capitalist revolutionary wars. Defending against such practices is where political action becomes a reasonable justified tactic. Political action (whether legitimate, extra-parliamentary, or violently revolutionary) as means to change the mode of production (see USSR, etc) is a doomed prospect. Political action to defend an alternative mode of production that is already being lived or attempted is another matter altogether.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
What if freedom IS free?
Chris Anderson has a new book called "Free." I haven't read this. I also didn't read this article that summarizes the book, but you can if you want to. There's also a video, which i didn't watch. If I was an economist or getting really serious about working out these economic theories, i'd have to read both of Anderson's books (he also wrote "The Long Tail") but for now i've got the concepts behind them, and it's enough to go on.
What i did read is Malcolm Gladwell's review, which summarizes and critiques Anderson's idea well enough to get me started here.
Anderson is on to something, but he's also dead wrong for the reasons Gladwell goes into (read the Gladwell if you wanna be able to follow the rest of this post). The thing is: Free does happen. Anderson is only wrong because he doesn't realize that his iron law makes The New Economy a total hurns. Giving people what they want for free and then charging them for extras they don't want? Call me crazy, but that seems like a terrible hopeless business plan.
Gladwell gets this, but doesn't really respond. Like Gladwell, I recognize the cheap hopelessness of the New Economy and the New Media, that these New things are wiping out the Old Economy and Old Media only to replace them with insubstantial, unreliable, mediocre nothingness. Like Lear's daughters (to reference a recent Shakespeare project) The New Economy is poisoning the Old Economy and then killing itself. This economic process has an entropic effect: society (art, culture, politics, whatever) are heading toward the situation of the most even distribution of energy, turning everything into bland grey colored lukewarm mush. See the concept of "existential liberalism" found in the Call for the political ramifications of this, hint: there's violence, lots of it.
Gladwell offers no solutions, seems to think the old economy will somehow persevere. But, as unsustainable as it is, the (perhas sad) fact is, Free does happen. Going with the YouTube example, Anderson thinks YouTube is free because bandwith is almost free. Gladwell corrects him, that almost free X billions = really fucking expensive, and cites the losses YouTube is suffering as an example.
Right. But, what is YouTube supposed to do about it? Start charging? Pay for content to attract advertisers? Fold? If youtube starts costing money to use, or closes up shop, then people will simply start posting and watching videos elsewhere for free. Replacements already exist (vimeo, peer to peer, bit torrents, etc). Golly, you can even get that copyrighted content youtube is paying for, free! We live in a situation where anything digitally or virtually reproducable is or can easily be made available for free.
How can you make people pay for it? Enforcing intellectual property rights law is one option, one which Gladwell seems to advocate. Problem is, all libertarian or punk-rock anti-authority sentiment aside, enforcing laws costs money. Lobbying the government to prioritize these laws over all the other laws is expensive, especially when other laws lobbied for by special interests with more popular support than the RIAA are easier to enforce. The end result is still that TV and Hollywood movies will continue to cost more to produce while bringing in less profit. If Hollywood passes on these lobbying costs to consumers, more consumers will watch cheaper stuff, found stuff, or archived stuff, or stuff made by producers with less overhead and profit requirement.
So, what to do? Accept failure? Give up on art? No. There's something that'll exist on the other side of this, a post-new-economy situation is possible, and it's one i'm personally very excited about. How exchange and distribution in the post-new-economy will work is simple: producers will offer things for free, and people will pay for them anyway.
What? Why? HOW? It's a post-capitalist relation of distribution, which befits a post-capitalist relation of production. Start by looking at the social norm that makes the basics of capitalism work. It's called "civil society" and it's sort of like Kant's catagorical imperative. The reason most of us don't steal what we want from a store is because we know that if everyone stole everything they wanted from the store, the store would have to close, nobody would be able to get what we need, and it'd be a resounding hurns all around. Granted, there are laws and security gaurds and little magnetic beeping things, but those are for the deviants, the people who don't accept these social norms and decide not to participate in civil society. Such things could not work if everyone became a shoplifter.
When it comes to digital media, because it's so close to free, and because the RIAA are such bastards and Hollywood is so shallow and cheap, the rules of civil society no longer apply at all. Everyone is willing to be a pirate, some people pride themselves on it. Ripping the system is a political act for some: the celebratory destruction of an economy that alienates, exploits and worst of all bores them. Security systems effective against a whole population of shoplifters and pirates will cost more than it saves.
This isn't a matter of my preferences. I'm not a theif, and honestly pre-capitalist (ie mafia) economics scare the shit out of me (and should scare you too). This isn't what i want to see happening, it's what i do see happening. If someone has a reasonable alternative explanation or some way to show that this isn't happening, i'd love to hear about it. Maybe i should read more of Anderson's book, but if Malcolm Gladwell can't find anything in it, i probably won't either.
In the meantime, we should either start developing a taste for lukewarm flavorless grey mush, or start making some reverse entropy. Specifically we need a new social norm where people WANT to pay for something, not because they're afraid the store will close, but because they love and want to connect and support the person who created the something.
How do we get there? This is the point where we can talk about spirital awakenings, new moralities, advanced ethics, pantheism, post-dualistic conceptions of self, social alchemy and any number of other quasi-religious methods of social control. But you'll have to talk to other people about that stuff, cuz it makes my head spin, and i suspect it's been talked about beyond the point of the words meaning anything anymore already.
The question i'm more interested in answering is: what if we're already there? The fate of YouTube, facebook and Hollywood can't tell us this. There's no connection, no good reason to give those bastards our money. The only producers who can survive in this post-capitalist economy are ones that establish a direct connection with their consumers. A genuine direct connection, not facebook's mimicry of connection.
I see examples all the time. Last saturday two friends and I went to a show advertised as FREE and dropped $20 in a "donations please" jar. I hope we weren't the only ones. I don't think we were. We stood in a room with the entire production team, talked with them, saw their peformance, loved it, and gave them some money cuz we're anxiously awaiting their next show.
The upcoming Ulysses' Crewmen tour will be testing this hypothetical system. For many of our shows we will only succeed if a post-capitalist economy already exists, these shows are going to be free, with donations requested. The results of this experiment will be dutifully reported on this blog as the tour progresses. Because if we want people to give us money for no reason other than they think we're worth supporting, transparency is absolutely necessary. Maybe we're too early. Maybe we'll fail utterly. But we'll never make it over this grey lukewarm puddle of mush if we don't all start trying to jump sooner or later.
What i did read is Malcolm Gladwell's review, which summarizes and critiques Anderson's idea well enough to get me started here.
Anderson is on to something, but he's also dead wrong for the reasons Gladwell goes into (read the Gladwell if you wanna be able to follow the rest of this post). The thing is: Free does happen. Anderson is only wrong because he doesn't realize that his iron law makes The New Economy a total hurns. Giving people what they want for free and then charging them for extras they don't want? Call me crazy, but that seems like a terrible hopeless business plan.
Gladwell gets this, but doesn't really respond. Like Gladwell, I recognize the cheap hopelessness of the New Economy and the New Media, that these New things are wiping out the Old Economy and Old Media only to replace them with insubstantial, unreliable, mediocre nothingness. Like Lear's daughters (to reference a recent Shakespeare project) The New Economy is poisoning the Old Economy and then killing itself. This economic process has an entropic effect: society (art, culture, politics, whatever) are heading toward the situation of the most even distribution of energy, turning everything into bland grey colored lukewarm mush. See the concept of "existential liberalism" found in the Call for the political ramifications of this, hint: there's violence, lots of it.
Gladwell offers no solutions, seems to think the old economy will somehow persevere. But, as unsustainable as it is, the (perhas sad) fact is, Free does happen. Going with the YouTube example, Anderson thinks YouTube is free because bandwith is almost free. Gladwell corrects him, that almost free X billions = really fucking expensive, and cites the losses YouTube is suffering as an example.
Right. But, what is YouTube supposed to do about it? Start charging? Pay for content to attract advertisers? Fold? If youtube starts costing money to use, or closes up shop, then people will simply start posting and watching videos elsewhere for free. Replacements already exist (vimeo, peer to peer, bit torrents, etc). Golly, you can even get that copyrighted content youtube is paying for, free! We live in a situation where anything digitally or virtually reproducable is or can easily be made available for free.
How can you make people pay for it? Enforcing intellectual property rights law is one option, one which Gladwell seems to advocate. Problem is, all libertarian or punk-rock anti-authority sentiment aside, enforcing laws costs money. Lobbying the government to prioritize these laws over all the other laws is expensive, especially when other laws lobbied for by special interests with more popular support than the RIAA are easier to enforce. The end result is still that TV and Hollywood movies will continue to cost more to produce while bringing in less profit. If Hollywood passes on these lobbying costs to consumers, more consumers will watch cheaper stuff, found stuff, or archived stuff, or stuff made by producers with less overhead and profit requirement.
So, what to do? Accept failure? Give up on art? No. There's something that'll exist on the other side of this, a post-new-economy situation is possible, and it's one i'm personally very excited about. How exchange and distribution in the post-new-economy will work is simple: producers will offer things for free, and people will pay for them anyway.
What? Why? HOW? It's a post-capitalist relation of distribution, which befits a post-capitalist relation of production. Start by looking at the social norm that makes the basics of capitalism work. It's called "civil society" and it's sort of like Kant's catagorical imperative. The reason most of us don't steal what we want from a store is because we know that if everyone stole everything they wanted from the store, the store would have to close, nobody would be able to get what we need, and it'd be a resounding hurns all around. Granted, there are laws and security gaurds and little magnetic beeping things, but those are for the deviants, the people who don't accept these social norms and decide not to participate in civil society. Such things could not work if everyone became a shoplifter.
When it comes to digital media, because it's so close to free, and because the RIAA are such bastards and Hollywood is so shallow and cheap, the rules of civil society no longer apply at all. Everyone is willing to be a pirate, some people pride themselves on it. Ripping the system is a political act for some: the celebratory destruction of an economy that alienates, exploits and worst of all bores them. Security systems effective against a whole population of shoplifters and pirates will cost more than it saves.
