Friday, February 03, 2017
Why we need plays about Capitalism
2AMt: It’s no accident that ancient and renaissance playwrights were drawn to write plays about heroes and nobles. Not only were they aspirational figures whose lives would be ripe for curiosity by potential patrons and audience members, heroes and nobles also made decisions that extensively affected the day to day experiences of most people. People had a reasonable interest in exploring the ways in which those decisions might be made.
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7 comments:
Here is what I am getting from this article as I begin to read it: capitalism in complicated, but it needs to be explained and theatre is a good way to do that. I completely agree with this and think that this could be a really cool project. To clarify, the project being to create a show to explain capitalism in a way that people can actually understand it. Now, there are a few large hurdles here upfront. First, what is capitalism? That complex question needs to be answered first before anything else moves forward, but then you need to ask yourself if there are any other answers to that question. If this is going to inform America about what capitalism is then you don’t want to color it to be just what you think it is, but you also don’t want to show too many to make it too complex that the audience doesn’t get anything out of it.
This article offers an interesting explanation of a capitalistic economic model and draws comparisons between both the benefits and drawbacks, which is a large portion of the body of the article. What is nice, however, is that the article also discusses (mostly towards the end that was honestly pretty hard to get to) the reasons why we need to be discussing capitalism in the theatre. Just like most subjects, for example, feminism, theatre would be a great place to explore a complicated subject that has multiple viewpoints. I certainly challenge any playwright who can successfully write a play that does an adequate job exploring the multifaceted sides of this subject while also offering decent commentary one way or the other AND engaging the audience so they aren't as bored as the common folk watching a staged reading of a Senecan Tragedy as written in its original language. It would certainly be interesting to see the approach for such an affable goal.
Huh. That was quite a strange yet interesting article. While I found myself skimming some of the deep explanation paragraphs, since some of them were long and dense, I still feel I got a lot out of the article. That being said, like the author hinted at, I don't think there is a shortage of plays about capitalism and its results. Think A Christmas Carol, like the author suggested, and Death of a Salesman. But also, plays like The Adding Machine, while non realistic, also offer the viewer a comment on capitalism and its effects. So while the author is right, that there are very few plays directly about capitalism, surely there are many about its effects and its results, whether bad or good. So while I think that this article has a good idea--I think many plays already cover that topic in some way or another, and it is also not surprising that we don't see a show about something we all deal with every day--it doesn't seem extraordinary, at least in a superficial viewpoint of it. All that said, I would be overjoyed to see "Capitalism, The Musical" be part of next year's Broadway season.
Theater, film, and the entertainments arts are a good way to subtly education and spread recognition of all sorts of topics. Theater puts an emotional spin on things, taking topics that may seem mundane, complicated, or pedantic and turning them into captivating experiences. Capitalism is complicated. It is the way our country, and our world, is run, yet the majority of the daily players do not understand it. I agree with the author, theater would be a great way to explain it. The ability to imbibe emotion and create characters and story lines that intrigue and capture, the audience will be able to take away more than the basic "the system is flawed." As Pete Miller says, by creating characters the pay attention to economics, the audience will be invited to as well, and pay attention they will. As a cynic who also believes that long established systems must still be working for a reason, I believe it is important to have plays and shows that create story lines beyond the typical worker versus company owner that only shows terrible flaw and oppression. The system obviously has failures, but it's not 100 percent bad and people need to know that.
I am not really sure exactly whatI was supposed to get out of that article except that capitalism is complicated and there need to be more plays about it. I don't disagree but whoever wrote this needs to take a breath, and calm down because it feels a little like they are spinning off the rails. My favorite quote about capitalism is that it is the worst form of government until you consider every other kind of government. Funny enough when I learned about capitalism and a whole slew of other types of government systems, I struggled with capitalism the most even though theoretically it should be the one I understand the best. I believe that part of the problem is that there is no dumbed down version of learning abut capitalism for kids to watch and then fall in love with government. So I guess the time is now, as sad as it is, I can't help but believe that if people had understood the government a little more when they cast their vote in November than maybe we would be in a different situation. We have to make talking about the government, and thinking about the government cool again (No pun intended) because thats the way to combat the situation we are in, through education, and theater is the perfect place to do that.
I can definitely agree that capitalism has a huge role on the lives of US citizens but I can only sort of agree that capitalism is super complicated and that's why there should be more plays about it. I feel like it's very risky and tough making a play that focuses on an economic theory because, frankly, it's boring. The reason most shows DON'T focus on it is because we're more likely to have a connection with a love story, a tragedy, and other more touching, emotional moments and stories. That's why stories about people are best because...people can relate to people. Me personally, I don't really think about the effect on capitalism in my life (probably not as much as the author wants me to). So, I can definitely see some challenges you'll have in writing a show about it--specifically in making the audience feel some kind of genuine emotional commitment with the show. Maybe there can be a way to create this connection and I feel like the best type of media for this would be comedy since through humor and jokes, kind of like Brexit the musical, we can make Capitalism the musical a success.
"The reason most shows DON'T focus on it is because we're more likely to have a connection with a love story, a tragedy, and other more touching, emotional moments and stories."
I am one of the playwrights whose work was cited in the article. I had to ignore fashions in contemporary American theater. It's not easy and yes, you have to question how marketable a play about capitalism actually is (though in this case, I've been fortunate to watch two very different theater companies stage Jan Kultura, Substitute Teacher, Meets the Crowd). It's a puzzle to directors and actors because the world of ideas and the life of the mind are no long part of the education that theater artists receive.
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