Responding to Ulf Schmidt's "Agile Theater"

This January, dramaturg Ulf Schmidt presented a paper titled "Auf dem Weg zum agilen Theater" ("On the Way to Agile Theater") at the Jahreskonferenz der Dramaturgischen Gesellschaft in Mannheim. In it he explores ways in which contemporary theater is failing, and how it can regain social relevancy. His interest in using digital technology on stage has merit but is not new, while his assertion that we appropriate production models from other industries constitutes a categorical error.

 

He begins by drawing a bleak scenario of contemporary German theater. By his report, it' doesn't appear that much different from American theater. Still, his writing features un-cited charts and hyperbole (e.g. "das Ende des Stadttheater-Schauspiels [ist] in den nächsten zehn Jahren denkbar." - "the end of publicly funded theater could occur in the next ten years.") Bob Abelman and Cheryl Kushner's diagnosis in A Theater Criticism/Arts Journalism Reader is more trustworthy. What Schmidt dramatically refers to as "die digitale Naissance" is more prosaically defined by Abelman and Kushner as modern audiences' "access to a wide variety of entertainment options through an increasing array of personal and social media." (2) Not covered by Schmidt with any kind of thoroughness is theater's "relegation to high culture status." (4) Abelman and Kushner attribute theater's seeming elitism to the "digitale Naissance," but ongoing experiments in ticket pricing seem to tell a different story, or at least a parallel story. According to Portland Center Stage Artistic Director Chris Coleman, Signature Theater's $20 price cap has promoted a younger and more diverse audience. Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis has seen similar results by not charging for tickets. Finally, Abelman and Kushner distinguish between screen and stage by noting that the former promotes audience passivity and the later audience activity. (8)

 

Schmidt proposes two primary solutions: incorporating digital content on stage, and following a corporate production model. The first has merit, proved by the experiments of 3-Legged Dog Media + Theater Group (3LD) and their associated companies. In January's issue of American Theatre, 3LD's artistic director Kevin Cunningham noted that "Many of our more recent projects surround and immerse the audience in moving image and sound." The connection to immersive theater is notable in light of Punchdrunk's long-running Sleep No More, and Alex Timbers' use thereof in his current Broadway project, Rocky. In 3LD's specific case, immersive theater addresses the omnipresence of digital technology in our modern lives. Generally, immersive theater embraces theater's capacity for audience activity.

Schmidt's second proposal, following a corporate production model inspired by the work of Hollywood and Silicon Valley makes a categorical error: TV and technology companies create products for mass consumption. Such is the nature of broadcast supplemented by archival platforms like Netflix and Hulu, and the creation of iPads to be sold worldwide to enable access to Netflix and Hulu. Theater, by its nature, is a limited time event. As such, it suffers the same market weakness as any handmade craft: limited production leads to higher cost.

While hyperbolic and un-cited, Schmidt is correct that one of the challenges faced by modern theater (in both Germany and the United States) is the ubiquity of digital technology and entertainment platforms. His assessment that appropriating these technologies for use in the theaters offers one viable solution to this challenge is being born out by American theater companies, and has been since at least the 90s when 3LD emerged from the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. His rather involved fascination with Hollywood and Silicon Valley production models, however, misses the point. Those industries have developed their processes to match the products they create, which are mass producible. By its nature as a live, site-specific crucible of human interaction, theater needs its own production models. Schmidt might do better to look at theaters who have been addressing his digitale Naissance.

 

Hurt Village

One of my major frustrations with the dominate culture is the way it lumps all ethnic minorities into one simple category. While the Greeks had their barbarians, and the Jews their Gentiles, white America has its People of Color.

That said, Katori Hall’s depiction of the social disintegration in the Hurt Village district of Memphis in her play of the same name was uncomfortably familiar to me. The drug use, broken families, dislocation, and men from poor communities used as military cannon fodder is as much a part of Indian country as it is the indigent black community in Hall’s story.

Eerily, the similarities don’t stop there. In the first act, Hall tells the story with her tongue in her cheek. I’m familiar with this kind of humor being used as a coping mechanism in Indian country, so I was surprisingly at home with its use in Hurt Village.

But the humor went away after the first act, and all I was left with were images of absentee fathers and people screwing their lives up with drugs. I see too much of that in real life, and it breaks my heart every time. I don’t need to see it when I go to the theater. But I wasn’t the only person in the audience. Maybe others there did need to see that kind of hopelessness and destruction? But I’m not so sure. I was the only Indian I was aware of there, and there were a few African Americans and Asians, but the audience was primarily affluent whites.

So my question is what is Hall trying to accomplish parading stories about poor blacks who have to sell crack to survive in Memphis in front of well-to-do white New Yorkers? The answer that seems most likely to me is that this is a therapy play – a piece to help the playwright work through some hurt that is setting on her. Once a playwright gets that out of her or his system, she or he can continue to tell all the other stories that need to be told. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before, the only difference is that the other therapy plays I’m aware of have an element of healing, something Hurt Village lacks. To further argue against my theory, this is not Hall’s first play. It could be that it takes her more than one play to work through her hurt, but based on my previous experience with this sort of theater, I’m left questioning her commitment to her community. Is Hurt Village really a constructive piece of art, that helps a traumatized community and/or person heal, or is it simply a playwright capitalizing on that trauma by selling it to the highest bidder?

That’s my question, but you can see for yourself and make up your own mind. Hurt Village plays at the Signature Theatre on 42^nd Street until March 18^th. Tickets are $25 at http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=1940.