My Name is Rachel Corrie was cobbled together following a set of aesthetic and political assumptions that severely compromise the possibilities of radical, progressive, experimental theatre.  It was selected for production because the same set of assumptions inform the judgment of theatres such as NYTW.  Now as a cultural event it will reify those assumptions by creating audiences habituated to this sort of play and therefore unable to respond to anything that challenges the artistic and political assumptions on which such stuff is written. 

The whole event will thus serve to solidify the closed circle in which we are moving.  The hegemony of plays like this necessarily results in the rejection of plays that are truly progressive and formally experimental.  You see, Dr. Cashmere, that’s the beauty of ideology. It is a self-contained system that excludes anything that challenges it.  And the beauty of it is that none of this requires conscious intentionality.  When Nicola and others who share the dominant theatrical ideology “read” plays sent to them they are already screening out works that don’t conform to the model without knowing they are doing so. That’s the beauty of ideology.  It doesn’t ever have to pass before your conscious mind in order to determine what to experience, think and do.

      And that’s the pity of it.  Our so-called progressive theatres are run by those whose artistic sensibilities (and judgment) have already been so colonized by capitalist imperatives that they can only approve of Art that furthers the System.  After all, a show has to make bucks, position our theatre for a big slice of Bloomberg’s pie, please our corporate sponsorship and increase season ticket sales.  There is only one way to do so: to take care never to produce anything that will really ruffle the feathers of those who exert a silent, paternalistic yet pervasive control over the whole enterprise.  Follow the money.

      But that’s also the beauty of the present controversy.  It has the power to expose the entire institution.  And that, after all, is what theatre is—an institution serving the needs and desires of its community.  Those of us who think it should be the conscience disrupting the community by standing as that one public institution dedicated to the public airing of all secrets and lies the community doesn’t want to confront are asking for a poor theatre indeed.  And yet perhaps the most important implication of the current controversy is that we will only get such a theatre when we reject the model followed by those theatres that so loudly proclaim their progressive character.  And not just in New York.  The situation described here persists throughout America.  At the Humana Festival in Louisville next week?  At Steppenwolf? At the Mark Taper?  Etc….

      But of course the beat goes on.  Whether things can be patched up so that the NYTW produces the play-- unlikely according to those in London; deeply desired apparently by most of the theatre community in New York despite the hypocrisy of this solution-- or someone else here gets it one thing is sure.  And you can take it to the bank.

My Name is Rachel Corrie will be a mega-hit.  Everyone has to see it now as transgressive ritual if nothing else.  Ten days ago the only way I could get a copy of the play was through U.K. Amazon. [16] Now the play is widely available in the U.S. and its sales a mere precursor to what advance ticket sales for the New York production will be.  Moreover, the cancellation here has already led to a new  run of the play on the West End in London, an unexpected boon on the heels of the end of its two earlier runs at The Royal Court Theatre.

      A Pynchonian fantasy is here irresistible. Note: I’m not claiming that the following scenario was consciously planned—especially not by the people at The Royal Court Theatre.  It is, rather, the foregone result of theatre as an institution that is shaped by considerations inimical to serious art.   So, consider this: what if the whole controversy was cooked up precisely to assure the mega-success of a very minor play?  The Producers for high-brows! Let’s create a media event. 

There’s no better publicity.  Everybody wins—even NYTW.  Jim Nicola’s temporary embarrassment is already being softened by daily testimonials from the other luminaries of progressive theatre and no doubt this vote of sympathy will pay dividends in the chorus of praise that will be lavished on his next production. In the meantime another New York theater will be given an opportunity to proclaim its progressive credentials all the way to the Bank.  Vast audiences will gain in turn the assurance that they support serious, daring progressive theatre and know what it is when they see it!

 Ideology does not work primarily as overt censorship, as in Nicola’s blunder that put us in a position to see the state of the King’s clothes. Ideology works as that prior self-censorship that controls the sensibilities of those who run our progressive Theatres and those who write the kind of plays they are certain to produce.  Liberating oneself from ideology is an enormous task.  Art only begins, however, when that liberation is the effort one refuses to compromise. Perhaps today there is only one way we can honor that principle.  By refusing to any longer support or fall into the ideological traps that the Corrie controversy can enable us to see. 

VI. Toward a Really Poor Theatre   

      “He is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth and powerless to change  anything.  No longer will he seek to get off the wheel.  His anger and frustration  will grow without limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it.”       Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow [17] 

      The most destructive censorship is the one that exists as the set of assumptions about theatre under which Mr. Nicola, Mr. Eustis, Mr. Kushner and so many others operate.  For those assumptions are what determines what plays have a chance of being produced.  The key point once again is that this is so because these assumptions remain hidden and for the most part unconscious in those who have all their judgments determined by them.

