gabriele schafer  "Can it still be possible, we ask ourselves, to make theatre or work toward social change in a world in which TimeWarner and Disney control the market/information complex?"

The answer to that question hinges on the most difficult of concepts to grasp -- audience. Who is and whom do we want as our audience? For seasonal theater companies in particular that question often becomes muddied by the quest for revenue. While there is some targeting and outreach, mostly, the desire is for LARGE audiences because they bring in more income, directly and indirectly (status, grants, etc.), which in turn affords more theater to be made. With the growth model and our cultural bias to 'think big' comes the inevitable comparison with mass communication capabilities, i.e., 'But how can theater compete?'

When it comes to audience, larger is not necessarily better or more impacting, especially if the desired goal is change of some sort.

To effect directed social change you first have to effect change within the psyche of individual audience members. And that's best accomplished 'in person,' 'in the flesh,' that is, with as little mechanical mediation as possible (it's why we still place a high value on face to face psychotherapy, concert tours, motivational speaking, churches, meeting idols in person... human contact). Why? Because ultimately ALL communication is mediated and thus to some degree corrupt, so the less mediation, the better. Part of the reason two people miscommunicate all the time is because of the volatility of our apparatuses -- our lowly flesh -- that receives, processes and then presents these signals to our "self"; the other part, of course, is the inadequacy of our communication tools (language, etc.). So our best bet of achieving the clear, truthful communication necessary to achieve a desired change in another human is by eliminating as much mediation as possible. It's easier to "reach" someone the less far apart you are.

So a theater sized audience is good for reaching out and having an impact. But then there's the next problem. Since 'audience' is indeed not a monolith but composed of individuals who are completely unpredictable, often even to themselves, whom do we want in our audience. Does it matter?

I do think that part of the process of creating is speculating on how and by whom you would like that creation to be received. You said:

"And on a deeper level, I wanted to encourage people to wonder, after they found themselves "caring," who it was they were actually caring about... "Who the hell is Pam Anderson or Frank Sinatra, anyway...?" "

When you pondered this, who were you imagining the 'people' to be? And why do you want them wondering who Pam Anderson and Frank Sinatra are; are you for instance inviting self-comparison in the hopes of achieving greater personal self-awareness in your audience members - i.e., are you interested in effecting change and if so, what kind?

jeffrey jones Just regular type people. People like myself :-).

I think I assumed most of them would have pretty negative associations about most of the celebrities involved, and by subverting the techniques of representational drama, I would make them "care" about people they previously couldn't have cared less about. I guess I was hoping people would say, as Matthew Maguire did to me, "I always hated Frank Sinatra but you kind of made me feel sorry for the guy." Or that they might think, "Gee, I never realized Pam was that complicated or had it that tough..."  And that this might generate cognitive dissonance. That the next reaction might be "Hunh?" or "what's going on here..." and they would see that the play is kind of a sham--a ruse. Who the hell knows what Pam and Frank were "really" like?

In hindsight, I think what happens in DLS is that, by imagining some kind of plausible private experience for these people, I temporarily create the illusion of them as something other than celebrities. Whether or not this occurs to anyone isn't terribly important, but I think that's how the effect works.

But no, I am not expecting to effect any change. I don't really think that's what theatre is for. I don't think it will make my shoes fit any better, either, or remove the wart on my right index finger.

gabriele schafer  So Chris and I just (re)watched The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant - killer film - but we can't for the life of us remember in what context you brought it up that day and it's buggin' us big time...

jeffrey jones It was probably in the general context of indirect influences. The film really made an impression on me--this was during the Film Forum's Fassbinder retrospective--and I think it was one of the first times (along with Ethyl Eichelberger) that I really understood camp in an emotional way.

What I was talking about at the time was the presentation of ordinary feelings without apology in a majestic, oversized way, but I think I was still kind of censoring myself. What I really liked about the film was its direct embrace of melodrama as a modality--as the way we should live if we lived fully and truly (which is not to say pathetically, as well). As we've been reminded by the reviews, Americans get really squeamish about melodrama--it is entirely a pejorative term and means people "overacting." There's a rule of the corporate workplace that one should "keep one's feelings private" which is a distillation of this larger cultural distaste for feelings of all kinds--with the possible exception of sentimental feelings, which are (I propose) the opposite of melodramatic emotions.

Melodrama as Fassbinder depicts it combines two things: First, of course there is the exaggeration of one's own feelings, but there is also very clearly in the process the re-assertion of one's own role as the principal actor in one's own life. To say that the melodramas of Petra von Kant (at least, as I remember them ten years later!) are false is to completely miss the point. The only way Petra can approximate her true feelings is to enlarge and thereby distort them. Melodrama in this sense is a way of saying that the value of one's feelings is directly related to their size--and not their "authenticity." To put it another way, it is saying that the only measure of authenticity is size, not some kind of "sincerity." I think sentiment is the opposite of melodrama not because it is less "sincere" but because the fundamental strategy of sentiment is diminution, not exaggeration. So the sentimental and the melodramatic are necessarily at war with each other; necessarily find each other monstrous.

And obviously, I think melodrama--at least a kind of very disciplined exaggeration of feelings by a person who is well aware that they are "acting" their lives--is a central modality for many of the characters and scenes of DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS.

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