Re: RAT Re dramaturgy

[nick <nick@nickspix.com>]

At 03:37 PM 11/29/00 -0500, brad rothbart wrote:

>  Also, on a more serious note, Nick- by using audience and production 
>to discern "masturbatoryness"- are you  casting this on a relative 
>scale?
>  Is THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES less masturbatory than LESSER MAGOO 
>simply because it was seen by a greater number of people??
>
>  Does the  work have to be produced/seen/consumed within the 
>artist's lifetime? By that standard Van Gogh was a bigger masturbator 
>(and therefore lesser artist) than Basquiat- and Emily Dickinson the 
>biggest masturbator of them all.

The popular audience has very little power beyond box office or the
prestige that such fame may provide. To demand of your art that it make you
a living lessens its potential elsewhere.

Often communiqués demand very unique readers in order to find their most
puissant audience.  For instance, many people may consider "having an
audience" with the Pope the momentous occasion of their lives. 

And why limit readership to only the living, or even the human?  The Rain
Dance also seeks its reader.  

--nick