On the Modern Theatre:
A Manifesto of Sorts by Bohrs Hoff
Roughly a century ago, theatre and film diverged as distinct art forms. Film, as a thoroughly modern and constantly adapting art, is often preferred as entertainment for its permanent nature and ability to reach audiences on a scale that was previously impossible. It should be understood throughout this manifesto that what I discuss in terms of live theatre will not always apply the same way or at all to film. They are different art forms, and require different techniques, despite their many similarities. As a medium, film has taken theatrical realism to the next level, and cemented the fourth wall. It is this physical barrier that remains as the primary definition between theatre and film. It is the lack of this physical border that must be exploited if modern theatre is to maintain its legitimacy as an art form.
I am not providing a unique point of view. Numerous theatre artists throughout the centuries have embraced the inherent nature of live theatre and exploited suspension of disbelief. In ancient Greece, a Chorus served as mediators between the near-divine action onstage and the impulses of the audience. This convention has been abused to become static, and no longer resonates with an audience as it can. Many students are shocked to learn that groundlings in Shakespeare’s time were expected to stand through a five hour production – these students then go out on Friday to stand through an entire punk rock concert. Somehow, the veracity and intense emotional investment of live theatre productions has been lost to contemporary audiences. This loss can be attributed, for the most part and in my opinion, to dry conventions propagated by the actors in the past century.
Often I will refer to ‘actors’ as distinct from artists in other mediums, i.e. film, painting, sculpture, etc. (although theatre possesses another interesting strength of being able to incorporate most other art forms – including film – into a production). However, the responsibilities that I will pin upon actors in their art also apply to every human aspect of a performance, from set design to puppet manipulation. In successful performance, I would argue that each relevant aspect of the show is a contributing character, and so the artist who creates that character is an actor. Also, I simply fail to adopt or manufacture an encompassing term that appropriately describes every member of a production team, from the director, to the designers, to the stage crew, who contribute to the ultimate resulting art of Theatre. And I would still like to refer directly to the people who enact theatre, and not just the Ubermarionette of the production itself. Actors, in the traditional sense, are simply the most apparent representation of the performance, and I use that term, “actor,” most readily. But I hope the rest of the theatre community will understand my meaning, nor criticize me too harshly for the apparent bias in my perspective.
I will also be referring to ‘modern theatre’ in contrast to ‘contemporary theatre.’ By Contemporary theatre, I mean the general state of live theatre today as I write this manifesto. Modern theatre is the potential of theatre as a medium, as well as the kinetic production thereof. Outside of this document, the terms are quite honestly interchangeable, and I am not making vast distinctions other than what I wish to address here. What I call modern theatre does in fact exist in contemporary times, and those few productions are inspirations for my writing this. I desire to share my experiences – as an audience member, actor, student, and friend – with others in the theatre community in order to further existing trends and promote genuine artistic connections. It is not my intention to throw away the ‘old’ style of theatre, nor is it to instigate a ‘new’ convention. I am examining the through-line of all successful and meaningful theatre, and trying to promote that aspect in what has, in some ways (and we hate to admit it), in danger of becoming a dying medium.
It is true that many innovators in theatre have attempted to exploit the artistic freedom of live performance, but these attempts have often been stifled by the manufactured and elitist notion of a realistic theatre in the past century. Despite any use of flashback, or metaphor, or multiple locations being represented onstage simultaneously, alternative conventions in theatre become instantaneously ground into realist posturing. Tennessee Williams originally had projectors feeding images and words on the back wall of the stage while the action played out in “Glass Menagerie,” but it has been cut out of the dream play in nearly every production in favor of forced realism. Plays like “The Adding Machine” by Elmer Rice and “Machinal” by Sophie Treadwell are distinctly expressionist plays, though the strong tradition of American realism has bogged most of their productions down to undermine the original intent. Even in Brecht, the convention of the fourth wall has given most productions a campy style in their theatricality that seldom reaches the audience in the way it was originally intended. When a character breaks out into song, she tends to address the heavens with her high point of focus, as if Brecht were the same as a common American musical. And musical theatre, despite its inherently absurd conventions and vaudevillian origins, has also become trivial and insipid by merit of the overused fourth wall. The theatrical option to burst out into song is a wonderful opportunity to engage the audience and rouse the engaged joy of a standing concert, and yet it has become undermined.
I intend to explore the convention of open interaction between the audience and the actors. This is not meant to be a novelty that becomes explored at the expense of good storytelling. It does not mean campy acting, or indicating, or any other form of forcing the audience to feel a certain way. It is meant to enhance the storytelling available only through this medium. It simply denotes a constant awareness of the audience, and a willingness to engage them directly. A good storyteller is constantly aware of the audience he is speaking to, and actors are, in a long and noble tradition, storytellers. But actors often wind up playing in their own world, disconnected from each other as well as the audience, and lacking a genuine basis in their particular form of storytelling. By ignoring the physical lack of a fourth wall, actors are denying themselves of the most beautiful and direct connection that they have to convey the thoughts and emotions of their story.
In my view of modern theatre, the fourth wall is obsolete. It has been adapted to the art of film, and there perfected. I know there are dissenters on that issue, but to address them would be to digress from my point. My point is that theatre – true theatre – does not by necessity even require the first three walls. Theatre can emerge in daily life, without warning, and it is these sudden eruptions of myth and ritual that can have the strongest impact on an audience. The real and the abstract can certainly merge, but only as long as the ideas and the intentions are strong enough to carry the performance effectively. To be fair, the only innovation that theatre needs is passion. Everything else follows.