That’s the tawdry effect of ideology on artistic possibility.  Mr. Nicola picks up a play and sees only what the prevailing ideology permits him to see.  Anything that threatens or violates that implicit framework must be discarded.  That is why a Theatre that would be truly serious and progressive would be made up of plays that our mainstream progressive theatres can’t produce.  (Thus the considerable ironies of Mr. Cote’s recent suggestion that we need to start a new progressive theatre in New York, house it if possible at the “Arthur Miller,” and make My Name Is Rachel Corrie its first offering. [18].)

      Do new plays that are radical, progressive, truly experimental exist?  I can think of several but feel it is best not to mention them here so that each reader can examine their own theatrical experience.  It would be counterproductive to provide titles when what is offered each of us is the chance to perform acts of reflection and imagination.  What kind of play would one have to write in order to make and sustain a  break with the assumptions that rule in so-called serious, progressive theatre?  If nothing else this question has the power to sharpen and quicken our perceptions the next time we attend a play.  The need for theatre is profound.  And it can only grow through disciplined experiences of how rarely we get the real thing. 

Biographical note: 
  
 
Walter A. Davis is an actor, playwright, and cultural critic.  His primary theoretical book on theatre is Get the Guests: Psychoanalysis, Modern American Drama and the Audience (U of Wisconsin P, 1994).  His plays include An Evening With JonBenét Ramsey (Authors Choice P, 2004).  His most recent work of cultural criticism, Death’s Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche since 9-11, (London: Pluto Press) has just appeared and may be ordered at http://www.amazon.com or by calling (800)621-2736. For further description of his work see http://www.walteradavis.com/.  He may be reached at: davis.65@osu.edu. e 

ENDNOTES

(1)From statement of purpose by NYTW in Dramatists Sourcebook. 23rd edition. (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004), p.71

(2)On this see the fine article by Philip Weiss in the forthcoming April 3 issue of The Nation.

(3) For a detailed development of the theory that underlies these paragraphs see my Get the Guests and Herbert Blau’s The Audience.

(4) My Name is Rachel Corrie.  The writings of Rachel Corrie.  Edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner.  (London: Nick Hern Books Limited, 2005).  I should also point out here that the situations described in this article are not confined to the New York theatre scene. For the uniformly positive review of the London production of the play see: http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/archive_reviews.asp?play=401.  Even as difficult a critic as Michael Billington viewed the play in highly positive terms.   

(5) See the article on the play in the Guardian Arts section, April 8, 2005.  Available at: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1454963,00.html.

(6) Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett, The Diary of Anne Frank (New York: Random House, 1954).

(7) In the aforementioned article from the Guardian.

(8) An important caveat.  As an actor and a playwright who has written monologue plays my criticisms of this work must be qualified by a regard for what a good actress (and by all accounts Megan Dodd is very good) might be able to do to give rich tonal coloring to even the flattest prose, making it all come alive in varied, subtle, and ironic ways.

(9) On how such moods  or ways of being-in-the-world reveal the fundamental ontological conditions of existence, see Heidegger’s Being and Time and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness.

(7) Jerry Rubin, the 60’s radical later turned successful Wall Street stockbroker and not Deep Throat deserves the credit for first having formulated this principle. It remains sage advice. 

(8) See: http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=c0935b9a57… See also the NYTW website: www.nytw.org.

(9) For a listing of the Members of the Board of the NYTW and major contributors see: DailyKos.com/storyonly/2006/3/2/131554/4510.

(10) For a full report of the meeting of The Public Theater at the New School see the entire section titled Last Night’s(non-)Panel on Garrett Eisler’s Playgoer.blogspot.com.  We are all indebted to Mr. Eisler and to George Hunka and Jason Grote for providing the forums that have kept the discussion of this controversy alive and free of official rationales. See also George Hunka: http://www.ghunka.com and Jason Grote: jasongrote.blogspot.

(11) This statement by Tony Kushner is in the forthcoming article in The Nation by Philip Weiss.  The article is also already available online. 

(12) A confession is in order here.  I am the unnamed Michigan author who sent his copy of the play to Philip Weiss last week when he found it virtually impossible to find a copy of it in New York.  But then most everybody was too busy then either avoiding the controversy or knowing the artistic and political quality of My Name Is Rachel Corrie without having to read it. 

(13) This quotation comes from the section of the novel titled “The Story of Byron the Bulb.”  Pp. 647-655.  Gravity’s Rainbow is hard going (like most good things) but this section can be read independently as a clear and concise parable of the fate of The Enlightenment and those who try today to sustain its effort.

(14) David Cote makes this suggestion in “Staging Coups” in Time Out New York. Issue 546.  March 16-22, 2006.  Coincidentally those dates coincide with the commemorations of Rachel words held in New York and in many other cities throughout the world on March 16, the third anniversary of her death and the meeting hosted by Amy Goodman held the evening of March 22 at the Riverside Church.

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto:

Be first to comment this article

Write Comment

Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Name:
E-mail
Homepage
Title:
BBCode:
Comment:
Code:*
	I wish to be contacted by email regarding additional comments

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.4