This isn't a matter of my preferences. I'm not a theif, and honestly pre-capitalist (ie mafia) economics scare the shit out of me (and should scare you too). This isn't what i want to see happening, it's what i do see happening. If someone has a reasonable alternative explanation or some way to show that this isn't happening, i'd love to hear about it. Maybe i should read more of Anderson's book, but if Malcolm Gladwell can't find anything in it, i probably won't either.
In the meantime, we should either start developing a taste for lukewarm flavorless grey mush, or start making some reverse entropy. Specifically we need a new social norm where people WANT to pay for something, not because they're afraid the store will close, but because they love and want to connect and support the person who created the something.
How do we get there? This is the point where we can talk about spirital awakenings, new moralities, advanced ethics, pantheism, post-dualistic conceptions of self, social alchemy and any number of other quasi-religious methods of social control. But you'll have to talk to other people about that stuff, cuz it makes my head spin, and i suspect it's been talked about beyond the point of the words meaning anything anymore already.
The question i'm more interested in answering is: what if we're already there? The fate of YouTube, facebook and Hollywood can't tell us this. There's no connection, no good reason to give those bastards our money. The only producers who can survive in this post-capitalist economy are ones that establish a direct connection with their consumers. A genuine direct connection, not facebook's mimicry of connection.
I see examples all the time. Last saturday two friends and I went to a show advertised as FREE and dropped $20 in a "donations please" jar. I hope we weren't the only ones. I don't think we were. We stood in a room with the entire production team, talked with them, saw their peformance, loved it, and gave them some money cuz we're anxiously awaiting their next show.
The upcoming Ulysses' Crewmen tour will be testing this hypothetical system. For many of our shows we will only succeed if a post-capitalist economy already exists, these shows are going to be free, with donations requested. The results of this experiment will be dutifully reported on this blog as the tour progresses. Because if we want people to give us money for no reason other than they think we're worth supporting, transparency is absolutely necessary. Maybe we're too early. Maybe we'll fail utterly. But we'll never make it over this grey lukewarm puddle of mush if we don't all start trying to jump sooner or later.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Forget Shorter Showers
Sura Faraj cued me into this article by Derrick Jensen. Read it, and he's my response:
I agree with the gist of what Jensen is saying here, but have two responses:
1. Industrial economy is not a machine running for it's own purpose, it fuels and profits from consumerism. So, yes, me living simply has negligible direct effect, but living simply is also a boycott of all the products of the industrial economy. Businesses run their machines to produce the shit we over-consume, general reduction, toward elimination of over-consumption will leave them running machines with less profit. Which results in them needing to turn off some of the machines. Living simply has an indirect effect of slowing the entire industrial economy. We should celebrate this collapse, but we can't, cuz the collapse also hurts us, our friends, our families.
2. Nazi Germany, antebellum US, Tsarist Russia are not comparable to "industrial economy" we're talking about fighting capitalism, a global system. This is much much bigger than those other things. "Voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting" are the equivalent of entering this fight armed with a featherduster the opponent has provided you with. Even altering or abolishing the government (which will require fighting with something A LOT stronger than these featherdusters) is an exclusively political approach.
Jensen is buying into the separation of politics from economics. As a result he doesn't recognize how growing a garden is more than "harm reduction" it is the creation of a non-capitalist economy.
So, he's right, we need to stop thinking of personal changes as political because of their harm reduction. We need to think of them as political because of their autonomy production.
Abolishionists did not own slaves. Nazis thrived because they saved the German economy and were defeated by mostly non-Germans and by Germans who could expect to live in post-Nazi Germany. Revolutionaries are only successful when they are fighting from outside of the system they fight against. What post-industrial, post-capitalist economy is there for us to fight for? Where is there an outside for us to fight from? As long as we depend upon the industrial economy, we break ourselves when we break it.
It is only from a position of autonomy that we can truly begin to fight, where the tactics and objectives become clear because they are based upon defending what we've built. Here we can celebrate the collapse of that destructive economy without also suffering in it's decline. It is through the personal individual choices Jensen is discarding that we build this position of autonomy. It's a herculean task, so we can't waste our time with feather dusters and directionless confrontations.
I agree with the gist of what Jensen is saying here, but have two responses:
1. Industrial economy is not a machine running for it's own purpose, it fuels and profits from consumerism. So, yes, me living simply has negligible direct effect, but living simply is also a boycott of all the products of the industrial economy. Businesses run their machines to produce the shit we over-consume, general reduction, toward elimination of over-consumption will leave them running machines with less profit. Which results in them needing to turn off some of the machines. Living simply has an indirect effect of slowing the entire industrial economy. We should celebrate this collapse, but we can't, cuz the collapse also hurts us, our friends, our families.
2. Nazi Germany, antebellum US, Tsarist Russia are not comparable to "industrial economy" we're talking about fighting capitalism, a global system. This is much much bigger than those other things. "Voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting" are the equivalent of entering this fight armed with a featherduster the opponent has provided you with. Even altering or abolishing the government (which will require fighting with something A LOT stronger than these featherdusters) is an exclusively political approach.
Jensen is buying into the separation of politics from economics. As a result he doesn't recognize how growing a garden is more than "harm reduction" it is the creation of a non-capitalist economy.
So, he's right, we need to stop thinking of personal changes as political because of their harm reduction. We need to think of them as political because of their autonomy production.
Abolishionists did not own slaves. Nazis thrived because they saved the German economy and were defeated by mostly non-Germans and by Germans who could expect to live in post-Nazi Germany. Revolutionaries are only successful when they are fighting from outside of the system they fight against. What post-industrial, post-capitalist economy is there for us to fight for? Where is there an outside for us to fight from? As long as we depend upon the industrial economy, we break ourselves when we break it.
It is only from a position of autonomy that we can truly begin to fight, where the tactics and objectives become clear because they are based upon defending what we've built. Here we can celebrate the collapse of that destructive economy without also suffering in it's decline. It is through the personal individual choices Jensen is discarding that we build this position of autonomy. It's a herculean task, so we can't waste our time with feather dusters and directionless confrontations.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
ACTION!
You wouldn't know it if you read the journal, but MILWAUKEE THEATRE IS BLOWING UP!! HOLY SHIT!
I'm gonna have to eat light, cuz i'm about to drop almost 1/4 of my monthly budget on seeing the gianormous slew of new and exciting theatre happening in this town this month, and i'm very happy about it. It's amazing! Check out my schedule of upcoming activities, google anything you're not familiar with, or just email me asking for details, and i'll send em your way. If you go on the same day as me, you get a special offer: the opportunity to say "hi" or spit at me (if you're one of those people).
Don't waste your summer with nothing but lazy afternoons and bbq! THEATRE!!! SUMMER! DO IT!
1. TONIGHT: Kick Balls resevoir park 6:30 we like it to win. (also, every tuesday hereafter) Followed by Public Enemies at the oriental at 10:10, gonna see Kish get blown away in the first scene!
2. FRIDAY: Krapp's Last Tape at Rooms Gallery in Chicago. Preceeded by dinner and followed by To Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind at the Neo-Futurists (also in Chicago)
3. SATURDAY 11th- David's Red Haired Death. Youngblood Theatre. NEW! AMBITIOUS! EXCITING!
4. SUNDAY 12th- Pain in the Park (ultimate frisbee) Riverside park, 11am. Followed by Someone to Watch Over Me, cuz i'd like to pay money to see Pink Banana botch up political theatre out of spite. SPITE! at the BTC
5. THURDSAY 16th- Sexual Perversity in Chicago at The Alchemist. Kick ASS.
6. FRIDAY 17th- Beauty's Daughter at the BTC. UPROOTED! ALSO NEW! ALSO EXCITING! Not quite as ambitious. Youngblood is opening 3 shows in one month. That's kind of unmatchable ambition, sorry.
7. MONDAY 20th- Savage in Limbo at The Landfill. YOUNGBLOOD
8. FRIDAY 31st- God Bridge at kennilworth YOUNGBLOOD
9. SAT Aug 1st- Dead Man's Carnival at Stonefly (we're performing butoh! You wanna butoh too? TELL ME!!)
10. SAT Aug 8th Sweeny Todd at Off the Wall - Hope to get a group discount or something, cuz $25 is TOO MUCH.
I'm gonna have to eat light, cuz i'm about to drop almost 1/4 of my monthly budget on seeing the gianormous slew of new and exciting theatre happening in this town this month, and i'm very happy about it. It's amazing! Check out my schedule of upcoming activities, google anything you're not familiar with, or just email me asking for details, and i'll send em your way. If you go on the same day as me, you get a special offer: the opportunity to say "hi" or spit at me (if you're one of those people).
Don't waste your summer with nothing but lazy afternoons and bbq! THEATRE!!! SUMMER! DO IT!
1. TONIGHT: Kick Balls resevoir park 6:30 we like it to win. (also, every tuesday hereafter) Followed by Public Enemies at the oriental at 10:10, gonna see Kish get blown away in the first scene!
2. FRIDAY: Krapp's Last Tape at Rooms Gallery in Chicago. Preceeded by dinner and followed by To Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind at the Neo-Futurists (also in Chicago)
3. SATURDAY 11th- David's Red Haired Death. Youngblood Theatre. NEW! AMBITIOUS! EXCITING!
4. SUNDAY 12th- Pain in the Park (ultimate frisbee) Riverside park, 11am. Followed by Someone to Watch Over Me, cuz i'd like to pay money to see Pink Banana botch up political theatre out of spite. SPITE! at the BTC
5. THURDSAY 16th- Sexual Perversity in Chicago at The Alchemist. Kick ASS.
6. FRIDAY 17th- Beauty's Daughter at the BTC. UPROOTED! ALSO NEW! ALSO EXCITING! Not quite as ambitious. Youngblood is opening 3 shows in one month. That's kind of unmatchable ambition, sorry.
7. MONDAY 20th- Savage in Limbo at The Landfill. YOUNGBLOOD
8. FRIDAY 31st- God Bridge at kennilworth YOUNGBLOOD
9. SAT Aug 1st- Dead Man's Carnival at Stonefly (we're performing butoh! You wanna butoh too? TELL ME!!)
10. SAT Aug 8th Sweeny Todd at Off the Wall - Hope to get a group discount or something, cuz $25 is TOO MUCH.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The Coming Insurrection
"The Coming Insurrection" is the book i'm currently reading. This guy is terrified of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCU4psxF_L4&feature=player_embedded
I can't wait to see what happens when he actually reads it, cuz it's some dense philosophical shit that you need at least a passing understanding of critical theory, marxism, post-modernism, etc in order to begin to understand. I especially wonder what he'll think of the parts where they attack the left and call for its destruction.