Plot, as Sophocles so sagely noted, is the most important part of theatre. But the plot of a story falls flat if the characters, listed by the Greek as secondarily important, are portrayed without passion. When I speak throughout this manifesto about breaking the fourth wall, connecting with the audience, and passionate interaction, I am not referring to a novelty or spectacle. I am referring to the passion that drives characters. I am also referring to the ideas, or themes, that drive the message of the plot and make it significant to the audience. All of the elements of theatre must synthesize in order to present a final and engaging production, and the production is made possible by committed and passionate actors who are willing to convey their story directly to the audience, and impassion them as well.
A Manifesto:
I. Acting
II. Convention
III. Audience
IV. Performance
V. Business and Duty
VI. The Modern Theatre
VII. Productions
I. Acting
Theatre is defined by interaction between actors and audience. Without either, the production cannot be considered theatre. This concept is quite basic, and generally understood under various phrasings. The actors are performing for the entertainment of an audience. Entertainment, despite modern connotations of that word, can indeed be enlightening both emotionally and intellectually. But somehow that connection has become lost throughout the scope of most contemporary theatre. I am not about to examine the origin of this pretentious tradition, because to do so would either oversimplify a vein of history (something that happens far too much anyways) or digress from my point for an unacceptable amount of time. So I will simply state that this elitism in contemporary theatre exists, and it is the enemy of good art.
I will, admittedly, place a lot of the blame on realism and naturalism as theatrical movements. And I am certain that any in-depth research of history would agree with their significance in the matter. But they are not alone, and I do not mean to defenestrate them from the library of theatrical traditions that an actor can adapt to their work. I only mean to say that these conventions have been abused, and the notion of genuine interaction between characters has neglected the genuine interaction with the audience.
Indeed, the notion of a completely naturalistic theatre is absurd. There is nothing natural about acting. Actors are expected to pretend to be someone they are not, speak words that have been written for them as if they are being spoken for the first time, and react to the same unfolding story night after night as if the character has never experienced it before. Acting is, quite simply, unnatural. And by transcending nature it is allowed a freedom to explore human nature from the outside, present it to the audience like a mirror, and invite them to change. The ancient principle of catharsis is part of what an actor must generate in a performance, no matter what scale or subject. The actor must reach out to the audience, and relate to them on a personal level. What makes an audience return to a production is the power of the ritual, and the beauty of the emotion that theatre can elicit. It is the same reason that people return to a temple, to holy men, to homes, to their wives. The emotional contact is of value to them, and they can wonder in it if we invite them.
When I say that the fourth wall has become obsolete in modern theatre, I do not mean to throw out all existing principles of realistic acting. Realist acting and expressionist acting both carry their strengths and weaknesses. A good theatre knows when to exploit either. I will not discuss these strengths and weaknesses at length, though it should be understood that they exist. It should also be understood that both of these schools of thought are separate from poor executions of either. Audience interaction can still take place in a realist setting, despite the actor’s discomfort. Expressionist acting has not always involved the audience, though that seems like the natural choice in such a dichotomy. The most effective theatre combines both to serve the story that needs to be told.
I find that this statement can be most easily illustrated by the works of William Shakespeare. Granted, nobody claims to know perfectly how the Bard was originally performed. But it is inherent in the way that the plays are written – in the asides and soliloquies that he mingles with captivating humanist dialogue – that the actors must be aware of the audience at all times, even when not explicitly addressing them. It is unfortunate that an elitist shroud now clouds contemporary Billy Shakes productions, and there is some expectation that a bland poetry recital constitutes theatre. There is emotion and playfulness that runs through all of his work, even the tragedies, and modern productions should not ignore the spirit of the text. They should embrace and explore the timeless themes in accordance with what will best affect an audience, not speak down to them from a manufactured tradition.
Shakespeare – and any playwright for that matter – is only relevant if his stories can be transplanted into an accessible setting. Many theatre companies abuse this principle in order to set “Titus Andronicus” in Rome, Georgia during the era of Civil War Reconstruction – or some such concept – for no reason other than intellectual masturbation. But this does not necessarily engage the audience (to pursue the crude metaphor a bit further: you are alone in a dark theatre, you are not making love to anyone, and the show is pointless). The setting can just as easily be an ambiguous fantasy setting, so long as it is conceptually grounded with the story being told and can relate substantially with the audience on a basic level. Even the original production was set in a fictitious British idealization of Rome, and the same can be said of “Julius Caesar” (with its infamous clock) or “Cymbeline.” The point is that the production must tell its story in an accessible way by breaching the fourth wall, and rupturing the strangling hold that flat elitist traditions maintain on contemporary theatre.
The best example of ruptured elitism is a text translated into another language. Granted, something will be lost in the changing sounds, but the story is what must carry over most if the production is to be successful. A new language and a new culture bring new understanding to the text, and the production will employ elements that shun establishment in favor of powerful and relatable storytelling. The same goes for any foreign texts translated into English, whether they are Greek classics or Spanish plays. By translating the text, you have already undermined tradition, and you are forced to explore deeper than the words of the text to find its relevant meaning for an audience. So if language changes cultural understanding of a text, then so will time. I restate: even something as intellectually holy as Shakespeare must be adapted to relate with a modern audience. If Arthur Miller’s “The Death of a Salesman” cannot be adapted in a hundred years to relate to a different sort of working class, it will cease to be relevant theatre.
By investing in the actor-audience connection, any story can be wonderfully enlightened by modern theatre. This emotional relationship already exists between good actors onstage, when they organically react to each other in the moment. That relationship merely needs to be explored with the audience, as if they were another character informing the scene. They are not merely breaking the fourth wall, and not merely interacting with the audience, but engaging the audience and integrating them into the performance itself. If the actor transcends the fourth wall to interact with genuine and organic emotion, the production becomes actually cathartic for everyone involved. But the comfort that this process requires from an actor is immense, and demands at least some improvisational understanding of the underlying text.
