Charlie Sheen has taught us something after all:

Charisma is a lot easier to manufacture on film than it is on stage.

[EW, image via BBC News]

bleargh

I'm going to go out on a limb and hope that Christopher Shinn's piece on the Awl -- outlining the various ways that his friends displease him when they don't lie about loving everything he writes -- is a lighthearted take on the Oversensitive Playwright Cliche. Because if it's not -- jeez, get over yourself.

At the end of the day, we all know the truth. We know what it feels like and sounds like. It isn’t something that can be faked. If you didn’t like my play, I’ll know it. And you’ll know I know it. So why not just be a pal? At the end of the show, wrap your arms around me and congratulate me. I’ll know what you really felt. And I’ll be thankful that my friends like and respect me even when they don’t like my work.

It's precisely this type of naked emotional neediness that makes non-theater people hate theater people. It makes me hate them, too. Oversensitive playwrights need to get over themselves, or go into therapy, or something other than asking people to hand over their money and then demand validation on top of it. If you're not confident enough to defend your work, don't put it out there. Put it in your journal -- not your PUBLIC BLOG, but your super-secret-in-the-bedside-table-diary -- and leave your friends and everyone else alone. Because in the real world, you have to give and take, not just take.

(Unless Shinn is kidding, in which case this article is HILARIOUS.)

[The Awl]

first they came for the public sector unions...

The first gauntlet has been tossed in the pending labor war -- and no, I'm not talking about the NFL. The Governor of Wisconsin has proposed ripping up contracts with public sector unions and starting over with new rules that will ensure collective bargaining doesn't get in the way of balanced budgets.

Is this terrible? You bet it is. But let's keep in mind how we got there -- the hard-line mentality of unions going back more than 30 years that viewed management as nothing but an enemy to be battled, instead of a collaborator. Despite the fact that alternative models were available (looking at you, Germany).

So now, instead of presenting alternative models for businesses, they used an opt-in or opt-out model, and now that times are tough enough, the excuse is primed to scrap collective bargaining altogether.

Problem is, if this sticks, the abandonment of collective bargaining in the private sector is close behind. Hard models are brittle and break easily. Flexibility is the key to survival.

You listening, Equity?

[NYTimes]

the urgency of not-now

Had an interesting exchange with someone at an audition this weekend; he expressed disbelief that we were prepping All's Fair (Six Western) this far in advance of its Fall bow. But I am disbelieving of that belief. I fully understand that in the rough-and-tumble world of off(x19)-Broadway, we improvise to the very edge of chaos because we must: we have no money, no permanent space, no guarantee that anyone will come see the work once it's open to public consumption.

But is that an excuse to get sloppy? Shouldn't all work be given as much preparation as possible? And if that means just one person hunched over a script months in advance of opening to get it right, so be it. We shouldn't use the lack of a solid or well-known platform as an excuse not to take the work seriously until the final six weeks. Just as performers get better with more rehearsal, scripts get better through re-writing, and overall production concepts get more refined the earlier you start thinking about them.

color me confused

I was always under the impression that when the New York Times reported on something in a trend piece, that meat the thing had pretty much already become passe. So imagine my shock that the old Grey Lady seems to be on the vanguard of a new portrait of society that will emerge with the release of the latest census data in the coming year, and has been already apparent -- especially on college campuses -- in the intervening decade since the last head count. Apparently there are some mixed-race people in this country.

Actually, a hell of a lot:

No one knows quite how the growth of the multiracial population will change the country. Optimists say the blending of the races is a step toward transcending race, to a place where America is free of bigotry, prejudice and programs like affirmative action.

Pessimists say that a more powerful multiracial movement will lead to more stratification and come at the expense of the number and influence of other minority groups, particularly African-Americans.

And some sociologists say that grouping all multiracial people together glosses over differences in circumstances between someone who is, say, black and Latino, and someone who is Asian and white.

Because sociologists need to eat, just like the rest of us.

I begin to wonder how my life would have changed had this existed as an option for me in college. Would I have engendered such instant antipathy on the part of the Black Student Union in my refusal to join their tribe? Would I have found a place in the other academic fields of study, like history, sociology, English? Would I...

