A Dramatic Paradox

I love the theater. I have experienced emotions in the theater that I can still feel today as I sit here. I have spent hours in the theater that have transformed my life. And I say this as a person who has had no shortage of real life experiences to compare. I genuinely enjoy the experience of most theater I go to see. I appreciate the work people do; I get a warm heart from watching a great young actor or actress; I get a kick out of the lines; I love the live energy in the room.

So, of course, as a person who writes plays, I would really like to see my work done more often for more people because I love the theater so much and I want people to feel what I feel when I am there. I believe that, when done right, they will love it too. -- Which of course, may be ridiculously quixotic and wishful thinking but isn't that the great thing about love? We want to share what we love with other people we love because we feel so much love? It's a great feeling.

Here's the paradox: While I love theater, and I enjoy most of the work I experience, I don't think most theater I see is very good. It rarely fully takes advantage of all of the potential of theater. It often feels forced, constricted, tense, overly-focused, or overly-polemic. It lacks the daring and bravado and free-ranging, surprising subject matter of most other art forms: music, photography, fine art, even television. Which I find extremely odd since one of the things I love about live theater is how capable it is of incorporating all other art forms -- dance, design, story, music, all of it.

How is this possible? Well, life doesn't have to avoid paradoxes so who cares. It's just true. The deeper meaning for me is this: I want theaters to do my work but I deeply dislike the work they choose to do. Now, someone must like the work they choose. They must have reasons for choosing it. They must, at least, think their audience likes it. (I'd argue with the last premise but that's another, different blog post.) SO -- HOW CAN I EXPECT THESE SAME THEATERS TO APPRECIATE THE PLAYS I WRITE WHEN I DISAGREE WITH THEIR FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES ABOUT THEATER AS DEMONSTRATED BY WHAT THEY PUT ON STAGE? The only thing we have in common is that we both have some appreciation for theater. . . I can't even say that they also love theater since most of the "theater" people I know can't stand to watch anything they weren't involved with.

Still -- I often go to many of these theaters and walk away both happy and unhappy. I enjoyed the experience. It's better than mediocre television (though rarely better than great television). I like the live experience even when it isn't better than television. Yet, I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends who don't go see theater. You have to be in this clique that genuinely believes in this stiff, talking-head, "thematically-relevant," deterministic, self-important aesthetic or the clique of people who just like it when its live, in order to appreciate this stuff.

For years, I thought I'd do it differently and make it the way I liked it. And people would respond. But age teaches me that the doors to the audience are guarded by people who actually do like a different style of theater than I do. Nothing personal. But where does that leave me as a playwright?