Most contemporary actors abhor improvised Shakespeare, though it must have been touched upon in the original productions. Theatre just before Shakespeare’s time was devised simply as a raised plank set up in the common area of an inn. And by the time royal companies performed, the surrounding presence of the audience still remained. Displeasure yielded rotten fruit thrown at great speeds. Improvisation thrives in such circumstances, and is indeed a necessity. The interaction between the actors and audience is constant in such a theatre, and provokes high stakes in the action. The onstage king must renounce his onstage faithful wife with the utmost convincing determination, for he will be pelted by the observing mob for such depraved action. The actor-king must react convincingly to both the fiction of his condemned actor-wife and the reality of audience condemnation. Such a moment is both inherently absurd, yet feels beautifully imbued with realistic emotional interaction, originating in an era before either absurdism or realism was coined. Such a moment simply does not occur in contemporary theatre, and after the actors have embraced the convention then the burden for such a moment evidently lies on the willing audience.
II. Convention
The convention of a fourth wall is enforced upon both sides of the stage from an early age. For the actors, the audience is often just a huddled silhouette on the other side of the light, and we are often never forced to confront them. When the concept of interaction is finally presented to a traditionally trained actor, it is dreadfully awkward, and the conditioning is hard to overcome. When we find ourselves on the other side of the stage, sitting in the audience, the comfort of the fourth wall is only reinforced by our own inhibitions. The stage is even granted an almost ritualistic silence, and it becomes difficult to elicit a response.
Often, when shows do attempt to overcome the fourth wall, they have adopted a technique of child’s rhymes: addressing the audience directly with what their reaction should be at a given cue. This seldom elicits more than a droning and sparse chant, because audiences do not generally expect any other theatrical convention than the single one they are used to. With very few exceptions, live theatre is an expensive form of entertainment, and it usually attracts a more docile demographic. The audience at most productions simply wants to sit and passively watch a show in expensive silence. This docility is a symptom of the unfortunate elitism in contemporary theatre, which has honestly fostered (in addition to conventions I personally oppose) bad acting without genuine connections between increasingly pretentious professional actors. Granting, bad art is unavoidable to some extent, no matter what conventions exist in whatever medium. But specifically, the elitism of contemporary theatre has made bad acting acceptable to the art, and the aspect of fun in entertainment frequently abandons productions.
It must be accepted that art has to be entertaining to be effective. Elitism works because some people are honestly entertained by the notion of thinking they are better than you. But that limits entertainment by removing the fun for most people. Knowledge and enlightenment work best when they are fun, because it makes the student eager to learn. Scientists pursue their work because they enjoy it, as do historians, politicians and teachers. That is the reason that the Latin word for school means ‘play;’ that is the reason theatrical plays are called ‘plays.’ It is entertainment, and whatever conventions that are used must support that. Fun does not negate the seriousness of potential subject matter, or the possible depth of emotion that plays can evoke. Fun simply denotes passion and love for the art, on the part of both the audience and the actors.
When the audience has fun, it affects the performance in a wonderful way. Actors will notice that tragedy has evoked tears, or comedy has instigated laughter. The very concept of ‘holding for laughs’ is distinctly non-realist, yet it is valued in almost any performance I have been privy to. Here we have an example of old conventions cracking through the contemporary façade of otherwise realistic theatre. To explore the audience/actor dichotomy in realistic terms: it is impossible to hold intention through an extended pause – which is, ‘unbeknownst’ to the character, actually an extended belly laugh – after a remark that neither character finds funny and is the cue for the actor’s next line, though it is possible to hold focus between characters and the intensity of the moment. Actors in this moment are exploring the deliberate and essential interaction between the audience and themselves. If they hold for a laugh at something they expect to be funny, they run the risk of indicating, and thereby undermining the focus of their character. If they steamroll through the laughs, the actors are hiding dialogue under audience response, and the audience is deprived of enjoying a laughter that they want to engage in. So actors already have some understanding of their interaction with the audience.
The audience also has some understanding of the suspension of disbelief. They know that a black box can function as a chair, and a black floor can function as a green field. They know that a piano on one end of the stage suggests one location while the boudoir on the other end of the stage suggests a different location, and yet these locations can coexist on the same stage at different periods of simultaneous theatrical time. They know that an actor can move from one end of the stage to the other and change locations. Often the actor does not know how to alter their physicality as they move from one dramatic location to the other. Suspension of disbelief is, in many cases, quite simply abused. Actors are using it to make the audience cover their own disaffection with their surroundings on stage, and lack of focus on the theatrical place is considered acceptable. This is, in most cases, just instances of bad acting. But this style of acting has become a trend in contemporary theatre that becomes encouraged by a convention that does not want you to acknowledge anything not ‘realistic.’ Suspension of disbelief can, however, carry a performance a long way if it is used properly.
The interaction of audience and actor is undeniable as a common convention; it is just undermined by more dominant conventions. I would argue that theatrical elitism is allowing bad acting to become a convention in and of itself, and I can not abide that. Realism, as a style, is not objectionable by itself. Personally, I favor the term ‘genuine’ in acting over ‘realistic,’ since genuine characters are common to all good theatre, whereas realistic characters are not. Realism is a distinct style that does have a place in theatre, and does possess significant emotional resonance with audiences. But it is not the only style, and it is often forced on productions that cannot function with it and still be genuine. It is these instances that I refer to when I associate theatrical realism and negative use of the fourth wall. O’Neill’s “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” for example, is a powerful realist play, which requires a definite degree of realism for the characters to remain genuine. The argument that I am making is that strictly expressionist acting cannot be imposed on the play any more than strictly realistic acting can be imposed upon “The Hairy Ape,” as I am sure some idiot somewhere has tried. However, neither play can float in space, and both demand acknowledgement of the audience as much as any other relevant play.
