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I'm an enigma.
Seriously--I am very happy when people come to
our shows. My group is still very fledgling and at this point, I still
count our success in the number of strangers that come--people who have no ties
to anyone having anything to do with the production whatsoever.
I also, however, teeter between my intense
desire to be "liked" as an artist vs. my desire to provoke the audience
somehow. I'm not sure you can really do both--not if they're taking you
seriously, anyway.
The attitude I mentioned in my previous post
and that I'm reacting against is that people somehow need to be protected from
or have their hands held in coming to work that is outside of the
mainstream. That it has to be sugar coated so that like icky medicine, it
can be tolerated--because "art" is good for you. Also, living in the
Minneapolis everything here seems to be geared towards the
suburbanites. I think I might have brought this up before. Most of
the downtown virtually shuts down once corporations close for the day and
everyone heads home. There is no culture, it seems--mainstream or
alternative--that doesn't eventually seek out the people who treat the city as
their playground and then head home somewhere else. There's very little
that is here for the people who live in the city and make it their home.
So it almost feels like we're the "zoo" and they're coming to look at the exotic
city dwellers--the artists and people of color and the homeless people and
whoever else they might encounter on their trip to Oz and we have to make sure
the neighborhood isn't scary and the art isn't scary and the homeless people are
just scary enough to make them grateful. Sometimes I resent it. The
work I do reflects where I have chosen to live and the people that I live among
and in many cases, celebrates that. And when I am told that we have to
package it just right and make it acceptable to the people who would just as
soon go to Cats, it makes me want to be as confrontational and "fuck the
audience" as I can possibly muster.
Are those probably the people I most want to
reach with my work? Absolutely! Will I? Even if I do welcome them
and fan them and feed them grapes???? If I build it, will they come?
So yes, I know that my reaction and my irritation leaves me in danger of always
playing to the choir. Maybe I should be grateful that people are willing
to "market" us. But you know what--the people that are drawn in by that
marketing don't come to our shows--and they don't go to the shows that I think
are the best ones in the Fringe. They're still drawn to musicals and sex
and certain types of shows, and more and more room will be made to accomodate
those shows--the ones that bring in the crowds so schmoes like me can do what I
do to a small house and be grateful.
Sigh. Sorry. This took an ugly
depressing turn.
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