Fierce & Nerdy: The trouble with addiction isn’t that it’s expensive. It’s not that addiction is self destructive, all consuming and extremely harmful to family and friends. No, the trouble with addiction is that it’s fun. I mean, don’t get me wrong- it’s not fun watching your teeth rot or selling your parents’ TV or being dead- but, at some point or another, whatever you’re addicted to was lots and lots of fun.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The Only Thing Worse Than Making Theatre is Not Making Theatre
Fierce & Nerdy: The trouble with addiction isn’t that it’s expensive. It’s not that addiction is self destructive, all consuming and extremely harmful to family and friends. No, the trouble with addiction is that it’s fun. I mean, don’t get me wrong- it’s not fun watching your teeth rot or selling your parents’ TV or being dead- but, at some point or another, whatever you’re addicted to was lots and lots of fun.
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4 comments:
Very funny article. While theatre to me isn’t just a self destructive pastime that I partake in to avoid other, more self destructive pass times (pursuing theatre as a job not just a pass time hopefully, by necessity, makes it less self destructive) this article does bring up the question: what would I do if id didn’t do theatre? What other jobs and/or pass-times have the same entertainment value, learning opportunities, innovation, artistic outlets, technical problem solving, excitement, and wonderful, interesting people? I really can’t think of anything. Theatre is the perfect combination of intellectual thought and manual work, artistic and technical skills, fun and relevance, and work and play. There is nothing else like it.
I wonder about this a lot. My girlfriend has a 9-5 theater job with very occasional weekend hours. Part of me would really love that but part me wonders what I'd do with all that free time. I considered (and still try to find time to do) the things he mentions on the list. So while I agree there are other creative things worthwhile that normal people may or may not put into practice (I think most 9-5ers watch TV and eat junk food instead of being constructive) I have to wonder if theater fills those gaps for people who don't have the time. I don't think it does. I have aspirations for personal projects and intellectual pursuits because there are certain things theater won't allow. I'm building someone elses design, working with materials I may may not be interested in, and using construction techniques that may be boring. My girlfriend too spends her evenings sewing and crafting, even though she is a props artisan (essentially sewing and crafting all day.) So theater does fill some of the personally productive void in our lives but it often doesn't.
Well, I definitely think there are more things to do than follow professional sports in order to avoid doing theater work. And avoiding theater work isn't something that I'm trying to do in the first place! It's important and exciting and not really all that detrimental as this article sarcastically implies. I do agree though, that it's important to not just envelop yourself 100% in the world of theater. It's our interest in other things that both makes us more well rounded humans and that informs the work in theater that we do, whether it's mastering another language or doing work in another arts field or reading or doing something out of the arts altogether. So I guess the author has a point when he's saying that he needs to not be doing all the theater all of the time. But I think that if he's just forcing himself to do other tasks, he is wasting his time and his creative energy that is apparently bursting from the seams.
This article is hilarious. But also it brings up good points, most people I've met in theater have such a love hate relationship with it. It is like a drug, there are some parts that are awesome and super fun and some parts that make you want to quit and never do it again. It's the ultimate high but it has a terrible crash too. It makes the rest of life boring. But personally I would rather have a job that I find interesting but kind of drives me insane then one where I am constantly bored. Theater has it's down falls but at least it is interesting.
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