I don't agree with most of what the book says, a lot of it is a bourgeois complaint about alienation, romantic notions about what pre-capitalism was (or even what pre-civilization was), way too much focus on the negative and tactics that are mostly still too conventionally political (they're looking for excuses to break shit when really we need to work on building shit).
But, i do love the way that even the pull quotes this reactionary fox news guy chose include some of the ideas i find valuable in the book. Things like "the elaboration of collective self-organized forms of life" does that really sound negative to anyone? I mean, "collective self-organized form of life" sure makes for a more reasonable definition of "freedom" than the average american is generally able to muster. What will happen when conservatives need to respond to this definition of communism?
It's kind of like the hypothetical: what would've happened if Marx hadn't dumbed it down for the manifesto in order to inspire the masses into a premature revolution? What if all communists were smart?
Curious?
Read The Coming Insurrection yourself.
Curious but too busy to read all that?
Read CALL (which i actually like more).
Curious but too busy to read even that?
Then you'll just have to keep scratching your head in bewilderment when shit like Greece starts happening everywhere all the time. Cuz this is where those people are coming from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCU4psxF_L4&feature=player_embedded
I can't wait to see what happens when he actually reads it, cuz it's some dense philosophical shit that you need at least a passing understanding of critical theory, marxism, post-modernism, etc in order to begin to understand. I especially wonder what he'll think of the parts where they attack the left and call for its destruction.
I don't agree with most of what the book says, a lot of it is a bourgeois complaint about alienation, romantic notions about what pre-capitalism was (or even what pre-civilization was), way too much focus on the negative and tactics that are mostly still too conventionally political (they're looking for excuses to break shit when really we need to work on building shit).
But, i do love the way that even the pull quotes this reactionary fox news guy chose include some of the ideas i find valuable in the book. Things like "the elaboration of collective self-organized forms of life" does that really sound negative to anyone? I mean, "collective self-organized form of life" sure makes for a more reasonable definition of "freedom" than the average american is generally able to muster. What will happen when conservatives need to respond to this definition of communism?
It's kind of like the hypothetical: what would've happened if Marx hadn't dumbed it down for the manifesto in order to inspire the masses into a premature revolution? What if all communists were smart?
Curious?
Read The Coming Insurrection yourself.
Curious but too busy to read all that?
Read CALL (which i actually like more).
Curious but too busy to read even that?
Then you'll just have to keep scratching your head in bewilderment when shit like Greece starts happening everywhere all the time. Cuz this is where those people are coming from.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Arts Advocacy Breakfast
I'm going to keep this breif, because I'm starting to lose my temper a little bit, and i've got a tour to book.
Went to the breakfast in the park that Johnathan West organized. There's going to be another one of these in two weeks, and i intend to go to that one too.
From my experience studying and participating in political action, i offer the following reccomendations.
There is one thing that will make this work: combined forces.
Here's how to combine forces successfully:
1. Connect with the remnants of past efforts.
2. Balance the present individual acute problem with broader future efforts.
3. devise two transparent processes one to develop actionable responses to acute problems and one to develop and strengthen a proactive long term presense.
4. hold frequent real life meetings that produce results.
More details on these things.
1. It was very good to see people from MARN and Arts Inc there. This kind of action is cyclical, if you're not building on the efforts of previous advocates, then you're spinning your wheels and going nowhere. MARN seems like it used to do more agressive advocacy (brenner) and now it's more network focused. This is a good thing, cuz MARN's failures in advocacy probably came from too limited a network. This is an opportunity to bring performing artists into MARN, and use the resources they've already built to pursue advocacy.
2. Skylight cannot hyjack the proceedings. Before the next meeting the aggreived members of Skylight ought to develop and two things to present the larger group: first, a consise report on exactly what happened and why. Second, an action plan, what they'd like the broader community to do to support them. It is then essential that Skylight people participate in, make room for and listen to other greivances as well. I'm only using Skylight as an example here because it is the current acute problem, not because i think musical theatre actors are self-dramatizing divas with short attention spans.
3. the first process has to start with what i just described above. The group needs to establish a lean, effective standard proceedure for raising issues, and recommending action. We can't spend the whole meeting time brainstorming ideas, the ideas should be prepared ahead of time and presented. To some degree, the right process was already happening today, but if we have twice or three times as big a group in two weeks, it's gotta happen more to make things effective.
The second process also already started today, some very goal oriented stuff was discussed, both short term and long term goals. Paula mentioned building enough clout to get a seat at the table for artists when the big fancy people are meeting behind their closed doors, she also mentioned influencing elections. These are good ideas. Prioritize them and develop them into either actions (volunteering for arts friendly politicians) or demands ("Hey GMC! if you want any of these 4000 artists to help realize your fancy-pants creative development plan, you've gotta save a seat for us at your meetings from now on, and you've gotta let us elect the person who sits in that seat").
4. If something like these reccomendations are followed, and actions are employed, this group can get results. If the procedures and discussions are made public, then this will grow.
These are my reccomendations, as a scholar of political activism, not my personal feelings (i'm not really a fan of political activism). My personal feelings are: let the 38 people who don't know each other on the board of the skylight pay half attention while eric dillner burns the company down, and then sing and dance in the ashes. Form new companies, use new models, skip that 501c3 bullshit. But, my personal feelings aren't very useful to people who wanna do showtunes, so in the meantime, i'll help you guys do your best to empower artists within the old models.
I am more excited about this than any of the other milwaukee artist community stuff that's been going on. This art advocacy is different than the coalition's, the CA's or the GMC's. This is transparent, personal and grassroots. When Johnathan says "arts advocacy" he seems to mean something more like "artist advocacy". This distinction is important, "arts advocacy" tends to be much more careful, shallow and empty, advocating the arts as an idea, which can perversely undermine art by empowering arts administrators who have no respect for artists. Creative coalition stuff strikes me as a bunch of meetings where people decide who should talk about making plans on how to create the outline of a map for doing things in a way that makes sure they'll not fail, cuz that might make the GMC look bad. Johnathan's is grassroots, transparent, unafraid of getting dirty, and puts the artists first.
Went to the breakfast in the park that Johnathan West organized. There's going to be another one of these in two weeks, and i intend to go to that one too.
From my experience studying and participating in political action, i offer the following reccomendations.
There is one thing that will make this work: combined forces.
Here's how to combine forces successfully:
1. Connect with the remnants of past efforts.
2. Balance the present individual acute problem with broader future efforts.
3. devise two transparent processes one to develop actionable responses to acute problems and one to develop and strengthen a proactive long term presense.
4. hold frequent real life meetings that produce results.
More details on these things.
1. It was very good to see people from MARN and Arts Inc there. This kind of action is cyclical, if you're not building on the efforts of previous advocates, then you're spinning your wheels and going nowhere. MARN seems like it used to do more agressive advocacy (brenner) and now it's more network focused. This is a good thing, cuz MARN's failures in advocacy probably came from too limited a network. This is an opportunity to bring performing artists into MARN, and use the resources they've already built to pursue advocacy.
2. Skylight cannot hyjack the proceedings. Before the next meeting the aggreived members of Skylight ought to develop and two things to present the larger group: first, a consise report on exactly what happened and why. Second, an action plan, what they'd like the broader community to do to support them. It is then essential that Skylight people participate in, make room for and listen to other greivances as well. I'm only using Skylight as an example here because it is the current acute problem, not because i think musical theatre actors are self-dramatizing divas with short attention spans.
3. the first process has to start with what i just described above. The group needs to establish a lean, effective standard proceedure for raising issues, and recommending action. We can't spend the whole meeting time brainstorming ideas, the ideas should be prepared ahead of time and presented. To some degree, the right process was already happening today, but if we have twice or three times as big a group in two weeks, it's gotta happen more to make things effective.
The second process also already started today, some very goal oriented stuff was discussed, both short term and long term goals. Paula mentioned building enough clout to get a seat at the table for artists when the big fancy people are meeting behind their closed doors, she also mentioned influencing elections. These are good ideas. Prioritize them and develop them into either actions (volunteering for arts friendly politicians) or demands ("Hey GMC! if you want any of these 4000 artists to help realize your fancy-pants creative development plan, you've gotta save a seat for us at your meetings from now on, and you've gotta let us elect the person who sits in that seat").
4. If something like these reccomendations are followed, and actions are employed, this group can get results. If the procedures and discussions are made public, then this will grow.
These are my reccomendations, as a scholar of political activism, not my personal feelings (i'm not really a fan of political activism). My personal feelings are: let the 38 people who don't know each other on the board of the skylight pay half attention while eric dillner burns the company down, and then sing and dance in the ashes. Form new companies, use new models, skip that 501c3 bullshit. But, my personal feelings aren't very useful to people who wanna do showtunes, so in the meantime, i'll help you guys do your best to empower artists within the old models.
I am more excited about this than any of the other milwaukee artist community stuff that's been going on. This art advocacy is different than the coalition's, the CA's or the GMC's. This is transparent, personal and grassroots. When Johnathan says "arts advocacy" he seems to mean something more like "artist advocacy". This distinction is important, "arts advocacy" tends to be much more careful, shallow and empty, advocating the arts as an idea, which can perversely undermine art by empowering arts administrators who have no respect for artists. Creative coalition stuff strikes me as a bunch of meetings where people decide who should talk about making plans on how to create the outline of a map for doing things in a way that makes sure they'll not fail, cuz that might make the GMC look bad. Johnathan's is grassroots, transparent, unafraid of getting dirty, and puts the artists first.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Radical Practices and Basic Macroeconomics.
Oh, the internet, it is a web! I touched it and now i'm tangled again. Fuck. I've got a tour to book!
But Kurt Hartwig cued me into some cool shit, which has me thinking more about this stuff.
My initial response to this cool shit, and Kurt's assertion that what i'm doing has been done before, would be that merchantilism, that transition period between feudalism and capitalism took a LONG time. Our transition might take just as long, and be just as start-stop and bizarre.
