Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2000 - 64

and simply needing to eat on the other. But, in spite of adverse
economic conditions, artists are more and more taking responsibility for making their art available to young people and,
as we remove the arts from our schools for feeble political
reasons, the artist is taking responsibility for making artistic
expression and training an educational priority for all of our
youth. I understand that fifty percent of Japanese children
study piano or violin in their school environment. Yet we seem
to pay much closer attention to comparing international educational objectives in the sciences than in quality of Life issues.
Our American artists experienced a loud wakeup call in
the 1990s when some members of Congress launched an 01'
ganized movement to rid the federal budget of arts support. As
a result, we as artists now command a much more organized
and eloquent minority voice in support of our work.
Why does America need our artists? Journalist Robert
McNeil wrote, "Amelica needs Ulem to continue telling Ule counlIy its story, its unfolding narrative and what that means ... A
people needs to have its own evolution in mind. In tribal cultures, a shanlan or medicine man used ritual occasions to pass
on and reinforce Ule received myths of Uleir people and to intel'
pret Ulem to fit clllTent experience. In our culture
We should encourage our
today; Ule creative 31tiSt
serves Ulat function, to delve
artists to go where we
into our histOlY, to humandare not.
ize it, when necess31)' to demythify it.·· (MacNeil, 199 )
LlSI yem' we produced Shakespem"es Measure for Measure,
set in 1930s pre-Nazi Vienna. As we went through the planning
process, we were excited by Ule timeliness of Ule p31-aJJels of topics such as se>,:ual harassment and ntis-use of power to our own
headlines. During Ule 11m of Ule show, an Iranian video teclmician
who had just t.1ped Ule peIf0ll11anCe for us C3.Ille up to me, velY
excited. "I must get a copy of tltis sClipt and read it more C3.1·efully... Tlus play is about the Fundamentalist movement in my
country! I lived this story in the '70s." The art speaks to us
through m311Y cultures. America needs its artists to help it understand the racial complexion of the naLion-to mediate tensions by portray~ng them 311d by revealing the common
humanity underl}~ng the differences.
Again, Robel1 McNeil: "At tile end of a centmy of the most inhuman human behavior, we need 31tiSts to help us undersk1Jld our
species, to sharpen our moral conscience, and to restore our
frayed sense of conm1Unity" In Sh0l1, Amelica needs its 31tiSts to
help it obey Umt most ancient of hum31tist admonitions, to know
tlly elf. AJtists lead us to know ourselres beller as a people, and as
indi\~dual human beings. Irs been said tllat, if food and shelter
give us life, 3.11 gives us sometlling to live for.
Edward Albee once remarked, .. nless you are terribly,
terribly careful, you run the danger-without even knowing
irs happening to you-of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it."
Playwright Steven Deitz, in an essay in AlIIericall Tbealre
that caught my attention a couple of years ago and has stayed
with me, wrote, "There is absolutely nothing to support the
notion that contemponllY plays should reflect the preVailing
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TZl&T

attitudes of the community. Prevailing attitudes (social, sexual,
religious political) don't need the support of artists-they
have the weight of governments, corporations, advertisers and
the media belund them." (Dietz, 1993)
Deitz recommends that we demand more of our artists!
"Demand that they run through the minefields before you do.
Dem311d that they make the nustakes, confront tile idiocy and
revel in the excesses (social, sexual, religious, political) of the
culture in the metaphorical safety of the theatre before it luts
you in tile bloody maelstrom of tile world." Dietz is encouraging us to: "Push our artists a11ead of us through the dark
room. If they fall, you'll know to watch your step. If they
bloody their heads, perhaps you'll linger longer at your nurror. And if they race forward, snliling, and unscathed, you'll
know you can toss yourself forward with abandon.
"Don't let us lower our standards. Don't let our questions
get safer, smaller. We should encourage our artists to go where
we dare not. We should applaud them when they help us either
draw the line or, willingly, step over it. AJ"tists should talk about
what you talk about at your dinner table, but also, we should
expect them to talk about, and show us, the things you're
afraid to bling up at the dinner table, at work, with friends. Demand that tIley be nulitantly articulate about the world. The
Anlerian Theatre needs fewer chestnuts and more grenades."
(Dietz, 1993)
1\~vidly recall a production at Uncoln Center many years
ago that not only left people arguing in the aisles for a hour
follOWing the play, audience members who had left in anger at
intermission were still discussing the issues of tile play in the
lobby when the show was over.
Expect our artists to be well-educated. To study for a
hIlly-fleshed general education. To know where the world's
conilicts and our national disagreements are taking place and
wb)'. "Mt is often made in a hlly. And we can le31"n more in
one instant on stage from someone's fury-how it engages, divides or offends us-than we can [rom years of s311itized,
community-approved work. To ask artists to address only
'pleasant' or 'nice' or 'approved' aspects of the culture is not
only small-minded, it's impossible. It is contradiction and
complexity that make up the body politic-and to demand
simplification is to accept a lie." (Dietz, 1993)
To our audience, Mr. Dietz says: "Demand not to be sheltered [rom ideas, language or images. Demand tile right to
make up your own mind about your interests, pleasures and
boundalies. Dem311d not only the right to escape, but the right
to be engaged. Demand newness."
The theatre is not a museum. This is why we are open at
the Colorado Shakespeare Festival to taking a fresh look at
Shakespeare's plays-not presenting his words and ideas in
the sanle Elizabethan setting each time we do them. We have
also set out, over the past three years, to find the best of today's
Southwestern playwrights 311d to support their new works with
workshops and staged readings-to keep from being a museum. To seek new ideas.
"The theatre is a rehearsal of the concerns of the present
moment. Whether the given text is old or new, demand that it
move you forward." In his Audience Manifesto, Dietz tells us

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