When the multiracial group was founded in 2002,

DEAR GOD I AM OLD

Dr. Kelley said, “There was an instant audience.”

[...]

Such a club would not have existed a generation ago — when the question at the center of the “What Are You?” game would have been a provocation rather than an icebreaker.

And who would be the source of this provocation, more other than not? "Pure" brown people!

Checking both races was not an easy choice, Dr. Kelley said, “as a black man, with all that means in terms of pride in that heritage as well as reasons to give back and be part of progress forward.

And that in a nutshell (although it takes the Times four pages) is the problem: the existing racial hierarchy has a lot invested in the categories as they exist now.

Look for a prolonged argument over what brown means coming to a society near you, in perpetuity.

[NY Times]

throwing up the hands

The idea -- I think -- is that we want more representative theater and film not because it's ethical, or reparations for past sins, or because it's a good business decision -- the argument I like to put forward is that more diverse stores simply make better stories.

So I find it to be a bit counter-productive when works featuring white casts are re-made with minority casts, as though (a) minority audiences couldn't understand the lines when they're read by white people, or (b) the stories from one group are basically interchangeable with the other group (although maybe you need to tweak someone's day job here or there).

Photo-negative racial remakes argue simultaneously for an exclusionary and universal principles that I find unpersuasive -- even if they weren't mutually contradictory.

And then we get this:

Will Smith, Jay-Z team to remake "Annie"

Overbrook Entertainment partners James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith are partnering with Jay-Z to release movies.

One of the first projects they're discussing is a remake of the Broadway classic "Annie," in which the Smiths' daughter, Willow, 9, would star.

You know that scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Paul Newman is kidding-but-not-kidding about seducing Katharine Ross on the bicycle while Robert Redford's sleeping, and then Redford catches them, and is all like What are you doing? and Paul Newman figures he might as well be honest and says Stealing your woman, and Redford scratches his ass saying Take her...take her and walks away?

Yeah, I'll kinda feel like that if they make a black Annie. Whatever, black Hollywood people.You're terrible.

[Of course, maybe they just need to make an all-minority Butch Cassidy because I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT WHITEY IS SAYING.] (Happy February, America!)

whose form is it anyway?

At Parabasis last week, 99 Seats continued what I find to be a perplexing argument over crumbs at an otherwise bare table; to wit -- how to add minority voices into the mix of live theater:

We need muscle and courage, on all sides of this. We need productions, not awards and honors. The black artists I know are chomping at the bit and aren't waiting for diversity programs to find them anymore. And they shouldn't be. There's an audience that needs them, needs their stories. If the larger institutions want to conect to those audiences, as they continually profess they do, they have to start competing. Otherwise, they're going to get left behind.

But if the problem is that minority playwrights are underproduced, the question is -- left behind by whom? Live theater must continually scramble to assemble any kind of sustainable audience.

I don't believe in racial essentialism, nor do I believe in the rational market. The race of the performer/playwright and the race of the audience do not have to match in order for there to be comprehension. And the most expensive tickets are not necessarily to the highest-quality shows.

And so long as Ibsen can speak so persuasively to a brown person like me, I'm not willing to argue that changing the last name of the playwright's being produced is the short road to better theater.

ugh

The Times today has an appraisal of Ed Schmidt's farewell to theater, "My Last Play." While the conceit -- a playwright ends his career in a monologue performed in his actual home, marking the earnestness of his declaration by allowing audience members to depart with one tome from his library at the end -- might be somewhat affecting, the self-reverence of the enterprise is decidedly not.

Two years ago Ed Schmidt, a New York playwright, got word that his father was near death in upstate New York. He bundled his family into the car and drove north, explaining to his young children on the way the sad fact that Grandpa might not recognize them when they got there. As it happened, they arrived minutes too late; Willie Schmidt, a former history teacher and camp director, had died, probably as they were parking the car.