Acting in theatre is a strange art, and within the medium of theatre there are numerous different techniques that function differently with different actors. It is my personal opinion that individual actors must develop their own method to how they approach a character in any genre. From what I hear, Stanislavsky agrees with me on that particular point, but apparently no American has ever read that particular volume of his work. I am not trying to impose any particular method of acting in this manifesto. Though my personal bias in theatrical style will become apparent, I hope that some of the principles I put forth are adaptable to other styles by actors of other preferences. What I am proposing, regardless of method or style, is that overarching convention of sans fourth wall. However that manifests, as long as the production engages and affects the audience through emotional and not just intellectual connection, I value it as modern theatre.
Modern theatre, as it exists, and as it hopefully persists, is any production that engages its audience on a personal level, directly or indirectly. However, some actors – myself included – have a bias of direct interaction, which is rarely explored in the context of modern theatre. As I have said, most audience members are uncomfortable when the fourth wall is directly ignored, and most actors are uncomfortable initiating that interaction. Training actors to become comfortable outside of that traditional convention is easy enough, in the right company. But an audience must simply be willing, and cannot be trained in the same sense. Instead, they must be offered the new convention in a consistent fashion, and they may leave it or take it if they feel so enthused. When an audience complies to this convention, it is an utter joy for everyone involved. But contemporary audiences, for the most part, are uncomfortable breaking silence. If something isn’t even labeled a comedy, the audience can be hesitant to surrender laughter. If tragedy ever incites tears, the audience stoically retains as much quiet as possible. Rarely, in these later years of realist tradition, will an audience applaud or boo a production until the curtain allows them to. Though respectful silence has golden value, there are more important things.
I have heard a very interesting myth on the origin of this phenomenon. As the story goes, a particular audience member was being particularly raucous at a Restoration production, just before the turn of the 19th century. The theatrical conventions at this time almost gave more significance to the audience than the performance. The play was analogous at this time to a harp-player during dinner while you discuss politics with your friends. But at this particular mythical or historical performance, the nameless audience member decided to walk onstage and belligerently heckle one of the actors. The actor replied not with dialogue, but with his prop sword, and the audience member was run through with it. The body slumped to the floor, the actor sheathed his prop, and the performance continued in absolute respectful silence. It was, so I hear, the birth of contemporary theatre. Though it illustrates the death for many years of actor-audience participation, I really like that story. It is, I suppose, the awful climax of ideal theatre. But in many ways we have now reached the awful denouement of actor-audience division. A truly vibrant theatre should not be so afraid of death.
III. Audience
The question then becomes: how does the modern theatre successfully shake an audience – not just a few members, but the audience – out of their fearful complacency? It is a dreadful indication of the state of the world, I will posit. To digress only slightly: We have come to an age when a person does not even have to fear death to be made to do a master’s bidding. The person has become afraid of life. Security breeds complacency, complacency breeds violence, violence begets terror. Remove the desire for security, we lose complacency, violence loses its power, terror is ineffective. When actors and audience can be comfortable without a safety net, then the production as a whole is actually free to soar to new heights. To rephrase concretely: Scientific studies have been done on actors, which indicate that a human heart rate is more erratic before the curtain opens on it than before a firing squad is commanded to fire on it. Actors deliberately face fear somehow greater than death, and revel in it. After the whole prop sword fiasco, it is imperative that we bring an audience back up to our level.
In order to do that, I am going to present a more specific view of where modern theatre should direct itself, instead of just a general call to arms in criticism of contemporary theatre. What I present hereon are merely possibilities along a specific vein of theatrical thought, and I expect that other possibilities will be explored by other factions of theatrical thought. However, I do hope my peers will take the time to explore new conventions in this way, as I intend to explore them, because I believe there is definite potential in what I write. I previously referred to this document as a manifesto. So I will propose the phases by which a utopian cooperation between audience and performer may occur. I am an idealist and a fool, and only by embracing the certainty of failure am I free to overcome it. So let us now proceed.
In the first era of modern theatre, we are required to employ confederates. Ideally, a confederate is an actor who is willing to play the part of an audience member, and then be killed with a prop sword by the actor on stage. (When I have grown old and outlived everyone I love, this will probably be how I die). However, there are lesser degrees of commitment which the revolution will appreciate. For example, a confederate can be violently swept into the performance, and appear to be drafted into the action. This will send a rush of fear through the surrounding audience members. Multiple confederates perhaps should be employed to this effect. Only the audience members who remain will have a secret desire to be swept onstage themselves. These are the beautiful willing, and their wishes should be granted occasionally as the performance allows.
As this convention becomes accepted by audiences, they will seek out such a performance, and confederates will only be necessary for the most dangerous stunts. In the final age of modern theatre, the audience will need no invitation, and they will throw fruit at their own leisure in support of the story. I will cite the musical concert as evidence that such conventions as possible. Specifically in punk rock and other derivations of rock and roll, the musical performers take on a certain persona as arbiters of dancing freedom in the audience. The mosh pit – a human whirlpool of violent joy – is a spectacular phenomenon which has yet to find a workable counterpart in theatre. The spiritual capacity of music and dance are elements of a multimedia performance that can greatly serve actors in search of the modern theatre.
IV. Performance
In order to instigate the action of theatre, actors must adapt existing conventions to suit our needs. The most basic one is the establishment of a playing space. There have arisen certain movements in modern theatre that use an entire building in lieu of a stage, and encourage the audience to move about at their leisure from room to room to witness different aspects of the production. Though this is a grand departure from what most audiences are used to, they are still presented with the convention they must adopt and they are provided with the physical limits of the performance space so they can leave if they need to. Though these limits are important, they do not need to be so blatant. Good theatre is, in many ways, hard to find for the average audience member, unless they know exactly where to look. The objective of modern theatre, as I see it, must be to open up its availability and break the elitism of contemporary theatre. So we must seek out our audience as we pursue the space to perform for them in. A proscenium stage is comfortable. A dingy basement can be reminiscent of a black box studio theatre. A public park or parking lot are the ideals. A street corner will suffice just fine. It is the spontaneity that matters in the performance, because that provides a unique energy for a found audience.
