The Right Things To Do, Part
1: Know Thyself
I began reviewing South Jersey theatre only a short while ago. But it doesn’t take
long for a dispassionate but friendly eye to spot odd places of timidity, rigidity,
confusion and inelegance. This is particularly true since these things do not
show up on the stages so much as in the houses of the companies I review.
Except for a precious few, they are universally ill-attended. That’s fact
number one.
Fact two: where is The
McCarter Theatre?
The McCarter, in Princeton, is the single, most active regional theatre in the United States. It is the grand dame of central-south Jersey
theatres with a soaring proscenium, traps, flies and a lighting grid which
makes the heavens jealous on cloudy nights. It has a full, elegant staff of
first-rate talent in every aspect of the craft. It presents, all in all, the
best argument it is possible to make for the value of live theatre.
And I got lost getting there.
Less than a mile from the door, we stop at a pizza place. Excuse me, The McCarter
Theatre? Blank stares, a shrug and gone.
Down the street, a gas
station. Again, excuse me, The McCarter?
“That’s that movie theater,
right?”
I was taken aback. So close
to this national treasure and the people working around it have never heard of
it. This represents a disjuncture between art and life which I find painful. I
fully expected everyone living and working around McCarter to know at least
what it was if not how to find it. Even the pizza drivers drew a blank? That’s absurd.
And that’s fact number two.
Knowing that you live near
arguably the best American theatre would be a great point of pride in a
rational world. That it’s not speaks barrel loads, and those barrels are not
full of fine wine.
How come they don’t know? Why
doesn’t the level of McCarter match more broadly with the level of daily life? We can take a guess that the superlative
nature of McCarter’s fare puts it off the common radar. But that answer is not
completely satisfying. And it begs the question, if they’re not aware of it for
its artistic accomplishments, how about just because it’s famous? is all theatre
too fine to be reckoned in the common field of notice?
Not at all. Staples clerks,
school secretaries, even pizza drivers are the stuff of which community theatre
is built. Community theatre is folk art of the highest sort. It is well within
the notice of folks in pizza parlors and gas stations.
And yet we have Collingswood, NJ, a town with a fabulous theatre, an arts center,
galleries and bistros. A lot of artistic stuff happens in Collingswood. Now, scoot along Haddon Avenue in Collingswood on a breezy, summer’s day and ask folks at random if
there isn’t a community theatre around there somewhere. In fact, there are two.
But if you find one person in ten who knows that’s true and, of those ones in
tens, one in ten who can name one of the two theatre companies, you’ll have
done better than I did.
This unnatural chasm between
great art and real life is rationally preposterous. All arts, particularly
theatre, grow from things every human does as a child.
What does an actor do? An
actor stands in front of witnesses and says things with great conviction which
could not possibly be true. Acting is the art form of lying. If that sounds
harsh, think “fibbing”.
What is a fort made of sofa
cushions other than a stage set? And the little one inside calling out, “I’m a
soldier, Mommy!” is an actor developing his craft. You clearly make out her
vocal characterizations and interpretations as the show goes on.
The skills of the art are so
innately bound with human development and growth and yet the art itself is so
oddly ripped away from it. This makes my brain hurt.
But an idea came to me as I
pondered facts one and two. Who is in the best position to repair this injury
to our cultural psyche? Community theatre is! The big theatres try, but there
aren’t enough of them. There are a whole lot of community theatres, and they’re
all over the place!
I hear the groan building even
before anyone has read this. It’s the over-worked core groups of community
theatres telling me they will snap if they’re given more work than is already
on their plates. Not to worry. This is intended to relieve exactly that stress by
working together and doing a couple of fun, gutsy things.
There’s a stopper, of course, or
this would have been done long ago. I don’t exactly know what’s in the way, but
I have a message for the South
Jersey theatre community to
understand with perfect clarity:
You are a very, very talented
group of people.
I have seen you on stage. I
have seen others on stage. I have reviewed you. I have reviewed professional theatre.
You are not professional theatres. But there is not a single performance I have seen
where there has not been sufficient talent, if not training and production values, to fill any
stage anywhere.
The industry as a whole seems to believe that it benefits from the interesting assertion that talent is a rare commodity and,
therefore, valuable in a free market sense.
So there are places where all the “real talent” gathers and flexes
itself. And then there is Everywhere-Else. We in Everywhere-Else must rightly
pay the real talent great sums of money to flex for us because, without them,
we have nothing to inspire us.
Okay, two thing: first, this
myth of the scarcity of talent is complete rubbish, and, second, it does not benefit the art or
the industry in any but a very unimaginative, short-sighted way. In the end, it leads
to the cultural schizophrenia we have now. Talent is not a rare commodity. It
is a human birthright. To say it is rare is to lie. Ah, theatre!
So I start here: you folks in
community theatre don’t know how talented you are. If you knew how talented you
are, if you knew how good your product is, none of this would be a problem. Why
do I think that?
Because if you knew
yourselves to be as talented as I, having seen you on stage, know you to be,
you would be beating brass drums down the streets of your towns getting notice.
You would be unable to be less proud of your products than that. You are that
damned good.
So I challenge South Jersey community theatres: meet with me. Let’s figure a place to get together
on Saturday, January 7, have a cup of tea and chat about a common strategy. I’ve heard a number of strong ideas on my
rounds, and I’m certain there are more amongst such a creative group. Let’s
raise public awareness of theatre to the point where every adult in South Jersey will know the name of her/his own community theatre group
and everyone on two legs within ten miles of Princeton will at least be able to point with pride in the direction to The McCarter,
acknowledging the cultural high ground that it is.
On the way, together, we can
accomplish the 4 Cheeks Project: four cheeks for every seat of every house of every performance of every community theatre
production playing in South
Jersey. I’m tired of sitting
alone in the dark. Let’s get me some company watching your very good work.
Where shall we meet? Let me hear from you.
Terry Stern
(856) 240-0890
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