That night, seeking solace, the younger Mr. Schmidt read the final act of his favorite American play, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” That’s the one in which Emily Webb, a woman who has died far too young, revisits her family kitchen on the morning of her 10th birthday and discovers the agonizing truth about how little value people place on the quotidian moments of their lives.

Mr. Schmidt, a sturdy, pleasant-looking man of 48, explains all this near the start of his new play, a solo piece that he is performing for 12 theatergoers at a time in the living room of his ground-floor apartment in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. “Our Town” failed him, however, he says. He felt no better, and that’s when he made the leap: If great theater is no use to him in a moment of crisis, then it’s not worth spending his life trying to create it.

The death of Schmidt's father is, of course, an event most deserving of empathy. His decision that theater has ultimately as a significant art form, however, is one that is only his business and no one else's. And then there's this:

After a recent performance one exiting theatergoer, evidently distressed and irritated, worried aloud that Mr. Schmidt was woefully depressed.

“He shouldn’t be telling this to us,” she said. “He should be telling it to a therapist.”

For years I have reduced my theory of how theater, personal experience, and especially identity politics fit together to one phrase: theater isn't therapy. While I usually have to do some bending of a particular work to apply this critique, I have yet to encounter a work that so completely embodies the example. Until now.

Mr. Schmidt, I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry that you feel theater failed you in your moment of need. But for the love of all that is holy, to charge people money for your therapy session is insulting, and confirms the worst suspicions people outside the form have of those who practice it.

You do make a fair trade of a book of your library for their ticket. There's that. But here's hoping your title is indeed a promise.

[NYTimes, My Last Play]

[UPDATE: Within the first three paragraphs on the play's website, he compares himself to both Shakespeare and Moliere. Never mind -- he's a self-important blowhard who deserves obscurity. Good riddance to bad rubbish.]

the black market is the black market

An interesting side note in the aftermath of the defeat of Proposition 19 this month: don't worry, law-n-order nutjobs -- even if pot had become legal, Mexican drug cartels are well ahead of you, branching out into illicit software sales.

In an age when cash is increasingly digital, war is waged via computer virus, mega corporations battle each other over our contact lists, and those same corporations do little more to pile their (digital) billions than aggregate data, the propaganda undertaken to demonize software piracy will make Reefer Madness look restrained by comparison.

The absurdity that underlies stringent prosecution of software piracy makes for Dr. Seuss-like reading:

The most vociferous critics of Microsoft and the overall proprietary software industry describe the anti-piracy crusade as a sophisticated dog-and-pony show. They say the software makers tolerate a certain level of piracy because they would rather have people use their products — even if counterfeit — than pick up lower-cost alternatives. At the same time, the critics say, the software companies conduct periodic raids to remind customers and partners that playing by the rules makes sense.

“It has always been in Microsoft’s interests for software to be available at two different prices — expensive for the people that can afford it and inexpensive for those that can’t,” Mr. Eben] Moglen[, a Columbia Law professor,] says. “At the end of the day, if you’re a monopolist, you have to tolerate a large number of copies you don’t get paid for just to keep everyone hooked.”

We get caught up in the thing that is prohibited -- whether it's illicit narcotics (as opposed to controlled substances) and prohibited forms of media copying -- and instead it would behoove us to look at the boundaries between what is forbidden and what is allowed. That boundary tells us more about ourselves as a society than how many joints we smoke or songs we download for free.

I'm with you up to a point

Look, I like a curmudgeonly counter-cultural position as much as the next curmudgeon, but there is such a thing as taking a good argument too far:

Television drama should say more about the world we live in today and not rely on costumes, irony and pastiche, according to the award-winning screenwriter Jimmy McGovern. The television veteran behind the uncompromising hit shows Cracker and The Street is calling for dramas that reflect reality and have a strong point to make.

"Why write drama that doesn't matter?" he asked this weekend. Commenting on the high viewing figures for costume dramas such as ITV's Downton Abbey and the popularity of arch adventure shows such as Dr Who, McGovern said he believed the best writing took itself seriously, as well as taking its audience seriously.

Hey hey hey -- I like Dr. Who.

