Long Live Theater

Live Theater is Dead?

THEATER’S LIFE SUPPORT; NEW BLOOD,LOCAL COLOR

Joel Grothe, above, rehearses a scene from therecent Lamar University production of “AnInspector Calls.”

Steven Hoffman, Jr., right, plays Eric in a rehearsal scene from “AnInspector Calls.” Story and FORMANYYEARS, PEOPLE have been claiming that theater is layout by dead. From outside influences of TV and film, to internal

Peyton Ritter debates over the use of microphones, the theater has struggled. But still it engages audiences. And even though some people have gone so far as to write its obituary, theater survives, as it always will. But in what form, at what price and with whom sitting in the audience? Jerry Herman, the Tony award-winning composer, writes, “The musical theater will go on, and the show tune will never die. But I don’t think we will ever have that special kind of American entertainment in quite the same way,”

Theater still has a long-lasting appreciation from fans in America, even with the developments in TV and film.

“I love films and TV, I enjoy them very much, but what makes theater special is that direct exchange that happens between the actor and the audience. You don’t get that on film and TV,” says Judith Sebesta, Lamar University’s Theatre and Dance Department chair. “With a person viewing a film or TV show, what they do doesn’t effect what they’re seeing. Whereas an audience member can, in very concrete ways, effect what can happen on stage, sometimes in very subtle ways.”

It is that live exchange that separates TV and film from theater, she said.

“The community happens amongst the audience members, but it also happens among the actors on stage,” she said. “But then, between and among the performers and the spectators, you get that wonderful sense of community that we are unfortunately not getting as much anymore.”

Somewhere down the line a disconnect between fans and theater has taken place.

“I think theater is in a bit of a crisis right now,” Sebesta says. “I think it’s always going to exist, but I think it really does need to, in many contexts, redefine itself in relation to mediated performance and mediated entertainment forms, be it on Internet, TV, what have you.

“It’s been doing this for the past 30 years. Many theater artists have been figuring out what makes us different, what makes us special, and attempting to capitalize on those things that set them apart from other mediated forms of entertainment.”

It’s easy to see where technology plays a role in theater’s steady fall through the

Photos by Josh Reeter

Long Live Theater!

Allison Underhill waits for her cue during a rehearsal for “AnInspector Calls,” a play by J.B. Priestly, presented by Lamar University in September.

Photo by Peyton Ritter

ranks of popular American forms of entertainment, but it’s much easier to find that problem than to create its solution.

“Since the advent of TV and film, less and less people can make a living, or more and more artists realize they can make a better living through TV and film,” says Sebesta. “To me, it’s sad, in a way, that you have so many talented artists who for very pragmatic, economic reasons can’t afford to work in theater and live performance. It just isn’t very practical.”

There is more to theater’s dilemma. Theater, being based off of live-audience interaction has a way of reaching audiences that no other medium can claim. This adds a unique perspective that local theater must be willing to take advantage of.

“I think that theater can become more relevant by addressing more local geographic content in ways that maybe film and TV can’t,” Sebesta says. “Occasionally, you get a film that’s set in Texas, but even less frequent is getting a film set in Southeast Texas. Theater could successfully offer something more relevant.”

Technology has been around theater since its conception; the Greeks introduced a number of technologies. Although more and more theater artists accept the technology today, there is still a segment that rejects the introduction of these kinds of mediated technologies like microphones.

“Just the very use of the microphone is controversial,” says Sebesta. “People argue that that means it’s not live. When the voice is mediated like that by technology, it is no longer live. A lot of more old-school people say, ‘We shouldn’t even be using microphones in live performance.’”

“Glee,” the popular television musical show, must take some of the credit and some of the blame for changing the trajectory of musicals.

“You’ve got more young people who are interested in majoring in theater, majoring in music and in the arts in general, and that can’t be anything but a positive thing,” says Sebesta.

“Audiences…are more interested in going to theater. They hear songs from the theater because ‘Glee’ not only has artists from rock and pop, but they regularly have Broadway stars on, and they regularly have show tunes. There’s this wonderful mingling of pop culture, mediated performance, theater and live performance in that show. That influence is a great thing.”

Although “Glee” has had a major impact on the state of theater by opening it up to entirely new audiences, it’s not without its negatives.

“Audience expectations are being shaped by that show’s production values and vocal quality,” says Sebesta. “Less and less students are learning, or are interested in learning, how to project, because what they expect is that it’s going to be a miked performance.”

Higher audience expectations translate directly to larger production costs and more expensive ticket prices for the audience.

“Theater has to get more relevant and in many contexts more affordable,” says Sebesta. “I absolutely love going to New York, and I usually go once or twice ayear and see a Broadway Show. But your average person can’t go and do that because Broadway shows cost $100, $200 or beyond. So, I think in some contexts, theater artists need to get more real about how expensive the live product has become.”