But, more specifically, i'd say the 90s (when his RAT example went down) were a boom time for capitalism, if the RAT happened now, during a bust, the infestation would be much easier. I've seen work from Theatre in My Basement, performed at Salvage Vangaurd, perused the Rat Sass blog, so i know at least some these groups still exist today. Lets make something happen now when the time is right.
But, I wonder... it seems (and i might be wrong here) there's an unfortunate correlation that frustrates my central claim here. Seems like radical Theatre is strongest when the economy is also strongest. Which means radical theatre is most present when it is least likely to succeed. This makes sense; theatre (even poor theatre) is something like a luxury for audiences, and something like an expensive hobby for the artists. In hard times we're too busy trying to eat to make or see a whole lot of radical theatre. Hurns.
But, this adversity is a challenge! An opportunity. It only means we need the discipline to aggressively pursue our "hobbies" even though we increasingly can't afford them. It'll be a tough slog, but i'm ready for it!
BUT... there's also the flipside of the correlation, the other causal relationship that kind of makes sense. Radical artists working extra hard to succeed in bad economic conditions will, like any hard working entrepreneurs, eventually contribute to ending the bust and reinvigorating the economy. Then the mainstream theatres with funding will siphon off talent and audiences (just like corporations with investment capital siphon talent and customers off the entrepreneurs). The architects of the reconstruction will be crippled and marginalized by their own success. Hurns. Major fucking hurns.
Well, then fuck it. Looks like compromising, communicating with, working with, or in anyway helping the establishment theatres is inherently against our interest. I withdraw my advice, the BTC can fuck off and die, the sooner and the more completely, the better.
Sheesh! That makes me a tactless asshole, doesn't it. A bitter, curmudgeonly, negative vibe merchant. But, really, i'm not. I've met some very nice well-intentioned people who work at the BTC, people who started with Theatre X's help, and then accidentally dug X's grave. Lots of people i know or could hope might come see my shows probably also know someone who knows someone who works there. Really, only surly punks like someone who says anyone else "can fuck off and die" like i just did, and surly punks mostly spend their money on cheap beer, not theatre. Looks like I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, feining ignorance, saying "oh, Skylight, oh, BTC renters, i feel your pain" and then privately celebrating their demise, and capitalizing on their absence.
But... that feels really dishonest. It feels like pretending i don't know my own interests. That i don't know something in order to better use my knowledge to my advantage later. I'm uncomfortable with that, cuz i might be an asshole, but i'm not a creep or a liar. (I'm fucking terrible at it). Maybe i shouldn't be. Maybe i should take a certain friend's advice and get better at lying. I mean, this is basically what the Skylight did to Theatre X to get that building in the first place, isn't it? They have it coming.
Except maybe their ignorance wasn't feined. Maybe they really didn't realize they were fucking X over. Maybe they had good intentions and just didn't realize what the long term effects of their actions would be. Maybe they don't understand how economic necessity undermines even the best of intentions.
So, then, seems like the proper tactic is to be completely open, lay everything out on the table. Make it so no one can pretend not to know. Maybe i oughta write an open statement to every established non-profit theatre in the country during this trying time, here's a rough draft:
"Hey mainstream theatre establishment! I'm about to commit the next ten years of my life to rebuilding theatre in america. I'm gonna live out of my car producing theatre for free in basements, bars, classrooms and alleyways for audiences that you can't even begin to tap now but who'll probably be ready to subscribe after they settle down and squirt out some babies. I'm gonna burn myself out doing it, (i'm already 30, so i've got a late fucking start) and when i'm done, i'll have contributed some small portion to a rebirth of theatre as an art form (and a growing economy.)
I know full well that once that rebirth happens there'll be a moment when you have the leverage to buy me out. If I've been successful, you'll be ready to buy out everyone I've surrounded myself with, you'll buy out my actors, my audiences, my techs (shit, you're already are buying them out now). If I've been really successful, you'll kiss my ass and talk about how much you love and respect me, and you'll frame the buy-out in terms that make it sound like an opportunity. But, i know that if i take that opportunity it's a devil's deal, it'll break my organization, and it'll leave me begging for scrap roles in your shitty shows. I'll turn you down, and everyone will think i'm a stubborn irrelevant shithead.
Except that now i've written this. I've taught you and everyone else how the economics works, how your well-intentioned offers of opportunities, community, networking, are actually a bad fucking deal. I know it, and I've told you, so you can't pretend not to know it. I've also told my friends, my actors and my audiences. When these people look at your intentions and ask themselves if you're being deceitful, or ignorant, they'll know that if you're ignorant, you've chosen to be ignorant. Willful ignorance is feigned ignorance, it's deceit."
Hmmm... seems viable. The success of the revolution depends on everyone better understanding economics. What's the best way to teach? Demonstration. By looking at Theatre X's history from a distance, in terms of how the economics played out between the institutions, the organizational structures, not how the specific individuals acted under these economic pressures, i'm able to learn things that might apply to me, that help me avoid the situations under which the bad decisions that broke that company up look reasonable. Same applies for every failed revolution of every kind. If we're always learning, learning, learning then nothing anyone has done was for naught.
But Kurt Hartwig cued me into some cool shit, which has me thinking more about this stuff.
My initial response to this cool shit, and Kurt's assertion that what i'm doing has been done before, would be that merchantilism, that transition period between feudalism and capitalism took a LONG time. Our transition might take just as long, and be just as start-stop and bizarre.
But, more specifically, i'd say the 90s (when his RAT example went down) were a boom time for capitalism, if the RAT happened now, during a bust, the infestation would be much easier. I've seen work from Theatre in My Basement, performed at Salvage Vangaurd, perused the Rat Sass blog, so i know at least some these groups still exist today. Lets make something happen now when the time is right.
But, I wonder... it seems (and i might be wrong here) there's an unfortunate correlation that frustrates my central claim here. Seems like radical Theatre is strongest when the economy is also strongest. Which means radical theatre is most present when it is least likely to succeed. This makes sense; theatre (even poor theatre) is something like a luxury for audiences, and something like an expensive hobby for the artists. In hard times we're too busy trying to eat to make or see a whole lot of radical theatre. Hurns.
But, this adversity is a challenge! An opportunity. It only means we need the discipline to aggressively pursue our "hobbies" even though we increasingly can't afford them. It'll be a tough slog, but i'm ready for it!
BUT... there's also the flipside of the correlation, the other causal relationship that kind of makes sense. Radical artists working extra hard to succeed in bad economic conditions will, like any hard working entrepreneurs, eventually contribute to ending the bust and reinvigorating the economy. Then the mainstream theatres with funding will siphon off talent and audiences (just like corporations with investment capital siphon talent and customers off the entrepreneurs). The architects of the reconstruction will be crippled and marginalized by their own success. Hurns. Major fucking hurns.
Well, then fuck it. Looks like compromising, communicating with, working with, or in anyway helping the establishment theatres is inherently against our interest. I withdraw my advice, the BTC can fuck off and die, the sooner and the more completely, the better.
Sheesh! That makes me a tactless asshole, doesn't it. A bitter, curmudgeonly, negative vibe merchant. But, really, i'm not. I've met some very nice well-intentioned people who work at the BTC, people who started with Theatre X's help, and then accidentally dug X's grave. Lots of people i know or could hope might come see my shows probably also know someone who knows someone who works there. Really, only surly punks like someone who says anyone else "can fuck off and die" like i just did, and surly punks mostly spend their money on cheap beer, not theatre. Looks like I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, feining ignorance, saying "oh, Skylight, oh, BTC renters, i feel your pain" and then privately celebrating their demise, and capitalizing on their absence.
But... that feels really dishonest. It feels like pretending i don't know my own interests. That i don't know something in order to better use my knowledge to my advantage later. I'm uncomfortable with that, cuz i might be an asshole, but i'm not a creep or a liar. (I'm fucking terrible at it). Maybe i shouldn't be. Maybe i should take a certain friend's advice and get better at lying. I mean, this is basically what the Skylight did to Theatre X to get that building in the first place, isn't it? They have it coming.
Except maybe their ignorance wasn't feined. Maybe they really didn't realize they were fucking X over. Maybe they had good intentions and just didn't realize what the long term effects of their actions would be. Maybe they don't understand how economic necessity undermines even the best of intentions.
So, then, seems like the proper tactic is to be completely open, lay everything out on the table. Make it so no one can pretend not to know. Maybe i oughta write an open statement to every established non-profit theatre in the country during this trying time, here's a rough draft:
"Hey mainstream theatre establishment! I'm about to commit the next ten years of my life to rebuilding theatre in america. I'm gonna live out of my car producing theatre for free in basements, bars, classrooms and alleyways for audiences that you can't even begin to tap now but who'll probably be ready to subscribe after they settle down and squirt out some babies. I'm gonna burn myself out doing it, (i'm already 30, so i've got a late fucking start) and when i'm done, i'll have contributed some small portion to a rebirth of theatre as an art form (and a growing economy.)
I know full well that once that rebirth happens there'll be a moment when you have the leverage to buy me out. If I've been successful, you'll be ready to buy out everyone I've surrounded myself with, you'll buy out my actors, my audiences, my techs (shit, you're already are buying them out now). If I've been really successful, you'll kiss my ass and talk about how much you love and respect me, and you'll frame the buy-out in terms that make it sound like an opportunity. But, i know that if i take that opportunity it's a devil's deal, it'll break my organization, and it'll leave me begging for scrap roles in your shitty shows. I'll turn you down, and everyone will think i'm a stubborn irrelevant shithead.
Except that now i've written this. I've taught you and everyone else how the economics works, how your well-intentioned offers of opportunities, community, networking, are actually a bad fucking deal. I know it, and I've told you, so you can't pretend not to know it. I've also told my friends, my actors and my audiences. When these people look at your intentions and ask themselves if you're being deceitful, or ignorant, they'll know that if you're ignorant, you've chosen to be ignorant. Willful ignorance is feigned ignorance, it's deceit."
Hmmm... seems viable. The success of the revolution depends on everyone better understanding economics. What's the best way to teach? Demonstration. By looking at Theatre X's history from a distance, in terms of how the economics played out between the institutions, the organizational structures, not how the specific individuals acted under these economic pressures, i'm able to learn things that might apply to me, that help me avoid the situations under which the bad decisions that broke that company up look reasonable. Same applies for every failed revolution of every kind. If we're always learning, learning, learning then nothing anyone has done was for naught.