However:

"Why have a BBC complaints unit in the first place? They tell me, 'Jimmy, it is in case you offend anybody,' and I say, 'I am a writer. That is my job.' Just imagine if it said on my headstone that I had never offended anybody – I would turn in my grave."

That? That is just awesome.

vote, motherf*ckers

In 1994, Mario Cuomo ran for his fourth consecutive term as Governor of New York. While the state had suffered along with everyone else as a result of the latest recession, Cuomo was the relatively well-respected incumbent Democratic governor of a solidly blue state.

Because so many voters had grown accustomed to having Cuomo as governor, not many bothered to show up to vote. With roughly 30% of eligible voters turning out, George Pataki was sent to the Governor's Mansion as part of the 1994 Republican Revolution.

Pataki took an emergency stop-gap decision taken by Governor Cuomo in the face of financial crisis to reduce MTA overhead -- using credit to maintain the subways and buses of New York City -- and turned it into longstanding fiscal policy, something it was never intended to do.

As a result, all service cuts and fare hikes taken in 2009-2010 are because budget funding was never restored to its early 1990s levels, because an indifferent electorate allowed a public-service-slashing conservative win an election he would have no right winning had people been paying more attention in the first place.

The Moral: Midterm elections matter, despite your disillusionment/boredom/cynicism.

Bonus Moral: You can't bitch about fare hikes unless you are a registered and active voter in New York City.

if you need help finding a mirror I'll get one

It's fitting that the NY Times will help write its own epitaph, as Jeremy Peters scratches his head in the Sunday edition as to this explosion of enmity towards the news media from both the left and right, apparently out of nowhere.

News media experts say that an attack-the-press strategy can make sense as a pure political play. While polling has shown that majorities of Republicans and conservatives have long harbored suspicions about the news media, there has been a surge in negative feelings among Democrats and liberals.

The biennial Pew Research Center poll on public attitudes about the news media found last year that much of the growth in negative perceptions about the media has been driven by Democrats. For the first time last year, a majority of Democrats, 59 percent, said that reporting from news organizations is often inaccurate. That figure was just 43 percent in 2007.

Michael Dimock, an associate director at Pew, said this reflected a tendency by Democrats to shift part of the blame for their recent misfortunes on the press. But he said he also believed it was about something broader: a mistrust of large institutions.

“Whether it’s the press, whether it’s government, there has been this lowering of credibility in a lot of institutions in America,” Mr. Dimock said. “You name it. It’s hard to find a group or institution that isn’t being viewed more skeptically these days.”

No, no, no guys -- it's afar simpler explanation: it's not institutions, it's you. They explained this to you at the Rally to Restore Sanity the day before you published this:



Oh wait, that's right, you didn't send any correspondents. Not because you don't know how to do your job, but you're worried about how you, the watchers, will be watched.

[A post-script: all of the content at the links and embedded video in this blog post are covered -- sometimes literally -- with advertisements. Why that isn't that a source of concern about the perception of media companies? Nah, it's the politicians...]

scriptwriters

Heading into the midterm elections, it's a good moment to revive an article from last November's New York Times, as Robert Pear discovered eerie similarities between floor speeches and remarks entered into the Congressional Record by members of Congress, with ink drops leading all the way back to the offices of lobbyists for Big Pharma.

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

No partisan slant on this post, really; just a reminder to vote next week. It's one thing if big money buys our elections in spite of our best efforts; but if they're scripting the floor show for a democracy and no one's even bothering to watch, then we get what we deserve.

[image via a Canadian Christian Puppets site -- really.]

American Taliban

Via the Times:

Christine O’Donnell, the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware, on Tuesday appeared to question whether the First Amendment to the Constitution imposes a separation between church and state.

In a debate at the Widener University Law School, Ms. O’Donnell interrupted her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, as he argued that the Constitution does not allow public schools to teach religious doctrine.

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” Ms. O’Donnell asked him, according to audio posted on the Web site of WDEL 1150 AM radio, which co-sponsored the debate.

The audience at the law school can be heard to break out in laughter. But Ms. O’Donnell refuses to be dissuaded and pushes forward.

