Diversity VIII: Scott Returns to Quality... And Value

So, Scott brings up an interesting post by August Schulenberg (whose blog I also could swear I'd been subscribed to... what is going on, Google Reader?)

Schulenberg introduces a second concept, value, as distinct from quality:

Quality is concerned with the use of a medium within an aesthetic tradition.

Value is concerned with the role of that tradition within a society.

Quality looks at how art works. Value looks at why.

Okay. That's not how I'd have defined the two words, but that's a semantic difference and one that's unimportant -- let's use the way he speaks right now.

Scott acknowledges that the first half of his post uses the word quality to mean quality, and the second half of the post uses quality to mean value, in the Schulenburg formulation (I hope you're glad I used those two words back-to-back!). He acknowledges that his shift in the use of the word formed a contradiction in his argument. So we're in agreement again.

It was this that led me to propose the play lottery model: sort out those plays that we all would likely agree don't meat[sic] levels of dramaturgical competence, and then, at the point where agreement yields to individual values (which we sometimes call "subjective," as in "quality is subjective"), allow chance to take over. Why? Because otherwise, the decisions that are made concerning plays that are produced are strongly reliant on what devilvet calls "resonance," i.e., the way a particular play vibrates within my individual soul, what I personally "value."

In this passage, it doesn't look like quality and value are two separate ideas anymore. Instead, "competence" (which sounds to me like "basic quality") is merely the approximation of the most "shared value." But at the same time, if we're talking about one group of folks (the "in-crowd") trying to evaluate the basic quality of another group of folks (the disenfranchised), they're going to use their "shared values" (read: monoculture) to resist another group of folks' shared values.

I think that most of the screening that shuts out diversity actually happens at the "basic competence" level, rather than the "subjective resonance" level.

Take a play like The Lily's Revenge. It reflects a set of values that are decidedly not in the monoculture: significant parts of it are attacks on theater, the basic message is that of free love in the actual, literal sense, it attacks the institution of marriage (not "hey gays should have marriage too" but "marriage is an oppressive, out-dated institution" -- a lot of people who are perfectly comfortable with gays marrying would be very, very hesitant to imagine a culture without marriage, no matter how falsely that construct resonates today in the era of Clinton/Sanford/Woods/Spitzer/Paterson/Edwards/Palin/Giuliani/Rove/etc.).

Suppose I was going to try and establish "basic competence" about this play, as a package

• It has 40 characters
• It has 6 director
• It has five acts and spans five hours long
• Ass-licking occurs frequently
• The audience is forbidden from using their cell phones during act breaks as part of the show
• Much of the dialog is lifted verbatim from an extremely esoteric book of essays by a quite out-of-the-mainstream philosopher in extremely technical language
• Act two is written in verse and haiku

The show, on paper, looks like it will take a fortune to produce, take far more man/woman/other-power than you could ever expect, and is very, very likely to alienate even the avant garde theater audience. I'm fairly sure any average measure of competence would drop that script in the "REJECTED" pile without so much as a glance-through.

Why did that show get produced and wind up on many New York critics' top-ten theater lists? Because of resonance. This show resonated for the producing team very strongly, and they were willing to fight for it as hard as they could.

And then, separately, there's this ending for Scott:

However, given that our commerical and regional theatres are mostly not producing using a permanent or even semi-permanent ensemble, but are instead jobbing in artists for individual projects, then wouldn't it be possible that an artistic team could be put together that was, in fact, passionate about a play that has been chosen via weighted lottery? Couldn't resonance be hired?

You can put together a team that's passionate about anything. If you watch talk shows as much as I do, you'll see some very, very delightfully passionate people who, unfortunately, are working on shows that nobody outside of their theater is passionate about. To borrow from a cultural touchstone, I'm fairly sure that the cast and producer of Moose Murders were passionate about their show. In fact, think about the people who knowing its reputation as one of the worst plays in history decided to stage it anyways. And hell -- maybe someone out there managed to turn Moose Murders into a relevant show. If they did, I hope they sent Frank Rich some tickets, because that man needs closure.

One of the most inspiring things I've ever heard in this industry was a Broadway understudy who told a group of students (including me) that if you strive to be the best person you can be, you're striving to be the best artist you can be. That person was understudying All Shook Up, which was one of the more morose theater-going experiences I've ever had.

So my feeling is actually getting stronger, that not only does a lottery system not improve diversity, it actually gives away quality without giving anything in return.

And if so, what happens to our belief that a commitment to diversity leads inevitably to lower quality? At what point do we give priority to our values?

I don't have a belief that a commitment to diversity leads inevitably to lower quality. I believe the following:

1. Diversity can be grafted on, or grown in.
2. Diversity that is grafted on lowers quality.
3. Diversity that is grown in increases quality, because it increases resonance.

If we want to grow in diversity, we do have to water the diversity that's out there (give them more opportunities, fight on their behalf more, etc.), but at some point we have to tackle the roots of diversity. Arts education, not just for those who go to elite schools, but for those all over the country.

Again the demand for us to choose when we'd be willing to sacrifice "value" for diversity. It isn't us who believe that diversity will lower value, it's you, Scott. I just simply don't believe we will get more diversity with a lottery, not if there's a "basic competence" test -- and if there isn't a basic competence test, how will we get diversity?

