Re: RAT Marx in Soho (in LA)

["D.D. Delaney" <namewon@whro.net>]

Hey, Rats!

    Though the conversation has moved on, I'm slow at assimilation and
am still thinking about ticket prices.
    It seems to me that there is a natural cycle to theater production,
probably part of some larger pattern of things, by which the creative
act invariably yields to the drive to institutionalize the creative
act. The former is always heady and exciting, as, for example, when a
group of artists come together with creativity ablazing, to do a show
or a string of shows. I'm sure we've all been part of such a project or
movement, where ambition and early fulfillment persuades us to...you got
it!...start an independent theater company! 
    Enter phase 2, the institution. Where before we did it anywhere we
could, for free or for mere pocket change, now we want to do it for a
living, as a career. Suddenly the game changes. So do the personalities
of the artists. They're not just artists any more, flying on creative
inspiration. They're also in business, which means that nine-to-five
becomes at least as important as three-to-midnight. Eventually, I sub-
mit, it becomes more important, as expenses challenge earned income.
Folded within that process, ticket prices go up, and artists who started
out channeling their creative juices into art quite naturally begin to
pour that same creativity into keeping the institution afloat. 
    Maybe it's just the justice of natural selection that only the per-
sonalities who can do both at least adequately tend to survive in thea-
ter. But in my experience, no matter what the publicity machines want
me to believe, institutionalization compromises art. It confines the
imagination within the parameters defined by contemporary politics. 
    In a liberal, prosperous society, the compromise, for many, is with-
in the range of manageable pain. But in a conservative, stingy society,
such as the one coming to be before our eyes, the situation is sort of
intolerable. Playwrights channel their best creative flow into writing
press releases and grant proposals, actors become schmoozers, and crit-
ical thought becomes bookkeeping. It all happens so gradually that we
don't notice that creativity has become frozen in institutional pillars
of stone. 
    If your aim is to make a living from theater, institutionalization
seems the way to go. But how much can you compromise art before the muse
moves on? And what must you sacrifice to catch up with the divine one
again? Or tease heim back into your arms for just one more opening
night? Preliminary estimate: A lot.
    Having fallen a few times myself for the company initiative, I now
believe I cannot remain creative artistically so long as I focus on
making a living out of the results. Call it the nature of the muse. If
I cross the line, invariably, I fall out of the creative mode and into
the survival mode, taunting my muse and tainting my relationships with
my friends. That's not an attractive option, especially as I get older
and begin glimpsing immortality, with or without a play on Broadway to
bring me fame and gain.
    So I'm laying low these days, retired from theater management and
letting my muse and lover come to me with the projects s/he wants me to
do. So far these have turned out really well. Also, I'm not near as
burnt out as I used to me, not near as crazy. Hmmmm. Maybe I'll start
another theater? No, no! Stop me! Wake me up! 
    Okay, to get real, here it is: right now, in the present societal
paradigm, I am fortunate to be still working from time to time. Appar-
ently there are enough ambitious producers in the world who think I can
be of use to them. So long as I work for the art and not for the living,
I haven't had to make too many compromises. But I have not always been
able to hold onto my hard-won identity as "theater artist," either.
That's been the trade-off. I have to believe that in surrendering con-
trol of my career my true calling will win out, and it helps to believe
as well that whatever I'm doing is part of my true calling, at least
for a certain time. It's a spiritual commitment, really, in which insti-
tutionalization represents a kind of temptation from the devil. Good
luck, all you who play that game! I mean it. The devil's maybe not too
smart, but it doesn't matter because he cheats. Besides that, is this
really the only game in town?
    Well, I didn't mean to get cosmic, but I guess that's where I'm at
on ticket prices. The way things are now, by the time you even start to
charge them you're already up to your wheel rims in the sand. By then,
the muse, sensing your fickleness, becomes inconstant as well. Why not?
Two can play that game, and what's good for the goose, etc. So your
infallible intuition for choosing good seasons fails, your big holiday
money-maker is buried by snow, your out-of-town star has an alcohol
problem, your lead quits the night before tech because she can't stand
your director, someone in a cast member's family dies. Bad timing is
one sure sign your muse is turned off by your intentions. Creeping box
office parsimony will not heal relations, either. In my opinion.
    I could be way off in arguing for an unconditional universe, where
creativity is free and unfettered, but my understanding is that already
exists and only needs to be accessed. Just don't expect bourgeois secur-
ity--unless of course your muse is bourgeois. Seems a reach to me, but
who am I to say it's not possible?

D.D. Delaney




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