“Let me just clarify,” she says. “You are telling me that the separation of church and state is in the First Amendment?”

When Mr. Coons offers a shorthand of the relevant section, saying, “government shall make no establishment of religion,” Ms. O’Donnell replies, “That’s in the First Amendment?”

In the same election season where a Tea Party Candidate has a journalist detained by his private security firm, and a candidate for national office deems her speeches private events to avoid public scrutiny, the question is why hasn't the latest iteration of American fascism been called out for what it is yet?

be interactive, but not *too* interactive

When high-brow institutions try to appeal to the masses, the results are usually unintentionally hilarious.

Tate Modern is to stop visitors walking over the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's vast field of 100m porcelain sunflower seeds because of health and safety fears over ceramic dust.

As revealed by the Guardian, the Turbine Hall installation has been closed since yesterday morning because of worries that dust inhalation might be a health risk. That means the thousands of visitors who traipsed through the installation between Monday and Wednesday were the lucky ones. The work will now be viewed from the building's bridge.

"The Unilever Series, Sunflower Seeds, by Ai Weiwei is made up of over 100m individually handmade porcelain replicas of seeds," the Tate said today.

"Although porcelain is very robust, the enthusiastic interaction of visitors has resulted in a greater than expected level of dust in the Turbine Hall. Tate has been advised that this dust could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time. In consequence, Tate, in consultation with the artist, has decided not to allow visitors to walk across the sculpture."

The work is intended to be interactive and to have people walking through it, although some visitors, mainly children, had more fun in the seeds than curators might have liked.

Really, that last line is the money shot, and draws an underline beneath the dilemma that purveyors of "high culture" face in this mass media age.

Naturally things went wrong the moment an audience's interaction couldn't be dictated ahead of time. Much as I adore opera, I find it obnoxious that an audience is expected to know the work beforehand: when they applaud or boo, they're judging the latest performance against a pre-determined canon, reducing the entire evening to an inside joke with formalwear.

I particularly enjoy, therefore, when snooty cultural gatekeepers give lip service to the idea of making art accessible to the general public, and then act horrified when the public acts like, well, an unruly group of people.

[image via the Guardian]

art and austerity

Last week the BBC asked -- a bit too cheekily for my taste -- Do hard times equal good art?

Vincent van Gogh, starving as he slaves over his masterpieces. Johnny Rotten, sneering at the wreckage of 1970s Britain. George Orwell, finding his voice amid the poverty and despair of the Great Depression.

You'd think today's artists would be happier about the prospect of imminent destitution.

Not an auspicious beginning to a serious conversation, but the article does right itself later:

The left-wing singer-songwriter Billy Bragg is certainly no supporter of the funding cuts, and he acknowledges that the music industry was already facing deep-seated problems even before the arrival of the credit crunch.

But, weaned on punk rock, and his craft forged during the battles of the 1980s, he does believe that musicians tend to find their voice during periods of crisis.

"As times get hard, it's still the most obvious way to reach out and speak to people," he says.

This is a slightly different argument, but more perceptive. It is true that artists need some kind of crisis (even a minor crisis like a deadline -- looking at you, COI podcast) to focus their minds.

I don't see how that's an argument for pushing them to the brink of starvation, though.

[image via Chris Tyrell]

don't forget to consult your abogado, kids!

The actress who provided the voice of cartoon heroine Dora the Explorer between 2008 and 2010 is taking legal action against the Nickelodeon network.

Caitlin Sanchez, 14, claims she has not been paid fees due from reruns, DVDs, other products and promotional work.

[...]

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Sanchez's action alleges she was given just 22 minutes to sign an "unconscionable" contract without the advice of an attorney.

Now, I don't know the details of this case, and Viacom says she got her fair due, but given the history of every media conglomerate ever -- I'm going to go with Sanchez probably got screwed.