I'm not saying that the lottery system wouldn't work sometimes. Obviously no matter how random an event is, eventually it comes true. I just think that the odds are lower than proactive attempts to massage towards betterness.

After all, wasn't one of your original contentions that the current system is basically random? If that is true, then why wouldn't it have surfaced the next great diverse writer? My answer is because a select needed few have too much power, and people don't have equal access to put their slips in the jar. I don't see how how a Lincoln Center lottery would fix that. But I can imagine it reducing diversity, as well as reducing value.

Unless your "Basic competence" test was really just a test of "is this playwright black." But I don't think that's what you were proposing, I really don't think so at all.

Anyways, I'm really glad that you're sticking by your guns, Scott. I'm sitting at home having come home early terribly ill, and it's a treat to sit here and distract myself with the big things in life.

Relationships II: Avoid Transactions

I've been pleased to see that The Lily's Revenge has been remembered by most people at their end of the year reflection time. The reason I loved The Lily's Revenge so much was because of the breadth of the experience around the actual play. In addition to being a great show and a great experience, it was also a great model for how a theater company should be run (even though Taylor Mac's gig was just a one-time project).

Every moment that an arts organization interacts with a patron, it's forming a relationship. And in that relationship, you treat the patron in a way that you hope they will treat you.

The average repertory theater sees its mission to provide one thing: a high quality play (let's avoid the quality kerfuffle for a moment -- I used the word Kerfuffle again I hope I move higher on that Kerfuffle google ranking!). If the theater provides nothing but that play to the patron, then the patron will say, "Okay. I will pay for that play." The patron will pay for a ticket, he will get a play. That's a transaction, and the transaction seems fair.

The problem is, the theater needs the patron to provide support for the whole range of services that the theater is providing. Ticket sales don't do that -- nor does tuition on the educational program (unless you want to make it really upscale and go the professional academy route). What you want is a donation.

How do you make a donation? Well, you need to provide the added value outside of the play.

Partly, that's about standing for something in the community, like diversity, educational opportunities, etc. But partly that's also about looking for other opportunities to give other things to your patron. Experiences that they didn't pay for--maybe it's web-content, maybe it's art in the community, maybe it's the chance for them to contribute artistically in some way.

If you do that, they're going to feel a relationship outside of the transaction, and then, hopefully, they'll want to support in some way outside of the transactional model.

I wrote about this briefly when I was talking about this woman at work who made lots of cookies for breast cancer, but it was on my mind again thinking about The Lily's Revenge. I paid $70 to Taylor Mac because of that show -- that's more than I've ever spent on any one cause in my life, other than getting my parents to donate $100 to the Obama campaign in my life.

"What Is Art": Fixation in Art

So, there's that ugly question there, "What is art." Somehow, any time I hear that question, I instinctively flinch. For a while, I believed that art was an irrelevant label--people can decide for themselves how an act or an object impacts them.

Earlier this week, however, a classmate of mine showed us something in self-scripting that led to a pretty incisive discussion on what's appropriate to present to an audience. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to say what it was, but suffice it to say that it was a powerful and disturbing moment.

My self-scripting teacher started a discussion with the question "What is art" (which I hated) but then asked, "What does it do to relive such a moment? Why make an audience go through that sort of a moment? It's a powerful moment, but I wonder what the use is to watch it again and again."

That was on my mind when I saw this video:

I was with it with the first half. It's a really truly moving moment, there's no question about it. One of those few things that really warms your heart.

And then it is replayed again in slow motion.

For some reason, when I saw it again in slow motion, my stomach turned. Why were we watching this moment again? The moment, when stripped away of its spontaneity, suddenly became disturbing because the expression on the child's face is not one of joy, it is one of pain. We're watching a child dissolve into tears. When I see that child's face, I'm not thinking about his father being home, I'm thinking about all the pain that child has been carrying for not having his father there.

Then it suddenly struck me: who was filming this? My first thought was, oh, it was the soldier's wife or something. But if you look past the soldier, you see two different people taking flash photos. The moment feels staged. And that's what's somewhat disturbing about this.

Right after that, I saw a video of Susan Boyle singing on Dancing on the Stars. Now, I was one of those people who was deeply moved by that original moment when it happened. And I saw it more than once. But then I watched her singing the same song in a completely different context--noticing how much less the song moved me when it wasn't tearing out of her with the same passionate need--and I wondered why everyone was getting so excited.

The problem is this desperate need to relive highs. I think our culture is very good at that. When we have the memory of a joy, we want to relieve that joy--that same exact joy in the same exact way. Rather than learning from the Susan Boyle incident that there's surprising beauty in everyone, we instead clamor to hear from her again and again and again.

Now, I'm certainly guilty of this myself. I had such a cathartic experience at The Lily's Revenge that, the next day, I bought tickets to go again. Will it be the same? I don't know. I do hope I am moved to the same degree again. I have watched the movie I Heart Huckabees more times than I'd like to admit. I listened to the song In The Waiting Line after seeing the movie Garden State probably hundreds of times. After the Gnarls Barkley concert I went to, I listened to the music with increased zeal.

I'm not sure exactly what has become so troubling to me about the repetition of moments. I suppose repeating positive moments has less wrong with it. But watching a child run into his father's arms, collapsing into tears of pain, over and over again... I feel like that's the problem.