Though the reality of such a performance is that the audience surrounds the actors, the audience should not grow comfortable with their advantage. They should grow to think at any moment the performance could erupt from outside. They should suspect everyone amongst them of confederacy, and even a son or brother may become an active compatriot to the story being told. The performance itself should be a living, breathing entity. It should be a constant joyful game between everyone involved. Discomfort is not bad, and even expected. Though the moment of the story erupts out of daily life, it should carry a deliberate air of heightened fantasy. The danger should be fun. If it is not fun, then the audience is welcome to leave. It is their prerogative. If an audience member walks out disgustedly on a show, it is indicative of one of two things: either the show is bad, or it is profound. Performers must learn for themselves how to differentiate. If an actor walks out on a show, it means only this: the actor is unprofessional. Only a professional can face something worse than a firing squad every night of the week, twice on Sundays. There will never be a professional audience, and so they are allowed certain liberties that an actor cannot have.
Though I aspire to rekindle interaction between actor and audience, I do not want to blend their roles entirely. I only want to make the audience aware of their own role in life. There is a ritual duty in the actor’s performance, and that is to elicit a response from the audience. Often that response is desired to be laughter. Sometimes it is tears. Seldom it is individual thought. A great performance combines all these things. If the actor is not dedicated to creating a great performance, that actor should abandon the project before the ensemble unwittingly places too much of its weight on an unprofessional. The paradoxical reality becomes: only a professional actor would recognize the proper time to leave the stage. This is what makes the group dynamic so important, because the actors in a troupe must feed and balance each other on stage constantly, and must acknowledge each other’s limitations as well as their own. As a society, then, we must necessarily be adapting constantly, shedding iniquity as it comes and cultivating new virtues as they become perceived. As artists especially, we must strive to be aware of ourselves and this process.
V. Business and Duty
Art, and by extension, theatre, can be defined as the reconciliation between freedom and restraint. I am not going to delve heavily into the philosophical quandary of freedom, though the concept bears somewhat heavily on the matter at hand. The majority of artists pursue their given profession because of some inherent desire for freedom. But I will provide a simplistic example for when philosophy and reality align: sometimes the freedom of expression infringes upon the freedom to eat. In order to reconcile these two desires, art has been developed into a business. This creates a significant conflict of interest. But fortunately for us, good theatre thrives on good conflict.
There was a time when actors were not allowed to be buried in sacred ground, on account of the undesirable fringes of society that the profession tends to attract. In the European tradition, and especially in Puritan England, theatre was seen as a center of lies and sin, and people who engaged in performances were seen as the disreputable bottom of society for many years. This is despite the fact that many people at the high end of society still came to shows and enjoyed themselves thoroughly despite the prostitutes roaming among the groundlings. And yet there were still people who pursued theatre as a form of art and self expression, and were content to subsist on what little they made for the love of theatre. In the contemporary world of professional acting, most actors have lost any humility from the heritage of their profession, and the stereotypical pursuit of glory has somehow come to characterize what remains a mostly thankless job. Very few actors see acting as a successful business, and most of the community who make a consistent living out of it must possess an inherent love for the art.
A great man once said to me: “to give in expectation of something in return is not love. It is business. I do not do business. I do my duty, and that is love.” So it comes as a great pain for many actors that we must take a perceived duty – our art – and turn it into a business if we are to survive. Viewing theatre as a business over a duty has generated an unfortunate elitism in our art form, and “good” theatre is financially inaccessible for the majority of the available audience. As I have insinuated earlier, this “good” theatre often turns out to be slow and uninspiring drivel of some form or another. On a practical note, making a theatre production available for cheaper than admission to a movie is good for our business. But my philosophy here is fighting against rather large cogs of a civilized machine which operates only to feed itself at this point.
My philosophy is that of acting simply for love of the art. A good actor must perform without fear of death, even death by starvation. If an audience repays the actors for the experience, it should not be out of a business agreement, but out of a shared love of the performance. The actor must deliver an exceptional, beautiful performance with full commitment but without any expectation from the audience. The actor must give fully, expecting nothing in return, not even from a scene partner. If and when the scene partner and the audience return their love and joy, then an actor can respond effectively and with genuine commitment. But we must not undermine these moments by preempting the reactions. Because as everyone who works in theatre knows: The greatest moments onstage are never expected.
This returns to the notion of actors as a community. Performance is generated by a community, and community denotes interdependence. What makes a theatrical community unique is the interchangeable nature of its components. Actors may take different roles each night, depending on the needs of the performance or the actors themselves. If one member of the ensemble is ill, another actor can fill the role. Exploration of different roles is encouraged, as is the exploration of limits. A professional learns her limits and works with them for the benefit of the theatre community. A professional theatre understands the limits of its members and works to their benefit. In this way, the interdependence is fluid. This is not a profession of an ideal; it is a statement of function. Actors are by nature whiny, rumbling, gossipy people whose lives thrive on conflict. But the professional is self-aware, and acknowledges these flaws as aspects of his limits. This is true of any community. When the community ceases to be self aware, it crumbles. A professional theatre, along with any art form, is meant to serve as the most self aware part of the larger community, or society as a whole. We may be hypocrites. But we are right.
