Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Cincinnati’s American Legacy Theatre Aims to Tackle Social Issues Through Performance
www.citybeat.com: While Matthew David Gellin was an undergraduate theater major at the University of Buffalo in 2007, he was questioning his chosen career. “I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told his advisor. “I hate theater.” Asked what was troubling him, he confessed to love his studies and performing, but that wasn’t enough. He had been reading theater history, and he felt that contemporary theater wasn’t playing the important role it had in the past.
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This article truly spoke to me in a multitude of ways. I relate to Matthew David Gellin’s story in a lot of ways. For one, it is easy to learn to hate theater when you move to a competitive big city school where you are forced to do work that you do not necessarily love. Immediately you lose a lot of your autonomy as an artisan, so it is hard to feel like you are creating anything valuable. This struggle is often shared among theatrical students, and it should not go unnoticed. Another thing that strikes me about Gellin, is that he chose to actively fight that struggle. He made the decision to create a community when he did not have one, that tackles the issues many are afraid to face, and that is so brave and inspiring. A shocking aspect of this narrative is his geography. Cincinnati is a wonderfully alive city, and it is full of theatrical creativity, almost so full that a lot gets lost in the shuffle of music hall, the taft theater, and playhouse in the park. I had no idea this company even existed, and I literally just worked in the venue they are performing in before I moved to Pittsburgh. What a wonderfully small and coincidental world theatre creates.
Matthew David Gellin’s initial sentiment of “I hate theatre” resonated with me. His main reason for it wasn’t that he hated the craft itself, but that “contemporary theater wasn’t playing the important role it had in the past”. I’ve also very strongly felt this sentiment, especially in the aspect where theatre is perceived as closed off and traditional. It can be, and that’s not a bad thing, but ‘theatre’ is limitless and should be seen as such. A creator’s work should not be limited by the preconception of a genre or categorization of that work. It doesn’t just have to be an audience that sits back in a proscenium, distanced from the stage, as Gellin himself exemplifies. Gellin’s approach to theatre with his company, American Legacy Theatre, is interactive, like a ‘sporting event’, where live-tweeting, eating, drinking and chatting about the performance are encouraged. This is also reminiscent of concerts and the music scene as well. Ultimately, the core of theatre is human interaction. Gellin was able to maintain that core and spirit of what makes theatre resonate with people, while simultaneously breaking out of the box that is preconceived notions of ‘theatre’, thus creating a craft that he finds fulfilling.
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