Theater and Politics and self-pity.

And not because they are connected. In fact, in the stream or river or rain of consciousness writing that I feel like doing right now, I'd have to say that theater would have to matter to a larger percentage of the population in order to be connected to politics. Don't get me wrong - I think theater is incredibly relevant and "matters" to the personal emotional expansion and imaginative thinking and creative potential that it nurtures in the individual people who come see it. I just don't think it is directly politically relevant. I don't think movies are directly politically relevant either and more people watch them. Music can be political. . . I wonder why? Because it literally can move large masses of people -- like politics. Movies, theater, t.v., books, these are much more personally effective endeavors. They may effect someone's ultimate political views but they aren't political in the sense that people literally move as a result of them. Which is not a failing. Music, short and sweet and effective, hits us differently.

I'm thinking today however that all I ever get motivated to write on this blog are theater or politics. And generally unhappily. O the infinite self-pity I can acheive when thinking about the contemporary theater community and my place in it. Here's one that amuses me: Every year I apply for core membership at the Playwrights Center and every year I am rejected. OK, fine, whatever. You can't win them all. I think I've earned it. Five professional productions in the last year, real playwright leadership locally, I started a theater company that actually paid 60 local playwrights including many PWC core members. I've gotten phenomenal reviews, good audiences. I've experimented with style, writing for actors, working with physical theater, creating realistic dialogue or abstract symbolic movement. Played with time. Played with media. Played with stagecraft. Hey - I've done a little bit. I've actually done a little bit more than most. OK. They can do whatever they want with their membership structure. Except - People WHO ACTUALLY WORK AT THE PLAYWRIGHTS CENTER keep thinking that I'm a Core Member. More than once in the last two years someone associated with the PWCenter has asked my opinion about something over there with the preface "As a core member" or "You're a core member so" Yikes! I mean, fucking yikes! OK. OK. Fine. . . I mean I guess fine.

Somehow this seems wrong to me - if the people who actually work in the Twin CIties, if the people who know the community, think of me, look at my work, and just assume of course I'm a core member - well, I guess it doesn't matter. They don't make the decisions. Their panels are nationally constituted with people you've never heard of who are vaguely famous in the theater. Good for them. One day I'd like to be one of them. Though I will probably decline to be on panels because who in the theater has that kind of time? Here's my best guess at the moment, and I've rifled through lots of them, including the guess that regardless of audience response, critical response, and actor and director response to my work, I must truly deeply suck as a writer because the playwrights center says so. Thankfully, I've gotten over that one.

So, here's my latest theory. Most of my productions lately have been at small but professional theaters in the twin Cities, so the national panel hasn't heard of them. If however, I had a ten-minute play at the perishable theater in rhode island -- which happens to be smaller, less talented and pay less than Gremlin Theater in St. Paul -- then I'd be in better shape because the people on the panel who still look to new york for their guide have heard of perishable theater. It's you know, off-broadway in a way. Lots of people in the Twin Cities know what an adventurous and amazing company Burning House Group is but no one outside the twin cities does. I'd have to, I guess, collaborate with the Wooster group in order to get people's attention -- to belong to an playwright service organization that is based in the Twin Cities, mind you. O well.

Though the Playwrights center is the reason I came to the Twin Cities and in some ways the catalyst for me meeting my wife who I love, every since that first couple months, I've really had some pretty bad luck with them. I must have offended someone. Or I have a nasty mouth. i really do. Especially about theater. What's a poor passionate playwright who isn't shy to do. . . O! Now I understand why its best for playwrights to be quiet and shy. We all have opinions. We have tons and tons of opinions that we're confident we're correct about. All playwrights do. Jesus, half the time I can't stand to hang out with other playwrights because they're so quietly smug and secretly judgmental and arrogant. But if they're not shy, then they'd be doomed. They'd say their opinions loudly and firmly and whenever and wherever those opinions happened to spill forth because-- well, how are artists always to control their passion?!? -- and then they'd be fucked. Like me. How's that for a theory? Probably too self-centered.

I'm sure none of it has anything to do with me - except that while I rack up productions and audience and critical praise, and invent new ways to bring more theater to more people and then actually DO THEM! my friends rack up fellowship money and national notice and those things entirely pass me by. Entirely. For the last five years. At a certain point, it stops being coincidence. It stops being random. Simple probabilities would suggest that SOMETHING would go my way. O, that's nonsense. forget I typed it. . . I still think its funny that playwrights center staff think I'm a core member even though I keep getting rejected. But, hey, what do they know? I guess its not that strange either.

Thank god for blogs to vent on.

Here's the problem. One break of a certain kind leads to other breaks of a certain kind. Even though Gremlin Theatre or Burning House Group is better than some slightly-more notable small theater in some other location - and pay better -- a small production, even a ten minute play there, may be just the snowball I need to make a snowman. Core membership in the playwrights center might be the snowball. National notice. Some kind of notice. Some kind of success that makes other people say -- hey, he was noticed somewhere that I recognize. I should pay attention. As opposed to -- I've never heard of those theaters. Are they even theaters? Are there really real theaters in the Twin Cities besides Theatre de la Jeune Lune and the Guthrie?

OK. Now that I've vented. All of this is just self-pity, isn't it? There are plenty of core members of the playwrights center who can't get noticed either. How many playwrights actually make money at this? I'm pretty happy to get good productions honestly that people seem to engage with and enjoy. . . I just sometimes dream that if I was given a little support, I could really do some stuff. Actually, in the one year of the Jerome Fellowship, I was able to begin the process of taking my style of experimentation and writing to a level that sustained me for 3 years of really prolific work. I took the time of the fellowship to really examine what I was doing and what I wanted to be doing and stepping out on the edge and doing that.

I need to change again. I'd like to go toward "more bold" rather than "more commercial" but, well, who knows. I just can't help but think . . . wish. . . o, get over yourself, my friend. yes.

As for politics, more later.