VI. The Modern Theatre
I foresee the modern theatre functioning thus:
A temporary troupe is formed by a small group of like-minded actors, who share a vision of a relevant and effective theatre like the one I have previously described. These actors are all friends, or at least friends of friends, who possess a love for each other and for theatre as a whole. They are interested in doing their duty to each other and the art form, keeping each other happy and well-fed; not simply doing business. This passion is what invigorates whatever production they choose to embark upon, breaking all four walls at the drop of a hat, and incorporating the audience into whatever emotional and intellectual storyline the actors wish to pursue. The troupe is a travelling entity, moving from city to town, field to basement, in search of a wide range of audiences to reach with the story they desire to tell. After the troupe has brought the production to the final destination on its preferred route, it disbands, and the actors go their separate ways. This process promotes adaptation in the theatre, which is naturally malleable as a medium, and prevents stagnation. Actors are encouraged to develop these principles in forming new companies, and new productions may be pursued with other interested parties, and the network can be expanding and evolving constantly. And though any individual troupe is temporary, the individual actors may wish to continue working with each other on separate productions in the evolution of different troupes.
Theatre is and always has been a unique experience, and every show of every production is different in some way. The functional troupe I propose is merely a heightened incarnation of the contemporary theatre that already exists. By shifting the setting every night, the uniqueness of the experience is amplified for the audience, and the actors are forced to adapt and incorporate the new environment into their performance. The change of venue every night offers unique opportunities for the actors, who must be adaptive and well trained in improvisation to some degree, even if the production relies on a written text.
A performance should begin literally at the drop of a hat. The hat is central to the performance, because it is an established convention in contemporary performance art, especially among the homeless. When a performance is accompanied by a hat on the ground, it is a silent request for alms, and serves the highly practical purpose of feeding the actors after the show. It is the unknown price of admission, and the suggested donation. And through the practical aspects of the convention, it can develop into a greater interactive mechanism. Soft, rotten fruit is thrown in disapproval; hard, cold coins and cash are thrown in approval. A hat is thrown on the floor, and the performance begins, no matter what the space is.
The bread-money hat likely deserves its own attendant, and a character deserves to be developed for that purpose, as befits the production. Whatever concession stand exists requires an attendant, who is also a part of the show and needs to encourage involvement with the show. Whatever items a troupe is able to sell, these items should be excuses to reel the audience in. Specifically, I believe this is a perfect opportunity to sell rotten fruits and vegetables (which can be acquired from local farms and establishments that will happily give away what they cannot sell) to throw at the actors. There is a beautiful novelty in this old convention, which I think deserves to be explored in modern theatre. But this whole process of using the entire empty space as a stage, and tearing down the four walls by any means necessary, will generate a new energy for the actors to explore, and will inform the performance in profound new ways.
But all of these grand notions of what modern theatre can and should be are useless without some practical grounding in how it can be accomplished. I mentioned already that the troupe should be made of friends. Though this by no means will negate conflict or tension, it fosters a better sense of trust and enthusiasm which is more likely to actually accomplish the task at hand. But even beyond that, some basic logistics need to be processed by the more competent organizers in the group. I feel I should discuss some of the general concerned that a functioning troupe would have, if they were to take this proposal seriously.
The actual method of transportation must be given primary consideration, and the preference may be different for any troupe depending on what their needs and capabilities are. A lucky troupe will be able to make it by on bicycles, travelling lightly and cheaply. The bikes themselves are an easy enough resource to acquire if the actors to not own some already. They can often be acquired for free on college campuses at the end of the school year, where the wealthy students have discarded unwanted items before they travel back home for the summer. If you somehow wish to incorporate a television set into your production, this is also a good place to look. But use of bicycles requires that all actors in the troupe are in at least comparable health, which limits membership to some extent. It also places a severe limit on whatever personal items and resources can be carried from show to show. The most significant setback to bicycles is a lack of protection from the elements, which also limits the seasons that can be used to tour.
The other option is some form of motor transportation, though that adds gasoline to the list of production costs. Motorcycles are relatively cheap and efficient, eliminate the health limitations required by bicycles, and (depending on the model) allow for a larger storage capacity. But the weather criticism remains. A car would seem like the most natural choice, but the specific models available to a troupe indicate different things. Any troupe larger than four people would require a convoy, and that generates a larger gasoline bill that must be taken into account. Depending on the size of the vehicles used, the situation could be cramped whenever actors are in transit, which can wear on people’s dispositions differently. Notably, though, the car provides emergency shelter from the elements, and a larger storage capacity. A troupe needs to weigh the cost benefits of larger vehicles with the number of actors involved. Depending on the monetary resources available, a bus may indeed be a good option. There are two primary setbacks: a special license is required to operate such a vehicle, and there is a large gasoline price attached once the vehicle has been acquired. But there is an undeniable romance to converting an old schoolbus into a roving home on wheels for vagabond actors. The pros and cons will weigh differently with different troupes. Commonly, the car convoy will be the most viable option.
By using a motor vehicle, gasoline is realistically the depressingly overwhelming primary cost. Though the production is expected to bring in money as the troupe progresses, the physical plan of a budget is necessary at the outset. This provides the realistic expectations of how the rest of the production should be pursued. Depending on the budget available, after gas you now have little money left for props, costumes, and salary. The latter issue is what makes personal commitment to the troupe so important. There is no real guarantee that the production will be lucrative, if it breaks even. Resourcefulness is the name of the game, ladies and gentlemen. Beyond whatever initial seed money that can be acquired (via personal savings, wealthy relatives, benefactors, prostitution, or any combination thereof), the troupe must acquire most of its physical resources for free. Masks, puppets, props, and set pieces must all be either built or found by whatever means available. If a troupe is limited by whatever items the individual members already possess, then a production must be established around those existing items. I once saw an original show that was developed entirely around the cast’s possession of a bumblebee suit. You can have fun with limited resources, as long as you put your mind to it and keep your eyes open.
