Monday, November 28, 2016
No, Mr. President-Elect, Theater Isn't Meant to Be Safe
Clyde Fitch Report: If serious theater doesn’t accomplish these aims, it fails. If serious theater exists merely to reassure people of their beliefs, if serious theater exists merely to be congratulate ticket buyers on entrenched behaviors, if serious theater exists merely to pat patrons on the back, if serious theater exist merely for safety, it adds nothing to a culture. Safe theater is useless theater.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Well that didn’t take long. My social media blew up after the Hamilton Pence event, so it only makes sense that an article about the event popped up as well. I’m so pleased that the theatre community has already taken steps to combat the feelings of despair associated with the presidential election. No, theatre should not be a safe space, theatre since the beginning of theatre has been a means of challenging societal norms through allegories and symbolism. In this current political and social climate theatre now more than ever before needs to facilitate social grown. It’s interesting that Pence openly said that he didn’t mind the Hamilton cast having a conversation with him, but Trump got upset for him. Trump wasn’t even in the theatre, I’m very confused why he got so upset when this speech wasn’t even directed at him. Either way, I’m glad the Hamilton cast made this speech, if anything it got people talking about theatre.
I definitely agree that theatre should not be safe. I got very angry when Trump said that the Hamilton cast should apologize when if you actually watch the video Dixon is very polite and respectful of Pence and just said look please take into account what you saw today because these new laws will affect everyone here on stage. It frustrates me that Trump thinks they need to apologize when he clearly never does. But on the article, yes theatre should not be safe. A lot of what we do is to make people think and make a difference in the world. We push the boundaries. Why come to theatre to see happy all the time, that’s not storytelling. It’s like a book, you need a plot and conflict. Conflict involves subjects that pushes the audience to do something. I am happy that Dixon took the time to speak to Pence and I hope that it helps in the coming future. I hope that Pence really took it to heart and appreciated what the show was about and understood why Lin-Manuel wrote it.
While I appreciate the sentiment of this article, and I certainly agree that theatre is not and should not be a safe space (most of the time), I really think that we need to avoid talking about trump's tweets to the level that we have in recent months. Yes, I definitely have been made to feel incredibly uncomfortable in the theatre when faced with difficult material. Yes, I definitely think that theatre should make people feel uncomfortable sometimes in order to push boundaries. However, it's important to note that the Hamilton-tweet media coverage exploded while Trump was settling his fraud case in court on the same day. Obviously we can't be totally certain that this was a planned distraction wherein the media would be covering Pence's visit to a notoriously liberal Broadway show, but regardless I believe it's both the duty of the news networks as well as the public to reject coverage of the President-Elect's social media account's and rather focus in on his dangerous conflicts of interest and his toxic rhetoric.
This whole Pence attending Hamilton and the repercussions thereof have probably been one of the best things to happen to the theatre community coming out of this election. It shows we are strong, and we will fight to educate the population with tact and virtue. This author is outstanding at inspiring and pin points exactly what theatre does and is meant to do. Serious theatre is meant to expose and provoke the audience. Comfort is not a standard – realization is. The unity that is coming out of the theatre community after this event is simply wonderful. It shows us just how hard we care about what we do and how people perceive it. I think another important point the author brings up is that serious theatre is not just a dramatic play; it can be presented in many different ways – one of the noted ones being Alec Baldwin’s Trump character.
First off I would just like everyone to take a moment to reflect on the fact that our next president tweeted such arrogant and uneducated insults about an act of speech that is suppose to be free... or maybe we shouldn't. it makes me too upset. I think the article does a great job of pointing out how Trump never likes to apologize yet here he is demanding an apology... ON TWITTER! I think you can tell that I don't see his appeal at all. Anyway, about the main point in this article- theatre is not meant to be safe- I completely agree. Theatre is there to challenge your views; your perspective. Theatre shows us how others live and feel. That's the beauty of it. Theatre is not suppose to be safe for anyone. It is suppose to challenge what ever it is you think you know. That is our challenge now, how do we make theatre that challenges our views and how to we get those with different views from ours to come to the theatre?
Theatre is definitely not a safe space. The whole point of theatre is to make you think and present certain stories and ideas in a way that you may not have thought about them before. The point is to shock you and make you question what will happen next. For example Mr. Marmalade is definitely not a safe play at all. There are many triggering scenes and moments in the show. There are many forms of abuse as well as the idea of loneliness and the power of the patriarchy. If you think any of those topics are safe then you must be one crazy person. These topics wake you up and make you aware of yourself and your surroundings. Theatre should never be a safe space, but it is a place where you can go to feel things and be with a community that will support you. Also what does Trump know about theatre? He should be worrying about other things than people speaking their minds in a theater.
When I first started working in theatre, it definitely functioned as a safe space for me. However as I became more involved with this artform I realised that theatre is not supposed to be a place to hide, it is a place to exposure your true self and to speak honestly about the world. Theatre should be encouraged to be a voice for the voiceless and that means it will not always be comfortable or fun. Perhaps this is easy for me to say because I hold a certain set of values that the larger community of theatre tends to align with, but I believe I hold those values in part because of theatre. For instance, nothing teaches empathy for people who are different from you than acting and having to emotionally identify ways to embody another person’s experience of the world. I think that as the divisions in our world grow greater that perhaps what everyone needs is a little more art and theatre in their lives.
Post a Comment