Personal Responsibilty as Artists

I’ve been thinking a lot about “What I think Theatre should be?” Laura posed this question in our Showcase writing email. It was odd because this question seemed to be the easiest and the hardest one to answer. I have always believed that Theatre could really be anything! It can be whatever you want it to be. I’ve just never really thought about what I want from Theatre. I am one of those idealistic people who have invested all of their faith in the idea that Theatre can change the world. One moment can change another person’s entire perspective on the world. That’s all it really takes one moment. And for all we know that person, whose perspective is radically changed, could become President of the United States.
Brecht’s concept of “Epic Theatre” in particular really inspired me. He believed that Theatre should be more than entertainment and an imitation of life. It should present some sort of social or political ideas and allow the audience to make judgments on them. The goal is to make people walk away and want to do something about the current state of the world or their own lives. Brecht was a bit more politically motivated than I am, clearly. I would be ecstatic if a man saw Take Me Out (a good solid play about homosexuality) and walked out of the theater to call his son and tell him that he accepts him for who he is. (I mean that’s the best case scenario) In fact, I would be happy if people hate the show because it at least they were thinking! This brings me to my next issue: our personal responsibility as artists to put up good, thought-provoking and yet still entertaining work.
We are taught in life that with each year of our growth we will have more and more responsibilities. There is a point in an individual’s development when we realize that we can no longer allow other people to be responsible for our lives anymore. That means that when something doesn’t quite go your way, you don’t sit there and start blaming it on someone else or another unforeseen variable. You should assess the situation and find where you might have made a mistake or a misstep. This logic should apply to our art as well. I have learned in school that if the scene isn’t working you DO NOT BLAME IT ON YOUR SCENE PARTNER. If they aren’t giving their all to the work you talk to them or you work even harder to try and get something out of them. If you blame it on them you have already failed. I have found that some people have been blaming the recent decline in audience interest in Theatre is because: we can’t compete with the movies, or it’s too expensive. While these are good points, (I made them in my earlier blog, this is me talking to myself as well) what we should be doing is digging deeper and writing plays that can be entertaining but also make our audience think. We need make things more accessible to high school and college students (the people who will change the world).
But most importantly, I think that we, as young artists, have to take hold of our generation’s voice and use it. It is our personal responsibility to listen to our guts, hearts, and minds and put on work that we can walk away from and KNOW that we really made something there! That we created a piece of art that speaks to the up and coming leaders of the world. If we ignore what’s happening around us and to us, then we fail the scene, theatre, and the world. So I guess, what I’m saying is that the kind of theatre I want to see out there I one that voices my generation. And helps us figure out where we are going.