This mindset also applies to whatever items the troupe wishes to sell beside the show. A troupe can take or leave this convention, depending on their angle, but having a concession stand or selling some sort of cheap trinket rarely hurts if you want to turn a profit. Some companies offer good deals on resale t-shirts with custom designs, which can be tailored to the production. If the troupe has incorporated a band into their ranks – which can be valuable for a number of reasons in a low-tech travelling production – then music CD’s can be sold. Stickers or buttons or any number of things can be manufactured at little cost to turn a profit, and anything that keeps the ship afloat is a good thing. The actor tending to the bread-money hat may be well served by a “donations welcome” sign, just to draw attention to the fact that, as professionals, the actors need to eat and guzzle gas if they want to make it to the next show. This may have to be substituted in public locations where solicitation is prohibited. Public transportation is the most common example of this. One experimental theatre group pulled a stunt by first marking the set entrances for subway cars along multiple stops, and then entering a single car in clown costumes – one by one, stop by stop, as the train progressed along its route. A theatre troupe in garish costumes could easily open a production this way An occasional outburst of thank-yous between an actor onstage and the hat attendant, where the onstage actor drops loose change into the hat as a suggestion to the audience, may easily serve as a device.
The sequence of shows, of course, needs definite consideration. A troupe is best served by actors who know the region they will be travelling through, because they can help establish the most productive route. The troupe will, ideally, perform every night. Every few nights there should be a performance at an established venue, where arrangements have been made beforehand through some connection or another (the actors planning the production are essentially landing gigs for the troupe. Finding an establishment that will allow you to perform for cheap or free is difficult, so it is important to keep an open mind in looking for venues. Do not neglect the basements of friends and relatives). The purpose of these planned stops is mostly to have a show that has been given some form of advertisement in the area, and in theory will have a larger audience. All shows should provide some form of advertisement for the troupe as a whole, and the responsibility can easily fall to the breadhat attendant as well. I suggest that troupes conserve paper and merely display their website address for audiences to seek and spread word of mouth off of (this presupposes, of course, that the troupe devises a website beforehand which displays their route, planned performance dates, and cast bios among other things). Planned shows are interspersed, for days at a time, between unplanned shows at discovered locations, such as parking lots and street corners, which possess a strong element of guerilla theatre. A selected location may prove itself to be not ideal midway through the show, and moving may be necessary. For example, the police may request a permit that you do not have. Be courteous, pretend it is part of the show, and shift the location without breaking the action of the story if possible. This is why improvisation is so important.
Of course, the phrase “batshit insane” lends itself quite easily to the practical assessment of any suchproduction. That is to be expected, even though it is no less insane than trying to maintain a “normal” career in the theatre among stationary theatre companies. The modern theatre I anticipate will embrace its own nature, and flourish in the tenuous grip on the present moment that all theatre possesses. Even in stationary theatres, the production exists for a certain time and then disbands, scattering the actors to find new work and leaving no real record except in the audience’s minds. So viewing it from the systemic level, a travelling troupe is really just a survivalist adaptation of contemporary theatre companies. Which means that it is in fact possible to sustain.
VII. Productions
However, this demands the question of what sort of productions can actually accommodate the style of theatre I am describing. The natural response would be to generate new subject matter that could lend itself easily to improvised dialogue and action, while still carrying a legitimate and fully realized story. Indeed, one possible method to creating productions would be a punk patchwork of dissonant improvised notions, hopefully comprising an intelligent whole. Instead of taking audience suggestions, as is common in improv shows, the spur for a production could take place in a travelling band’s musical selection, which then spurs the action of characters on stage and through the audience in a mix of pure improvisation, original written material, and excerpts from known works (ideally copyright free). However, an existing form of theatre jumps to my mind which seems to fulfill these criteria.
The Renaissance Italian style known as Commedia del Arte, which required very skilled and professional actors in its height, involves set story arcs and determined character relationships connected by improvised dialogue, comic bits, and musical interludes. I do not propose that the modern theatre troupe completely resuscitates this highly influential tradition (though I would not in any way discourage that venture), but I think the form is stylistically accessible to most audiences as well as talented actors, and it can be adapted in many ways. Primarily, the use of archetypal characters seems like a highly potent stage device to attract an audience into the story. Originally, Commedia characters were instantaneously recognizable for a popular audience, and an actor’s mask and costume immediately identified her as the bombastic Dottore, the lovesick Inamorata, or the wily Harlequin servant, among many others. There was little need for exposition, because an audience immediately knew what to expect from each character. The joy comes from discovering exactly how a character achieves a goal in a given situation. In a modern audience, however, there would not be so much recognition, and modern attempts at Commedia often feed into the gaunt elitism that we are trying to overcome.
The way to adapt this is quite simply a revision of what modern audiences see as recognizable archetypes. An archetype, as I must understand it in this situation, is a detached character – two dimensional in its own motivations, providing depth only through the relationships it generates and the themes it expresses – which is indicative of a larger idea. For example, El Dottore can be revamped in modern medical garb, and still portray the classical archetype of the incompetent expert who does not know how to synthesize his book learning. Most Commedia characters can be adapted this way in highly stylized fashion. However, I would also be fond of seeing new archetypes introduced, who are even more instantaneously recognizable to an audience. Elvis, as an icon of pretentious fame and excess (I speak of the fat Vegas incarnation portrayed by impersonators, not a historical figure); Hitler, as the personification of petty and disgruntled evil autocrat (a wild caricature, again, not based too heavily on the historical figure); Mother Teresa, as the incarnation of compassionate love and devotion that we wish was present in all nuns; Uncle Sam or John Bull, or some personification of the paternal nation; or any number of abstract notions that can be easily portrayed as a recognizable character. It should be understood, for the sake of those not already familiar with Commedia, that these archetypes were not set in their relationships to each other in the Renaissance form. In one show – to irreverently mix the archetypes I have presented – the Doctor may be trying to win the heart of Hitler’s beautiful Inamorata daughter with the help of Harlequin’s scheming, and in the next show Hitler might be an intellectual friend of Doctor whose fortune is being stolen by Harlequin and Uncle Sam. The plot and relationships change, but the character’s dispositions remain the same by merit of their archetypal nature.