[via BBC News]

like looking in a warped mirror

Over at Deadspin, Emma Carmichael has a fascinating piece on a conversation between Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell as part of the New Yorker Festival. She breaks apart the fragile mythos that allows Simmons -- a highly paid columnist and author -- to play the part of an average joe sports fan in the eyes of the New Yorker's readership. The piece has, I think, a summary of seminar attendees that transfers almost seamlessly to theatergoers:

The New Yorker Festival promotional material has a sketch of a young man and woman walking side by side, presumably headed to some venue in the city where they will listen to famous actors and writers talk about how they got to be so wonderful, and if they're lucky, one of those two will get to stand at a microphone to ask a question that shows the crowd that they, too, are quite wonderful. In the sketch, the guy has glasses and a coffee cup; the woman has high heels and a big bag. They are not walking to the Meadowlands.

(Okay, minus the "young" part.)

As we've argued before, theater exists in an elitist, rarefied market. Attempts to make works for "the people" ignore this salient fact (looking at you, Lombardi). When theater artists try to make their work universally appealing -- or, let's face it, appealing on any kind of mass scale, they look as absurd as Bill Simmons trying to convince us he has more in common, class-wise, with sports fans than the millionaire athletes they watch.

The whole article is definitely worth a read.

[Deadspin.com]

when you realize the joke is on you

To: Steve Jobs/Apple Computer
From: COItc
Re: Well played, Sir. Well played.

Can you hear that sound? It's a lone, slow clap that reverberates against the walls and ceiling. It's sardonic, almost mournful. The applause is hardly celebratory; it's recognition of a brilliant, methodical practical joke at our expense. We don't like having egg on our face, but we can certainly salute the complexity of the Rube Goldberg machine that delivered it there.

As we've noted before, the COI podcast is largely recorded on a MacBook Pro using GarageBand software -- a program that all Macs include out of the box.

When the laptop failed the first time, we thought it was simply a byproduct of our hard-living style, as we carted the machine between the BoCoCa Arts Festival and Planet Connections Festivity.

The second and third times, we thought we certainly were suffering some ill luck, but clearly a visit to the Genius Bar and hardware replacements would allow us to return to the brisk release schedule of the Spring without a second thought.

But now, as the laptop is about the return to the shop for the fourth time in three months, we realize what you've done. And we must tip our caps to you. As has been documented elsewhere, whether it's your absurd response to phones that don't work, or shipping computer displays that look like crap, you have taken a captive audience and milked them for all they're worth. You built a cult of fans who paid premium prices for high-concept, high-design computer products that "just work." Once that niche appeal became mass appeal, you cut corners to increase profit margins, with the inevitable results that more and more units per production run failed miserably.

Idiots like me lose weeks at a time in productivity because we're waiting for your well-meaning but overwhelmed service departments to repair inferior products. And because my investments in your closed software ecosystem have forced me to throw good money after bad, I have no choice but to sink even more money into your declining product line -- I'm bailing water from a sinking ship with no lifeboat in sight.

So as I type these words from the new iMac I bought in order to keep productive for the week while my defective laptop heads into the back room once again, I can do nothing but applaud your evil genius -- charging more and more while providing less and less.

You magnificent bastards.

Sincerely,
COItc

PS: Long story short -- the COI podcast is delayed. Again.

Kevin McCarthy, 1914-2010

Last week the NY Times marked the passing of Kevin McCarthy, veteran stage, film, and television actor most famous for his leading role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (I will always remember him as the cartoonish villain in the utterly ridiculous UHF).

The biggest distinction between stage actors and screen actors is one of work ethic -- to reach the pinnacle of one's craft in the latter means large payouts in exchange for as little effort as possible, while in the former to be at the highest levels is to work exhaustively.

McCarthy, throughout his career, was a stage actor in temperament:

Despite his film and television success Mr. McCarthy never abandoned the stage. The 18 Broadway productions in which he appeared included Moss Hart’s “Winged Victory” (in which he was billed as Sgt. Kevin McCarthy), the political drama “Advise and Consent,” Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” and Kurt Vonnegut’s irreverent “Happy Birthday, Wanda June.”

[...]

But in 1991 he told a critic for The San Diego Union-Tribune about his feeling that purposeful employment was a remedy for many ills. “I try to get as much work as I possibly can,” Mr. McCarthy, then 77, said. “I love to work. I love to be in things.”