Fortune Preserv'd

I don’t know about you, but reading Outrageous Fortune has been HARD. Emotionally. The book’s concluding paragraph states, “This study set out to take a snapshot of new play production,” and that’s exactly what it did -- betraying some internalized self-loathing along the way, perhaps, but for the most part, creating a brave act of psychic photorealism that wasn’t always easy to relive.

So you have to love the concluding chapter. After Outrageous Fortune’s rigorous dissection of America’s gimpy new play production process (at least as it’s conducted in the regional system), the book’s concluding chapter attempts to offer something of a restorative -- smelling salts after a mental eclipse. In "Postive Practices and Novel Ideas," we dash through a number of singularities that seem to be getting it right.

The tonic semi-works. We’re treated to the healthy experiences of a number of playwrights I happen to admire: Liz Duffy Adams, Adam Bock, John Walch, Amy Freed and more. Also we hear of a number of theaters and arts organizations that are making a difference. Yet for me, the takeaway about many of these success stories is that they succeed not working the system better than others but largely by transcending the system altogether.

Ironically, therefore, the book in general and the last chapter in particular both inadvertently reinforce a conclusion that many of us have already come to. Which is that the only way to win is not to play. Let the regional system dodder on if it wants to; we don’t have to ape its shopworn antics. The powerful, numinous, affecting work is happening at the extremes: the mammoth venues like BAM that can afford to present important work, and the numerous small theaters around the country that aren’t waiting for funding and subscribers and so-called “world-class” status. Likewise you can look to the “fringes” for encompassing, community-based theater experiences that that have genuine impact on human thought and feeling, and you can look to the many excellent one-person shows to provide an honesty largely missing from the regional machinery of theater production. For these theater artists, Outrageous Fortune is mostly irrelevant.

Don’t get me wrong; this book is valuable, and has already succeeded in its goal of being “the start of a conversation” (those are its closing words). It’s just that some of us feel the tiny universe described in Outrageous Fortune gave up on us long before we gave up on it.

O.F. chapter 3: 2 rants, 1 rave

Chapter 3 of Outrageous Fortune, “The Way of the Play,” searches for passage through the shoals of new play production. Just as in the chapter I reported on previously, there’s enough in this lengthy assay to generate posts aplenty, so I’m going to narrow my focus. Doubtless different parts will leap out at other readers.

Again, much here is so unerringly true about the fractious journey from page to production that it’s almost a shock to see it delineated so well. Let’s face it, the pitfalls are legion. We all know this. Hence I was encouraged by this chapter’s opening question: “How can we clear the path for plays of merit to get to the stage?”

Alas, this chapter is less successful at responding to that conundrum and more articulate about how and why plays don’t make it. Even so, the chapter is rife with questionable assumptions. You know a bias has come to the fore when a major section has the boldface heading: LITERARY GATEKEEPERS; there's a faintly snarky tone to the whole subject. However, as a former literary director, I have to admit that much in the section was painfully recognizable. I especially winced later on in the chapter at a quote attributed to a playwright who referred to literary staffs as “neutered dogs biting their stitches.” Ouch. So true it smarts.

An aside: Literary folk can wield great influence at a theater, or they can be mere script-rejecters -- the spectrum is broad. But as the chapter points out, ultimately they are in the employ of the theater, not of the playwrights banging on the theater’s door, and that puts a torque on their relationships with the very artists they were hired to cultivate. Personally, I’ve lost some friends over the years because I ran interference at the express demand of one artistic director or another and didn’t dare intimate that to the playwright. I’ve even been disparaged in a popular performance piece for being a blowhard (I guess) because I couldn’t just say, “Look, my AD can’t stand you and you should shop your talents somewhere else.” But that is part of the job. Many literary managers (not all, but many) feel they’ve managed to accomplish whatever they have for playwrights in spite of their bosses, not because of their support or vision …………… only to be spat upon by both sides of the fence. For this reason, it is disappointing to see Outrageous Fortune parrot the extremely offensive term “dramaturged to death,” as though workshops would be new play nirvana were the playwright not shot down by a lone gunmen working on his own.

But anyway. A good chunk of Chapter 3 is devoted to script rejection. “The language of rejection needs to be rethought, and handled with probity and honesty, most agree.” Well -- sure. Of course there should be no dishonesty. But many writers ask for specifics when the fact is that often there is no satisfactory reason why a play does not stay under consideration. Many elements and disparate personalities come into play during season planning, and if the decision-makers’ discussions don’t generate enough heat, even an excellent play will fall off the table.

Also, let’s not be naïve. Do playwrights really want unvarnished honesty? If I say to you, “We passed on your play because we felt your ending was lame,” what subtext do you hear? If you rewrite that ending under the impression that now Theater XYZ will gladly produce it, and that doesn’t happen, then you will really feel had. The danger of specific criticism is that will be received as advice -- or even as a promise.

For me, this chapter’s most valuable contribution is its demystification of the commissioning process, which still, after all these years, is subject to much misunderstanding on both sides. Playwrights will find no surprises here, but theaters might. I hope commissioners at all levels will pore over this important section and glean some new ideas about the transaction -- such as understanding that it is a transaction.

Being here now

“This island universe.” Of course the poet was referring to the cosmos, but the phrase always reminds me of the theater -- its insularity, its ever-increasing marginality, its travails and revelations.

Talk about interesting timing. Only last month Applause Books released The Play That Changed My Life, a cheerful book which, as Marissabidilla and others have pointed out, suggests an affirmative view of theater’s health. And now, as if as a corrective, the Theatre Development Fund has launched another book that investigates the moribund means of production through which new plays are brought into being nowadays -- or aren’t.

Outrageous Fortune, subtitled “The Life and Times of the New American Play,” provides a valuable snapshot of where we seem to be right now and what might be done about it. So valuable, in fact, that Isaac Butler has organized a flotilla of bloggers to discuss the book’s findings and recommendations. You can see the schedule and the participants at Parabasis, but in sum: we all look at Chapter 1 today from our various perspectives; on Friday I will take apart Chapter 3, titled “The Way of the Play”; and next Wednesday we’ll all consider the final chapter’s counsel about where to go from here.

So. Deep breath.

Provocative Chapter 1 is entitled “Dialogue in the Dark: Playwrights & Theatres.” And its contribution to the book is to map the territory of new play production as it currently exists. No one imbedded in institutional theater (or who works as a satellite of it, like most “successful” playwrights) will find any surprises here. Nevertheless, it’s bracing to find it all described so thoroughly. Delineating “a crisis in collaboration,” the authors chart a course of increasing estrangement of playwrights from the theaters that produce them.

Plenty of blame to go around, of course, but special attention is given to a bricks-and-mortar mentality that privileges institutionality over artistry and staff over artists. It’s an old argument with an obvious refutation, but Outrageous Fortune is singular in putting its finger squarely (if almost parenthetically) on the REAL problem.

Which is? Once you’ve created a bona fide institution, priorities necessarily change radically. From Board chair to box office, from artistic director to stage door guard, the mission of an institution and its dependents is to survive. No matter what its website says, whatever bland claims it espouses to being all about dynamic new theater, its rock bottom, honest to god mission in life is to survive at all costs. And I do mean all costs. Is it any wonder playwrights tend to feel less like they’re contributing to theater's raison d’être and more like they’re just plain in the way?

This first chapter lays the groundwork for the entire rest of the book, and does so with impressive lucidity. Go to Parabasis for an impressive range of responses to this first salvo, and stayed tuned for tomorrow’s posts on Chapter Two (“The Lives & Livelihoods of Playwrights”), as examined by Ian Moss and Matt Freeman.