The Commedia tradition also has some physical aides that can be of benefit to modern theatre. The most apparent one is the use of half-masks, which disguise the actor’s features but allow her to speak audibly. This necessitates more physical acting and exploration of emotion through movement, which any number of theatre theorists have written volumes on, and can be of great use in exaggerated stage-play that seeks to engage an audience directly. Mask work in general is highly valuable and greatly underused in contemporary theatre. Though it is one of the oldest tools in the history of theatre, bearing great ritual significance in many cultures, it by no means should be considered obsolete. It is merely a radically antirealist costume, and it has great advantages for anyone pursuing absurdist or abstract theatre that can still affect an audience with deep human emotion. The second item that I would like to mention from Commedia, which I am dreadfully fond of, is the slap-stick. It is essentially a pair of two-by-fours attached by a hinge, and wielded by actors to simulate violence with loud noises. Slapstick comedy is the style that bears the name of this wonderful invention. It also proactively weans the audience out of their fear of prop swords.
Any number of things can be lifted from the Commedia tradition and utilized in an original work. Masks come in innumerable shapes and forms from different cultures, and often accommodate other forms of puppetry. Music of any style can be incorporated in varying degrees. And there are plenty of other traditions that can be drawn upon and utilized by the troupe to generate a synthetic and captivating method of storytelling. It is especially peculiar that in America, in whose Heartland I am writing this manifesto, which is supposedly the Melting Pot of world cultures, we have so few unique theatre traditions of note. The two centers of multicultural thought in art, as I have seen, are somehow Japan and Africa. The former has a rich tradition of animation and cinema that incorporates all manner of Western philosophies and mythologies with native style and thought into cohesive fantasy storytelling. The latter has produced a number of theatrical traditions (all obscure to most Westerners) which have synthesized all manner of European and native forms to create new traditions. Various countries in the African continent have created theatrical forms that adapt their own oral histories with modern events and such diverse styles as French opera and American vaudeville into a single hybrid form of storytelling that crosses genres. No such creations come to mind in American theatre, where we most commonly combine Russian realism with bland noncommittal dispositions.
I would like this manifesto to be, if nothing else, a Call to Arms.
The American theatre needs to generate diverse theatrical traditions – befitting of our combined cultural heritage – which tell meaningful and provoking stories of the human condition.
Every other culture has managed to do it. I’m not sure what our problem is.
But in creating a unique style, the modern theatre troupe need not abandon the use of a written script entirely. I do not mean to appear biased as such in this manifesto, though I have advocated the use of improvisation heavily. Some contemporary playwrights have already incorporated some “metatheatricality” in their scripts which encourage and even necessitate a breach of the fourth wall. The modern theatre troupe can discover any of these works, or commission an original work in this vein. Yet I fear that some readers may think this disqualifies earlier works.
Any number of Absurdist plays, like Antonin Artaud’s “Spurt of Blood” or Alfred Jarry’s “King Shit”would be glorious if randomly unleashed upon an unsuspecting audience on a public street. Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” could allow for its characters to fearfully recognize the audience in their lucid moments, and otherwise trapped in the minimalist Hell of a shopping mall parking lot. Brecht, viewed by some as a now-dated specific style, could be reinterpreted in any number of settings. Shakespeare litters many of his plays with asides and soliloquies which, even in the original tradition, ought to be directed to individual audience members. His plays All Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists have been swallowed by slow, dry, heavy performances in contemporary theatre, where soliloquies are deliberately swallowed by unknowing actors unwilling to step beyond the footlights and make eye contact. The audience is like another scene partner, no matter who has written the work you wish to perform. They should not be ignored in the final performance, if live theatre is to be properly realized.
Even if a troupe wishes to use a realist drama, there are ways to incorporate the audience in the action. I can imagine “Hedda Gabbler” performed suddenly in the middle of a swanky coffee shop, the action slowly building and climaxing in the midst of unwitting spectators who pretend not to notice the heart-wrenching conflict at the table next to them, then caught off-guard by a faux pistol shot from the bathroom. There are ways. A troupe is limited only by their talent and their imagination in what they are able to develop and accomplish. The key is simply engaging the audience through the guise of the fourth wall, in one way or another.
Another suggestion that I would like to impress upon all actors of theatre is that you should not neglect comedy. Even in a serious drama, look for natural beats of comedy, and allow them to happen. The opposite problem, which is just as common, is forgetting to weigh straight comedy with genuine emotion or relationships. The emotional connection that you share with your friend is what you need with your stage partner, is what your character needs to have with the other characters onstage, is what you need to have with the audience. Blunt slapstick comedy has its place, but it is only a device to tell a story that relies on how an audience can relate the concrete or abstract with their own lives. I should hope by now these things are obvious to you, but we all need reminders sometimes.
Exit, pursued by a bear:
Bohrs Hoff
10.4.08
7.56 AM Central Time
I would like to thank my good friend, Falstaff (you know who you are), who was the main inspiration for me to write this. Much of what I wrote in this manifesto were just abstract ideas rolling around in my brain until he approached me with abstract floating ideas of his own and (more importantly) some practical applications for them. That cannot be expressed enough.
Also, I ought to thank my parents, as a good son should. My father, who died when I was a mere toddling and left me with an abstract avatar of goodness in life as well as bitter resentment for injustice that provokes much of what I do in my free time. And my mother, who has supported my flights of fancy both emotionally and financially throughout my life.
And I suppose also Derron, as both a friend and teacher, who is my primary theatrical influence in the world to date. Whatever that means. I fear I would be far saner without him.