Friday, June 19, 2009
ULYSSES' CREWEN
This show has been a different process for me. We're rehearsing without a director, on three random afternoons a week, in our dining room. The cast is me and my room mate. The set and props are so minimal that it hardly feels like we're in the middle of production, except when we're rehearsing. It feels much more organic, a natural part of our lives, not something that we go elsewhere and meet with people that we don't regularly otherwise see to do.
But it is the middle of production. Local shows are booked. Press releases sent out. Tour booking is underway. Our test audience rehearsal (instead of a director, we're showing it to a handful of friends) will probably be in a couple weeks. Tonight i'm burning silk screens for the poster. Expect to see some beautiful brown and black and white images around the city starting next week (unless i fuck something up). This afternoon Jason Hames uploaded the preview video to YouTube. This is really, finally going to happen, and i am beyond excited about it.
But it is the middle of production. Local shows are booked. Press releases sent out. Tour booking is underway. Our test audience rehearsal (instead of a director, we're showing it to a handful of friends) will probably be in a couple weeks. Tonight i'm burning silk screens for the poster. Expect to see some beautiful brown and black and white images around the city starting next week (unless i fuck something up). This afternoon Jason Hames uploaded the preview video to YouTube. This is really, finally going to happen, and i am beyond excited about it.
Advice from a Communist
Artsy Schmartsy is making me a liar with his great coverage of the Skylight disaster. Thanks Jonathan! Also, Kurt Hartwig's making my dreams come true with more and more coverage on his blog.
Check out their recent posts for details, then come back here for my perspective:
I urge everyone who is upset about this to look beyond this individual instance and observe the broader institutional transition that Skylight's actions are merely a symptom of.
There is a major shift in how theatre is produced underway today. Depending on how you look at it* it's been underway for decades, or it's just starting now. Either way, the dominant model of theatre production (non-profit corporations / regional repertory theatre system) is on it's way out.**
So let's look at what's going on here, in the abstract.
First, we have a class of big non-profit theatre who function under the obsolete model. This class needs A. new life and energy. B. a navagible route to gradually acheive radical innovations without disrupting their institutions, interrupting their services, or sacrificing their employee's livelyhood.
Second, we have a class of upstart theatre companies functioning under new models who, like all new models, are rough, and need time to develop, work out the kinks and perfect the formula.
Way i see it, things can go down one of two ways:
1. The big companies can batten down the hatches, dig into their bunker boardrooms, make draconian cuts and hope they'll weather the storm. They won't. Cuz this storm (and the upstarts) will reshape the entire landscape. There will never be a good time to come out of the bunker boardrooms, and the institutions will die there.
2. The big companies can reach out to the upstarts, bring them to the table, give them the support, resources, networks they need to experiment and develop their model. In return, they'll gain infusions of new talent and audience and have a chance to chart their own route of a more gradual carful adaptation along the trails the upstarts blaze.
Now, as a communist, I'd call option 2 "recouperation" and "appropriation of small innovators by established institutions" and / or say that the small innovators have "sold out". I'd prefer to struggle through the figuring out new models on my own and dance on the grave that the establishment's bunkers have become.
But, as a pragmatist i can't help but notice that option 2 sure seems a lot more pleasant, and more likely to work, at least sometime in my lifetime.
Fortunately for the rep, skylight and the companies at the BTC, I'm probably the only communist in the theatre scene, and even i can be pragmatic at times. (and i'm going to be spending much less time in milwaukee starting this fall). Unfortunately for the big companies, they seem mostly ignorant or uninterested in option 2. Which means the communist in me stands to win some support from the other small companies, right? Lets band together, get disciplined and smash the motherfucking establishment! Right? uh... oh. okay, i guess we're not quite at that point yet. Hurns.
*Tangent 1: My understanding of the history of this transition: The broad arch of it started decades ago, by the 60's radical practices had grown enough to challenge the establishment, but where then appropriated, absorbed, and relegated to the margins, where they exist today. But now the acute rapid part of this transition begins. Now the establishment is collapsing under it's own weight, if (when) radical practices emerge as powerful as they did in the 60's replacing these already crippled institutions will be simple. This history applies to all sectors of the economy, not just the theatre arts. It's called reasoned optimism people, catch it!
**Tangent 2: as to Kurt's disagreement that the non-profit model is increasingly obsolete, here's some interesting stuff to look at: theatre tribes, Mike Daisey. Neither go as far as i do, but you can find more of my thoughts by perusing my blog archive.
Check out their recent posts for details, then come back here for my perspective:
I urge everyone who is upset about this to look beyond this individual instance and observe the broader institutional transition that Skylight's actions are merely a symptom of.
There is a major shift in how theatre is produced underway today. Depending on how you look at it* it's been underway for decades, or it's just starting now. Either way, the dominant model of theatre production (non-profit corporations / regional repertory theatre system) is on it's way out.**
So let's look at what's going on here, in the abstract.
First, we have a class of big non-profit theatre who function under the obsolete model. This class needs A. new life and energy. B. a navagible route to gradually acheive radical innovations without disrupting their institutions, interrupting their services, or sacrificing their employee's livelyhood.
Second, we have a class of upstart theatre companies functioning under new models who, like all new models, are rough, and need time to develop, work out the kinks and perfect the formula.
Way i see it, things can go down one of two ways:
1. The big companies can batten down the hatches, dig into their bunker boardrooms, make draconian cuts and hope they'll weather the storm. They won't. Cuz this storm (and the upstarts) will reshape the entire landscape. There will never be a good time to come out of the bunker boardrooms, and the institutions will die there.
2. The big companies can reach out to the upstarts, bring them to the table, give them the support, resources, networks they need to experiment and develop their model. In return, they'll gain infusions of new talent and audience and have a chance to chart their own route of a more gradual carful adaptation along the trails the upstarts blaze.
Now, as a communist, I'd call option 2 "recouperation" and "appropriation of small innovators by established institutions" and / or say that the small innovators have "sold out". I'd prefer to struggle through the figuring out new models on my own and dance on the grave that the establishment's bunkers have become.
But, as a pragmatist i can't help but notice that option 2 sure seems a lot more pleasant, and more likely to work, at least sometime in my lifetime.
Fortunately for the rep, skylight and the companies at the BTC, I'm probably the only communist in the theatre scene, and even i can be pragmatic at times. (and i'm going to be spending much less time in milwaukee starting this fall). Unfortunately for the big companies, they seem mostly ignorant or uninterested in option 2. Which means the communist in me stands to win some support from the other small companies, right? Lets band together, get disciplined and smash the motherfucking establishment! Right? uh... oh. okay, i guess we're not quite at that point yet. Hurns.
*Tangent 1: My understanding of the history of this transition: The broad arch of it started decades ago, by the 60's radical practices had grown enough to challenge the establishment, but where then appropriated, absorbed, and relegated to the margins, where they exist today. But now the acute rapid part of this transition begins. Now the establishment is collapsing under it's own weight, if (when) radical practices emerge as powerful as they did in the 60's replacing these already crippled institutions will be simple. This history applies to all sectors of the economy, not just the theatre arts. It's called reasoned optimism people, catch it!
**Tangent 2: as to Kurt's disagreement that the non-profit model is increasingly obsolete, here's some interesting stuff to look at: theatre tribes, Mike Daisey. Neither go as far as i do, but you can find more of my thoughts by perusing my blog archive.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Press in Milwaukee Continued
I don't really know if you can call it "press" anymore since all the good shit is online. It blows my mind how mainstream newspaper art departments respond to their impending obsolescence by reducing their actual ink and paper coverage to only the big stuff, stuff which already advertises itself ubiquitously. I understand it from the perspective of the Big Stuff, or of the newspaper, but in the long term, it makes reading the paper redundant and superfluous. Whatever. Newspapers' stupidity in the face of adversity isn't my concern, i'm concerned about press coverage for the performing arts in milwaukee.
And today i'm writing from my bottomless sea of optimism. If you don't know me well, you'll be surprised to know i have one of those. Anyway, everyone has railed against Damien Jaques, sent in letters to the editor, and he's about to be canned, right? No? Okay, wrong. The journal is an obsolete monolith that will not respond to any number of reader complaints (and most people i asked to write letters are probably too defeated, complacent or busy to actually do it). What now? Keep shouting? Despair? Nope, replace the whole fucking Journal, which aint' hard cuz it's mostly done already.
There are awesome independent alternative media sources here in Milwaukee that actually do cover small scale performing arts and respond to the community. I should've pointed out how these mavericks will have the monolith torn down shortly. Artists! Use these sites to promote your stuff! Audience! Find out what's really going on in this town!
FIRST! Third Coast Digest. http://thirdcoastdigest.com Formerly Vital Source. They were the only media to respond to our first show, published some of our best (as in critical, well written and responsive) reviews, and have always been dilligent listers of all kinds of amazing events. They even let Tracy and I write reviews for a while (until some thin-skinned whiney elements of the Milwaukee theatre community complained).
SECOND! MARN'S new site. http://artinmilwaukee.com The Milwaukee Artist Resource Network has fought for independent artists of all types longer and harder than anyone else i know of. Their focus is on visual art, but their new site seems ready to give performing arts more attention. Looks like a great tool for not only promotion, but also networking. GET SIGNED UP!
THIRD! Local Arts Bloggers.
1. Russ Bickerstaff at the Shepherd covers everything happening in performance art like nobody else. Unfortunately, the most interesting stuff rarely gets into the print edition, and the Shep's website is poorly designed, unwieldy, and barely navigable, so i haven't been following Russ as closely as i used to.
2. Mary Dally-Muenzmaier at http://www.crickettoes.com/ is currently the most active multi-disciplinary blogger i know of, lots of good stuff.
3. Johnathan West at http://www.artsyschmartsy.com/ used to rival Russ for performing arts coverage, and Cricky for analysis and commentary, until he got a square job as ED of a square theatre company (oh, how the mighty have fallen!)
4. Mary Louise at Art City doesn't cover the performing arts, cuz then she'd be doing Damien's job (hey, at least someone would be) but she's excellent for anything else going on in the community. Follow her!