This is a problem theater must deal with it if wishes to stay relevant in the future, she says. Part of the problem is getting people to understand that there is quality theater outside of New York, Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

“Professional theater does happen all over the United States, particularly through the regional theater movement,” says Sebesta. “The League of Resident Theatres is an umbrella organization over many professional theaters which are located throughout the United States — and it’s high quality theater.

MRCHNG NTH AGEMOF RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE BY MAYAKOVSKYAND LISSITZKY ART

On the world’s throttle tighten the proletariat fingers! Chests out with pride! Stick flags on heaven! Who marches by the right? By the left! Left! Left! Left!

Vladimir Mayakovsky, “Left March”

English translation by Peter France

Thecover for the book “For the Voice,” above, a collaboration between the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, top right, and the artist El Lissitzky.

Story by ITWASTHEYEAR of

Elena Ivanova 1922…. Europe was slowly coming out of the economic and spiritual Layout by depression inflicted

Andy by World War I. Coughlan An incessant flow of Russian refugees added to the general turmoil and political unrest. The majority of them were nobility, middle class professionals and cultural elite who fled from their home country following the aftermath of the October Revolution.

Many of them found a temporary shelter in Berlin. Postwar Germany was stripped bare by the reparations to the Allied Forces and embroiled in one of the most devastating political crises. Yet, for Russian emigrants, living there was safer than facing the imminent annihilation in Bolshevik Russia. At the same time, the emigrant community was hopeful that things would come back to normal and looked forward to the day when they could return.

As for Europeans, who were deeply affected by a bitter disillusionment in the values of the western civilization, many of them believed that Russia, despite the horrors of the revolution and the Civil War, social havoc, famine and struggling economy, was on the brink of leading the world into a bright new future. A strong boost to this belief, as well as to the hopes of

Volume18, No. 2 LFT the Russian emigrants, was given by the first exhibition of art of RSFSR, the acronym for the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, which opened in Berlin in 1922. It showcased ground-breaking work that rivaled, and in some ways surpassed, any cutting edge modernist art created in the West.

Among the most well-known guests from Russia who visited Berlin at the time ofthe exhibition was poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. His fame as a brilliant innovator of poetry equaled his notoriety as a belligerent iconoclast who reveled in provoking anger of the “respectable” public by denouncing everything that was conventionally considered sacred and revered — traditional love and moral values, art and religion.

Mayakovsky was a member of the modernist group called the Futurists since 1912. Together with other avant-garde artists, the Futurists spearheaded modernism in Russian culture at the same time when the social revolution was gaining force in the country’s political life. As the two revolutions grew stronger, they joined forces in bringing down the “corrupt bourgeois world.”

Although the majority of avant-garde artists were satisfied with verbal attacks on traditional values and outraged society with their bold artistic experimentations, some of them, including Mayakovsky, took part in political action. He wholeheartedly embraced the October Revolution and immediately enlisted himself in the service of the Bolshevik government. Therefore, when he traveled to Berlin in 1922, the Russian emigrant community regarded him as a spokesperson and an unofficial ambassador of the Soviet state.

They were right. Although Mayakovsky did not hold any official post in the government and traveled as a private citizen, his visit was politically motivated. In his report on attending the exhibition he stressed that “the art of the left artists abroad appears as an original art and that the artists are perceived as defenders and propagandists for Soviet Russia.” Like the purpose of the exhibition on the whole, the purpose of Mayakovsky’s visit was to convince the Russian emigrants that the young socialist state was a stable and viable society which encouraged artistic experimentation and freedom of expression.

Mayakovsky gave a series of lectures and poetry readings, in which he lashed out, with his razor-sharp satires, at the capitalist world’s ignoble attempts to destroy Soviet Russia. During his stay in Berlin, Mayakovsky also published a new book, a collection of thirteen poems, which he created together with famous constructivist designer El Lissitzky. Lissitzky was already living in Germany, having been delegated by the Soviet government to make contacts with German artists, and was a prominent figure in the Russian emigrant community. The result of their collaboration, the book titled “For the Voice,” was destined to become one of the most famous books in the history of Russian avant-garde book publishing and graphic design.

It is necessary to take a step back and describe the environment within which this collaboration took place. The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century were marked by a heightened interest in the book as an art form, both in

European countries and in Russia. In France, around 1900, a new notion emerged, known as “le livre d’artiste” (the book of the artist). These books were comprised of hand-pulled etchings, lithographs, screenprints or woodcuts printed on specially chosen paper. Other examples included books in which images were wrapped around the text and formed a graphically united whole. In Germany and Holland, at the beginning of the 1920s, artists were beginning to use geometric abstraction in typography and page layout, which lead to the creation of highly ordered yet