Does Theater have a Future?

Freiburg, Sunday June 24 2007

Let me approach this theme non-linearly. Closer to real life, don‘t you think? I mean, the various experiences in the various worlds of one‘s life (one‘s work, one‘s love life, a chance meeting with the neighbor, the news on TV or the radio, an accident) don‘t just play themselves out in neat separated stories. They come at you in little packages, arranged by chance, throughout the days and weeks and years. Each world is a separate story in its own right. But the most interesting story of your life is told through the „random“ order of the various chapters of these various stories. A thought expressed in a cafè, an article in the paper, the memories of a distant city... all clash and combine and create: the new.

Non-linear. Random Acts of Beauty. Your life. Theater.

Where and when does theater have vitality? Where and when does theater continue or resume a strident role in the shaping of society – or cease doing so. When does the public recognize this vitality and choose to become an audience, thus validating theaters existence?

Thus having defended a meandering blog I begin:
My father, an avid amateur performer, once stated that he believed that true theater was amateur theatre rather than professional theatre. There is something of great importance in those words. This and several recent events came together in my mind today and created the urge to write this second blog.

1) The moving performance of our tenth vocational projekt with dm-drogeriemarkt „Abenteuer Kultur“ or „Adventure: Culture“. Twenty-four young apprentice druggists, one man and twenty-three woman of very different ethnic backgrounds created and interpreted theatrical stories to the theme „Friendship“.

These young people had no experience in acting whatsoever, but yesterday evening they all had their outstanding moments of transcendance. Thanks to them I came upon this thought: one of the most central functions of theater is to provide a framework or vehicle that allows us to witness „das Wesen“ or the „being-ness“ of another individual. The story, the charactor, the lighting... all is just the setting for that jewel of a moment when an actor becomes transparent and I see into her soul and through her soul into whatever it is beyond us all.

But not only these moments were important. The contributions throughout our structured process of discussion, discovery and rehearsel reinstated Franziskas and my conviction that everyone has something to say on stage. On the very first day these young women stood alone onstage and told us their hopes and their stories of friendship. Most of them were scared to death to stand up there alone and speak. But still they did with an honesty that provided a wonderful foundation for our work with them.

The stories that theater tell should not only come from the „great wise ones“ of the past or from the established theater institutions, but also from the people. I think that one of the reasons that theatre loses so much grounds these days is an overemphasis on professionalism. When you make theater your living, you have to work so hard that you are in danger of losing contact with the real world. Especially in the state theater system here in Germany, the actors and directors and dramaturgs are so caught up in the rehearsels and performances that they rarely leave their world of concrete, halogene spotlights, black walls and scuffed wooden stages. How can they know what is going on out there?

2) That said, the state theater here in Freiburg is making wonderful efforts to re-vitalise itself. Today I heard about a lecture on the theater‘s main stage on „globalisation from a leading professor of sociology Saksia Sassen, and decided to attend. Her lecture was extremely interesting, seeing as how she made it clear that the central acts of globalisation take place on the national, or even local level. At least, that is what struck me. Seeing as how we are working next week with our acquaintances from Matsuyama, and in light of our upcoming production „On the Tip of the Iceberg“ the whole process of international communication and regulation and activism has become extremely interesting for me.

What I had not realised was that this lecture was part of a 24-hour theater event. The cavernous backstage had been transformed into a place to meet, dance, and partake in discussions centering on the theatre‘s unusual project „Orbit“.
What the state theater is trying to do is something that has been going on for a long time in the free (independant) theater scene here in Germany. The Freiburg Civic Theater and several of its fellow theaters (Heidelberg and Essen) are searching for ways to reach out into the neighborhoods, find out what‘s going on, and to involve the public in active, creative collaboration. Typical projects have to do with empowering so-called „fringe“ groups to theatrically „voice“ their experiences, dreams and criticisms of society. There are many different projects with many different approaches.
The whole day got me to thinking about collectivism in theater.

Collective collaboration in Theatre... of all the productions that we have produced since we became „Theater R.A.B.“ – I just counted all pieces longer than 20 minutes and our workshop productions with dm-drogeriemarkt and in Elsass… I came up with 50 productions! – not one was written by a single person. One or two plays were „written“ by one person but only as the results of ensemble improvisation. Some of our workshop productions had scenes from classical plays or were modified versions of Shakespeare, but all were so extremely modified that they were basically new plays. But most often the text is a collaborative process. The original idea is modified by the actors and then again modified by the director. Or, even more interesting, a fragment of text created by one performer becomes part of a dialog between two other performers.
In our educationally driven productions this has become a central part of the work.

The student participants perform something that has to do with themselves – but not only themselves. They encounter the words of masters such as Shakespeare or Ilse Aichinger – but not as something foreign but as something bound up with their own personal statement. Their personal humor enrichens the work without being bound by television clichés. They don‘t stand there like fenceposts reciting dead prosa – they enact stories that have become their own.

They learn that they are creative people with the ability to say something. And they become part of a larger society.
The structure of the last century or two, in which a single person focuses on an aspect of society and then writes a play for others to interpret and bring on the stage.... perhaps this is no longer the structure that can sustain the interest of the community at large in theater. Certainly individual authors have their place in theatre. But this does not make theater unique and I do not think that the works of individual authors draw people away from the Competition and into the playhouses.

I (and probably you, the reader) am part of a dangerously small community of people in the (western) world who are convinced that theatre still has a viable and central role to play in the greater theater of society. I see that Film and Television and Pop/Rock and the Internet have their unique contributions to society, and have drawn large audiences away from the stage. But I still believe that there is something about theater that these mediums do not at all replace. And I believe that if we theatre people can just get a grip on this „something“, audiences will return in large enough numbers. Just as bookstores are making a comeback, the live performance will again become popular.

(When I say again, I don‘t mean that there are not successful thriving theatre communities out there. There are. But in society at large, there is no drive or push, no sense that you are not „with it“ if you don‘t go to theater. This used to be the case.)
So, I guess this is going to be one wordy blog! If you‘ve born with me this far, I‘d appreciate your comments and questions.