5. Just discovered recently that Kurt Hartwig has a blog. It looks like it was created for chronicling his time in Prague, but he appears to be back, and writing. If this is the case, get excited, Kurt is one of the smartest theatre people i've ever met.
FOURTH! Snap Milwaukee. http://www.snapmilwaukee.com/ This site has potential. Some really good people are involved. But be warned: it's also partially run by the Green Gallery folks. Green Gallery are clearly intelligent and active, but are also ambiguously ironic elitist shithead hipsters. (Or maybe they're just socially awkward and disorganized, you can't really tell, that's the power of ambiguous irony. Either way, i personally cannot fucking stand their whole shebang). They also don't have a performing arts editor, any film articles, and their shit loads funny, in short, the jury is still out on this one.
And today i'm writing from my bottomless sea of optimism. If you don't know me well, you'll be surprised to know i have one of those. Anyway, everyone has railed against Damien Jaques, sent in letters to the editor, and he's about to be canned, right? No? Okay, wrong. The journal is an obsolete monolith that will not respond to any number of reader complaints (and most people i asked to write letters are probably too defeated, complacent or busy to actually do it). What now? Keep shouting? Despair? Nope, replace the whole fucking Journal, which aint' hard cuz it's mostly done already.
There are awesome independent alternative media sources here in Milwaukee that actually do cover small scale performing arts and respond to the community. I should've pointed out how these mavericks will have the monolith torn down shortly. Artists! Use these sites to promote your stuff! Audience! Find out what's really going on in this town!
FIRST! Third Coast Digest. http://thirdcoastdigest.com Formerly Vital Source. They were the only media to respond to our first show, published some of our best (as in critical, well written and responsive) reviews, and have always been dilligent listers of all kinds of amazing events. They even let Tracy and I write reviews for a while (until some thin-skinned whiney elements of the Milwaukee theatre community complained).
SECOND! MARN'S new site. http://artinmilwaukee.com The Milwaukee Artist Resource Network has fought for independent artists of all types longer and harder than anyone else i know of. Their focus is on visual art, but their new site seems ready to give performing arts more attention. Looks like a great tool for not only promotion, but also networking. GET SIGNED UP!
THIRD! Local Arts Bloggers.
1. Russ Bickerstaff at the Shepherd covers everything happening in performance art like nobody else. Unfortunately, the most interesting stuff rarely gets into the print edition, and the Shep's website is poorly designed, unwieldy, and barely navigable, so i haven't been following Russ as closely as i used to.
2. Mary Dally-Muenzmaier at http://www.crickettoes.com/ is currently the most active multi-disciplinary blogger i know of, lots of good stuff.
3. Johnathan West at http://www.artsyschmartsy.com/ used to rival Russ for performing arts coverage, and Cricky for analysis and commentary, until he got a square job as ED of a square theatre company (oh, how the mighty have fallen!)
4. Mary Louise at Art City doesn't cover the performing arts, cuz then she'd be doing Damien's job (hey, at least someone would be) but she's excellent for anything else going on in the community. Follow her!
5. Just discovered recently that Kurt Hartwig has a blog. It looks like it was created for chronicling his time in Prague, but he appears to be back, and writing. If this is the case, get excited, Kurt is one of the smartest theatre people i've ever met.
FOURTH! Snap Milwaukee. http://www.snapmilwaukee.com/ This site has potential. Some really good people are involved. But be warned: it's also partially run by the Green Gallery folks. Green Gallery are clearly intelligent and active, but are also ambiguously ironic elitist shithead hipsters. (Or maybe they're just socially awkward and disorganized, you can't really tell, that's the power of ambiguous irony. Either way, i personally cannot fucking stand their whole shebang). They also don't have a performing arts editor, any film articles, and their shit loads funny, in short, the jury is still out on this one.
Monday, June 8, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS!!!
Last week i had the honor of participating in this amazing and wonderful multi-company production of King Lear. I also had the somewhat less amazing experience of seeing the world premire of Tony Kushner's new play. The contrast of these two experiences offers insights on the future of theatre. These insights are based on my impressions and limited experiences, they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else involved in the Lear project, or even my other company members.
1. The spaces. Bedlam is a building on the West Bank, surrounded by muslim immigrants on one side, public transit train tracks and a bike path on the other. Every inch of this building is used and almost all of it is completely accessible to audiences. The kitchen, the backstage, and the offices are the only off-limits places, but the offices are mostly located behind a transparent open wall, and the "boardroom" seems to be an open lounge with thrift couches and boardgames and a huge cardboard wall that says "DIY plan for world domination!" and holds the mission statement, long term plans, production proposals, and everything else that normal companies discuss behind closed doors pinned to it or scrawled on it. This building completely integrates a bar, a restaurant, and the grease-pit, which is a bicycle shop. The Guthrie, on the otherhand is an imposing complex, it's huge and beautiful, very modern, overwhealming even, but sometimes feels more like an airport than a theatre, and certainly feels absolutely nothing like an open transparent community space.
2. The productions. King Lear gave 5 companies from accross the country 2 rules: make it 20 minutes long, serve a desert. They trusted us to do whatever we want, risked any of these companies dropping the ball, and presented the most diverse, incongruous, radical and bizarre shakespeare i can imagine. Kushner? He was tweaking and editing the play through the preview performances, making the ending more accessible, invited and then disinvited national reviewers because he didn't want to risk premature judgement of an unpolished play. "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with References to Scripture" does take some risks (including it's title) but it has clearly been created under a much more closed, stifling, high pressure (with the pressure coming from marketing concerns rather than artistic concerns) process than our Lear project.
3. The audiences. Bedlam's bar/lobby filled with incredibly diverse, informal raucous and lively audiences every night. These audiences hung around to talk with the performers, watch aftertainment, and socially integrate with the theatre event however they wished. At the Guthrie, David Bohn looked like the youngest member of the audience, and our group was pretty much the only ones who didn't feel compelled to dress nice for the occasion. Granted, this was a saturday matinee, but if more than half of the student rush line has grey hair, then the Guthrie isn't attracting enough young people to sustain itself (expecially with its astronomical infrastructure costs).
4. the plays: King Lear was one of the most exciting theatre events i've seen, let alone participated in. It was done promenade style, with a group of talented folk-singers (posing as life insurance salesmen) guiding the audience through the various spaces. Each act was radically unique, but they tied together into a wonderful whole treating the audience with great acting, stunning visuals, and dense concepts in quick succession.
First, Bedlam's act 1 stayed faithful to the text (but edited it down to 20 minutes) led the audience from the bar to the grease pit to a bicycle-powered shanty, back to the bar, and then to the sidewalk to watch the final action take place on the roof. It emphasized Lear's violence and childishness, had audience members play France and Burgeondy, cobbled together hilarious almost post-apocalyptic costumes and imbued every possible moment with wonderful physical comedy.
Second, trutheater theater put act 2 through a mystical prism aided by blacklight, elaborate puppet costumes, strobes, fog machines, video projection, vocal processors, shadows and psychedelic music. They present a Shakespeare in which a tenticaled one-eyed Edmund hides Edgar inside his head, where Kent carries his stocks as part of his body, Lear wears his crown upside down on his face, Regan and Goneril appear as an ornate two-headed multi-eyed riddle telling creature and Edgar does not merely disguise himself as Mad Tom, but is mystically transformed into a terrifying lunatic.
Third, Nonsense Company started act 3 with an anthropomorphised first folio on the witness stand of a trial, proceeded into an extensive and hilarious examination of the history and study of insanity and it's treatment and ended it with a frantic attention-deficit pop-culture-on-speed eye-gouging. There is much more to say about this brilliant and bewildering act (the music, the haunting children's voices, the sodomy, the sly references to modern politics) but you really should just join me in seeing their extended version of it in the Minnesota Fringe Fest this August instead of trying to imagine what i'd describe of it.
Forth, the "loosely affiliated with puppet uprising players" approached act 4 almost text-less through paper cuts, overhead projector slideshow, actor tableaus and awesome experimental music. Their act ended with lear as a wooden puppet / pinata that the audience was invited to break open.
Fifth, was our meta-theatre interrogation of Shakespeare-as-cultural-institution. For more on that, join us June 20th at the Alchemist, where we'll re-present it.
I went into the Kushner play ready for dissappointment. Any mainstream corporate play that uses the words "intelligent" and "socialism" should rouse suspicions of false advertising in anyone who's studied these things. But Kushner delivers. The play IS intelligent, and talks meaningfully about capitalism and socialism in today's world. As a result, i love and hate it. First, i hate it because it is a well-made family drama, it's all about catharis and narrative and big sets and character development and blah blah blah. This counts against it, because plays of this sort fail to get beyond shallow entertainment. On the other hand, i love it because the catharsis is aimed at characters that i'd never expect a modern american playwright would dare attempt to elicit sympathy for. Kushner also takes exciting risks like depicting multiple complex top-of-their-lungs arguments all happening at once and trusting the audience to choose which to focus on, enjoy the sounds of the competing voices, and fill in what they can't hear. This is probably what earns the play reviews of being confusing or disorganized, but i see it as one of the most exciting moments of the play, a time when the play becomes what it elsewhere describes (cramming in as many distractions complications and tangents as possible out of fear for it's own completion). To some some degree the family drama is exploded here, the exposition is wrapped up so abruptly at the end of act 2 that it's hard to not read as being intentionally dismissive of the form it knows it has to take to appease Guthrie audiences. Also there are some obvious overt theatre references (Doll's House, Major Barbara, Cherry Orchard) here that verge on meta-theatre for the informed audience member.
Overall the play was complex and open enough to afford the following interpretation of it's themes: Communism was a worthwhile (actually THE ONLY worthwhile) project, and it failed due to a combination of compromises (unions, labor laywers) metaphysical excuses and ideological escapes from the hard truths of dialectical materialism (christian science, mysticism, existentialism etc) and distracting "liberation" movements that actually provided new generations raised in radical settings with petty distractions (or sexual fetishes) from the class struggle. I get the sense that Kushner (or at least his central protagonist) is blaming the emotionally devastating and highly dysfunctional, but also totally petty and often self-created (or at least self-aggrivated) family dramas for a missing the historical opportunity to create a fundamentally new and improved society for all of us.
In short, the play seems to be saying: "a revolution was possible, but we fucked it up and now it's too late." I love the play for saying this, at least for saying it to me and hopefully a few others. But i hate it for not saying something like the following: "We know it is too early and also that it is too late, that is why we have time. We have ceased to wait" or even "Communism is possible at every moment." But, can i really blame Kushner for not having read or accepted the obscure anonymous tracts of the insurrectionary communists? I guess not, since if he had he'd surely not be working with anything like the Guthrie.
In conclusion: The Guthrie is in many ways leaps and bounds ahead of other regional or corporate theatre companies (most anything we've got here in Milwaukee) but they also seem ages behind Bedlam. If The Guthrie and Kushner are the corporate regional theatre system's best bet at investing in the future of theatre, then it's no wonder these traditional theatre people are preoccupied with death and contemplating suicide. Working with Bedlam on the other hand has got be totally inspired and optimistic for the future of theatre as an art form.
1. The spaces. Bedlam is a building on the West Bank, surrounded by muslim immigrants on one side, public transit train tracks and a bike path on the other. Every inch of this building is used and almost all of it is completely accessible to audiences. The kitchen, the backstage, and the offices are the only off-limits places, but the offices are mostly located behind a transparent open wall, and the "boardroom" seems to be an open lounge with thrift couches and boardgames and a huge cardboard wall that says "DIY plan for world domination!" and holds the mission statement, long term plans, production proposals, and everything else that normal companies discuss behind closed doors pinned to it or scrawled on it. This building completely integrates a bar, a restaurant, and the grease-pit, which is a bicycle shop. The Guthrie, on the otherhand is an imposing complex, it's huge and beautiful, very modern, overwhealming even, but sometimes feels more like an airport than a theatre, and certainly feels absolutely nothing like an open transparent community space.
2. The productions. King Lear gave 5 companies from accross the country 2 rules: make it 20 minutes long, serve a desert. They trusted us to do whatever we want, risked any of these companies dropping the ball, and presented the most diverse, incongruous, radical and bizarre shakespeare i can imagine. Kushner? He was tweaking and editing the play through the preview performances, making the ending more accessible, invited and then disinvited national reviewers because he didn't want to risk premature judgement of an unpolished play. "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with References to Scripture" does take some risks (including it's title) but it has clearly been created under a much more closed, stifling, high pressure (with the pressure coming from marketing concerns rather than artistic concerns) process than our Lear project.
3. The audiences. Bedlam's bar/lobby filled with incredibly diverse, informal raucous and lively audiences every night. These audiences hung around to talk with the performers, watch aftertainment, and socially integrate with the theatre event however they wished. At the Guthrie, David Bohn looked like the youngest member of the audience, and our group was pretty much the only ones who didn't feel compelled to dress nice for the occasion. Granted, this was a saturday matinee, but if more than half of the student rush line has grey hair, then the Guthrie isn't attracting enough young people to sustain itself (expecially with its astronomical infrastructure costs).
4. the plays: King Lear was one of the most exciting theatre events i've seen, let alone participated in. It was done promenade style, with a group of talented folk-singers (posing as life insurance salesmen) guiding the audience through the various spaces. Each act was radically unique, but they tied together into a wonderful whole treating the audience with great acting, stunning visuals, and dense concepts in quick succession.
First, Bedlam's act 1 stayed faithful to the text (but edited it down to 20 minutes) led the audience from the bar to the grease pit to a bicycle-powered shanty, back to the bar, and then to the sidewalk to watch the final action take place on the roof. It emphasized Lear's violence and childishness, had audience members play France and Burgeondy, cobbled together hilarious almost post-apocalyptic costumes and imbued every possible moment with wonderful physical comedy.
Second, trutheater theater put act 2 through a mystical prism aided by blacklight, elaborate puppet costumes, strobes, fog machines, video projection, vocal processors, shadows and psychedelic music. They present a Shakespeare in which a tenticaled one-eyed Edmund hides Edgar inside his head, where Kent carries his stocks as part of his body, Lear wears his crown upside down on his face, Regan and Goneril appear as an ornate two-headed multi-eyed riddle telling creature and Edgar does not merely disguise himself as Mad Tom, but is mystically transformed into a terrifying lunatic.
Third, Nonsense Company started act 3 with an anthropomorphised first folio on the witness stand of a trial, proceeded into an extensive and hilarious examination of the history and study of insanity and it's treatment and ended it with a frantic attention-deficit pop-culture-on-speed eye-gouging. There is much more to say about this brilliant and bewildering act (the music, the haunting children's voices, the sodomy, the sly references to modern politics) but you really should just join me in seeing their extended version of it in the Minnesota Fringe Fest this August instead of trying to imagine what i'd describe of it.
Forth, the "loosely affiliated with puppet uprising players" approached act 4 almost text-less through paper cuts, overhead projector slideshow, actor tableaus and awesome experimental music. Their act ended with lear as a wooden puppet / pinata that the audience was invited to break open.
Fifth, was our meta-theatre interrogation of Shakespeare-as-cultural-institution. For more on that, join us June 20th at the Alchemist, where we'll re-present it.
I went into the Kushner play ready for dissappointment. Any mainstream corporate play that uses the words "intelligent" and "socialism" should rouse suspicions of false advertising in anyone who's studied these things. But Kushner delivers. The play IS intelligent, and talks meaningfully about capitalism and socialism in today's world. As a result, i love and hate it. First, i hate it because it is a well-made family drama, it's all about catharis and narrative and big sets and character development and blah blah blah. This counts against it, because plays of this sort fail to get beyond shallow entertainment. On the other hand, i love it because the catharsis is aimed at characters that i'd never expect a modern american playwright would dare attempt to elicit sympathy for. Kushner also takes exciting risks like depicting multiple complex top-of-their-lungs arguments all happening at once and trusting the audience to choose which to focus on, enjoy the sounds of the competing voices, and fill in what they can't hear. This is probably what earns the play reviews of being confusing or disorganized, but i see it as one of the most exciting moments of the play, a time when the play becomes what it elsewhere describes (cramming in as many distractions complications and tangents as possible out of fear for it's own completion). To some some degree the family drama is exploded here, the exposition is wrapped up so abruptly at the end of act 2 that it's hard to not read as being intentionally dismissive of the form it knows it has to take to appease Guthrie audiences. Also there are some obvious overt theatre references (Doll's House, Major Barbara, Cherry Orchard) here that verge on meta-theatre for the informed audience member.
Overall the play was complex and open enough to afford the following interpretation of it's themes: Communism was a worthwhile (actually THE ONLY worthwhile) project, and it failed due to a combination of compromises (unions, labor laywers) metaphysical excuses and ideological escapes from the hard truths of dialectical materialism (christian science, mysticism, existentialism etc) and distracting "liberation" movements that actually provided new generations raised in radical settings with petty distractions (or sexual fetishes) from the class struggle. I get the sense that Kushner (or at least his central protagonist) is blaming the emotionally devastating and highly dysfunctional, but also totally petty and often self-created (or at least self-aggrivated) family dramas for a missing the historical opportunity to create a fundamentally new and improved society for all of us.
In short, the play seems to be saying: "a revolution was possible, but we fucked it up and now it's too late." I love the play for saying this, at least for saying it to me and hopefully a few others. But i hate it for not saying something like the following: "We know it is too early and also that it is too late, that is why we have time. We have ceased to wait" or even "Communism is possible at every moment." But, can i really blame Kushner for not having read or accepted the obscure anonymous tracts of the insurrectionary communists? I guess not, since if he had he'd surely not be working with anything like the Guthrie.
In conclusion: The Guthrie is in many ways leaps and bounds ahead of other regional or corporate theatre companies (most anything we've got here in Milwaukee) but they also seem ages behind Bedlam. If The Guthrie and Kushner are the corporate regional theatre system's best bet at investing in the future of theatre, then it's no wonder these traditional theatre people are preoccupied with death and contemplating suicide. Working with Bedlam on the other hand has got be totally inspired and optimistic for the future of theatre as an art form.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
More on Milwaukee Press.
I'm done holding my tongue about the scourge of the Milwaukee theatre community.
Damien Jaques' response to my including "newsworthy? You'd think so..." to the end of a Play in a Day announcement on Facebook was to say "insurgent needs to improve quality" before he'll even mention us. Then he wrote this follow up to his review of Quasi's Henry V.
Anyone who knows me knows i'm no fan of Shakespeare, i wasn't able to see quasi's show (doing multiple shows of my own right now) but the idea that the biggest theatre writer in the city is saying it maybe shouldn't have happened at all is insane. You can see my (and other's comments) on his post.
I also wrote a letter to the editor. Milwaukee's Theatre community doesn't need to accept such lousy coverage. I'm not saying that Damien has to like what we do (i expect he won't) but if he's supposed to be a news source covering significant things happening in the theatre community, then he needs to at least acknowledge the existence of things he doesn't like.
Here's the Journal's "letters to the editor" address: jsedit@journalsentinel.com
Here's what i wrote:
When are you going to replace your unqualified and terrible theatre writer?
Damien Jaques spends more time regurgitating Broadway headlines than
covering local theatre. He has a narrow uninformed definition of what
makes good theatre. He was the bane of Theatre X (but then pretended
to be sad when they closed) he refuses to acknowledge the existence of
smaller theater companies, indeed recently advised Quasi Theatre that
they shouldn't have even tried to produce Shakespeare. This man is
ignoring or obstructing the growth and development of a new and
exciting theatre scene in this city.
The Journal has recently expanded and VASTLY improved it's visual arts
coverage, thanks to Mary Louise Schumacher's engaged and dedicated
coverage of not only every gallery show, but also spearheading and
participating in vital discussions of relevant issues in the visual
art community. Why can't you replace Mr Jaques with someone who'll
give similar treatment to our struggling theatre community?
Ben Turk
Local Playwright and Theatre Producer with Insurgent Theatre.
Damien Jaques' response to my including "newsworthy? You'd think so..." to the end of a Play in a Day announcement on Facebook was to say "insurgent needs to improve quality" before he'll even mention us. Then he wrote this follow up to his review of Quasi's Henry V.
Anyone who knows me knows i'm no fan of Shakespeare, i wasn't able to see quasi's show (doing multiple shows of my own right now) but the idea that the biggest theatre writer in the city is saying it maybe shouldn't have happened at all is insane. You can see my (and other's comments) on his post.
I also wrote a letter to the editor. Milwaukee's Theatre community doesn't need to accept such lousy coverage. I'm not saying that Damien has to like what we do (i expect he won't) but if he's supposed to be a news source covering significant things happening in the theatre community, then he needs to at least acknowledge the existence of things he doesn't like.
Here's the Journal's "letters to the editor" address: jsedit@journalsentinel.com
Here's what i wrote:
When are you going to replace your unqualified and terrible theatre writer?
Damien Jaques spends more time regurgitating Broadway headlines than
covering local theatre. He has a narrow uninformed definition of what
makes good theatre. He was the bane of Theatre X (but then pretended
to be sad when they closed) he refuses to acknowledge the existence of
smaller theater companies, indeed recently advised Quasi Theatre that
they shouldn't have even tried to produce Shakespeare. This man is
ignoring or obstructing the growth and development of a new and
exciting theatre scene in this city.
The Journal has recently expanded and VASTLY improved it's visual arts
coverage, thanks to Mary Louise Schumacher's engaged and dedicated
coverage of not only every gallery show, but also spearheading and
participating in vital discussions of relevant issues in the visual
art community. Why can't you replace Mr Jaques with someone who'll
give similar treatment to our struggling theatre community?
Ben Turk
Local Playwright and Theatre Producer with Insurgent Theatre.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Play in a Day 4 and Press in Milwaukee
Seeing as how most of the media outlets in Milwaukee (excepting Third Coast Digest) completely ignored our press releases for Play in a Day 4 (motherfuckers) I need to post this here:
WE ARE DOING A SHOW UNLIKE ANY OTHER SHOW DONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD EVER THIS WEEKEND!!!
Play in a Day 4
Saturday 8pm Tenth Street Theatre (10th and Wisconsin, under the big red church) $10
The Onion, The Journal, and The Shepherd don't think it's worth you knowing about enough to EVEN LIST IT in their events listing (but the onion has space to do joke write ups about other shows). I kind of think that creating a full length play, with script, sets, cues, etc in only 24 hours is an acheivement worth staying up all nigth for and I hope you'll think it's worth seeing.
I don't mean to sound bitter, but COME FUCKING ON! What the fuck kind of impossible feat or giant spectacle do artists in Milwaukee have to attempt in order to get any goddamn attention from the fucking press in this town? This is just one example that's got me pissed off at the moment, and yeah, Play in a Day is surely not the most serious or artisanal theatre show in Milwaukee, but it's symptomatic of a major problem. Mary Louise at the Journal is serious about promoting local visual art, but there's not even a blog anywhere (let alone at the big paper) that covers performing arts anything like that (Damien Jaques' blog of 80% Broadway Headlines doesn't even come close). There are tons of theatre's in this town, why such shitty coverage?
WE ARE DOING A SHOW UNLIKE ANY OTHER SHOW DONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD EVER THIS WEEKEND!!!
Play in a Day 4
Saturday 8pm Tenth Street Theatre (10th and Wisconsin, under the big red church) $10
The Onion, The Journal, and The Shepherd don't think it's worth you knowing about enough to EVEN LIST IT in their events listing (but the onion has space to do joke write ups about other shows). I kind of think that creating a full length play, with script, sets, cues, etc in only 24 hours is an acheivement worth staying up all nigth for and I hope you'll think it's worth seeing.
I don't mean to sound bitter, but COME FUCKING ON! What the fuck kind of impossible feat or giant spectacle do artists in Milwaukee have to attempt in order to get any goddamn attention from the fucking press in this town? This is just one example that's got me pissed off at the moment, and yeah, Play in a Day is surely not the most serious or artisanal theatre show in Milwaukee, but it's symptomatic of a major problem. Mary Louise at the Journal is serious about promoting local visual art, but there's not even a blog anywhere (let alone at the big paper) that covers performing arts anything like that (Damien Jaques' blog of 80% Broadway Headlines doesn't even come close). There are tons of theatre's in this town, why such shitty coverage?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Art.
I am growing increasingly uninterested in this word. Failing galleries, the lack of viable economic models for visual art, public arts legislation, debates, subsidies, bland blind support parading as criticism, post-modern subjectivity, endless pleas and demands for funding, accumulations of deadly art, silence, cliques, cliches, intentional social awkwardness as beguiling mystery, all these things make me think that maybe this word describes something that just maybe ought to not exist anymore.
An art that requires funding from governments or grants is an utterly clueless art that should be starved.
An art focused on the distinction or boundaries of High Art vs Low Art, Art vs Anti-Art, even if it seeks to blur or destroy those distinctions and boundaries is a self-indulgent art that should be ignored.
An art that says nothing more than "i like the idea of being an artist" is a deadly art that must be buried.
An art that plays it safe and panders to it's audience is a useless art that should be discarded.
An art reliant on irony, nostalgia, or anything short of earnestness is a disgusting art that must be stamped out.
A society or culture that relies upon any of these arts, deserves none.
A society or culture with no art ceases to exist.
The degree to which our culture relies on these forms of art, is the degree to which our culture deserves to cease.
The definition of this word is profoundly problematic, to the point that we probably should stop using it. If a refined play or a symphony is art but a blockbuster movie or rock concert is not, then the art/not art definition comes from economic practices, not forms content or genres. The symphony is art because it is paid for by patrons or governments. The rock concert is not because it is paid for by tickets and merch sales. If art is art because it relies on an obsolete economic form, then fuck art. I want no part of it.
Even if we consider blockbusters and proceniums as both being art, we still must pay attention to these economic forms. We'll notice a historical progression of these economic forms. From fuedal patronage to capitalist commodity production to an undefined future, some kind of post-capitalist communisation. This is what the grant-begging art world is utterly, stupidly clueless of. Art must live in the future. To rely on commodity production when the world will soon run on communisation is merely dense, but to rely on patronage when the world runs on commodity production is idiotic.
Artists must seek the new economic forms. We must find out how to live communisation, and do our part to create a post-capitalist world. In the meantime, compromises are acceptable, but to rely on and demand patronage? That is starvation-worthy.
An art that requires funding from governments or grants is an utterly clueless art that should be starved.
An art focused on the distinction or boundaries of High Art vs Low Art, Art vs Anti-Art, even if it seeks to blur or destroy those distinctions and boundaries is a self-indulgent art that should be ignored.
An art that says nothing more than "i like the idea of being an artist" is a deadly art that must be buried.
An art that plays it safe and panders to it's audience is a useless art that should be discarded.
An art reliant on irony, nostalgia, or anything short of earnestness is a disgusting art that must be stamped out.
A society or culture that relies upon any of these arts, deserves none.
A society or culture with no art ceases to exist.
The degree to which our culture relies on these forms of art, is the degree to which our culture deserves to cease.
The definition of this word is profoundly problematic, to the point that we probably should stop using it. If a refined play or a symphony is art but a blockbuster movie or rock concert is not, then the art/not art definition comes from economic practices, not forms content or genres. The symphony is art because it is paid for by patrons or governments. The rock concert is not because it is paid for by tickets and merch sales. If art is art because it relies on an obsolete economic form, then fuck art. I want no part of it.
Even if we consider blockbusters and proceniums as both being art, we still must pay attention to these economic forms. We'll notice a historical progression of these economic forms. From fuedal patronage to capitalist commodity production to an undefined future, some kind of post-capitalist communisation. This is what the grant-begging art world is utterly, stupidly clueless of. Art must live in the future. To rely on commodity production when the world will soon run on communisation is merely dense, but to rely on patronage when the world runs on commodity production is idiotic.
Artists must seek the new economic forms. We must find out how to live communisation, and do our part to create a post-capitalist world. In the meantime, compromises are acceptable, but to rely on and demand patronage? That is starvation-worthy.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Things you should do
I haven't had time to write on here for a while, but i wanna post about things that have happened since getting back from Tour.
1. i've been reading and re-reading The Call. Get your free copy at the CCC and fuck some shit up. seriously.
2. I've been rehearsing an insurgent version of King Lear's act 5 to be performed at Bedlam Theatre with some awesome companies from around the country. If you know me, you know how i HATE shakespeare, and my hatred (as well as others' boundless love) influenced our version. We wanna do this locally, but it's only 20 minutes long. If you like shakespeare and wanna go head to head with our fucked up play to make an evening of shakespeare interrogation in Milwaukee in June, LET ME KNOW!!!
3. fixing to play some experimental music! This weekend, at the Freaks Come Out and the Borg Ward (google it), next month with Realicide and Victory! later next month with some other stuff. Bass. Feedback. Drone. Acrobatics.
4. Booking touring theatre groups! Bedlam and trutheatertheater! Get details on insurgenttheatre.org
5. playing frisbeeeeee and kickball! Join us! Sunday mornings at riverside for frisbee (ultimate) tuesday evenings at peirce and meineke for kickball. comment for time and details. Victory summer!
6. rehearsing Ulysses' Crewmen. I am so happy about this.
1. i've been reading and re-reading The Call. Get your free copy at the CCC and fuck some shit up. seriously.
2. I've been rehearsing an insurgent version of King Lear's act 5 to be performed at Bedlam Theatre with some awesome companies from around the country. If you know me, you know how i HATE shakespeare, and my hatred (as well as others' boundless love) influenced our version. We wanna do this locally, but it's only 20 minutes long. If you like shakespeare and wanna go head to head with our fucked up play to make an evening of shakespeare interrogation in Milwaukee in June, LET ME KNOW!!!
3. fixing to play some experimental music! This weekend, at the Freaks Come Out and the Borg Ward (google it), next month with Realicide and Victory! later next month with some other stuff. Bass. Feedback. Drone. Acrobatics.
4. Booking touring theatre groups! Bedlam and trutheatertheater! Get details on insurgenttheatre.org
5. playing frisbeeeeee and kickball! Join us! Sunday mornings at riverside for frisbee (ultimate) tuesday evenings at peirce and meineke for kickball. comment for time and details. Victory summer!
6. rehearsing Ulysses' Crewmen. I am so happy about this.
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