The best is yet to come

If I am having a good September, there will be some uncomfortable theatergoers in big houses around the Twin Cities. If it's a really good month, some of them will even be pissed off. This is the first year I can remember since I arrived in Minnesota when, all on the same weekend, many of the major theaters in town are opening shows that I can't wait to see because I can't wait to see what happens to the audience. I know it's not the Minnesota way to court disaster or controversy or, really, high blood pressure of any kind. I've been here for eight years now, and I know that we all prefer to just get along. We even pride ourselves on a kind of live-and-let-live cool Midwestern acceptance that is to a diverse community what walleye is to fish—far better than nothing but not particularly inspiring. I love theater that challenges people, pushes them, sticks its tongue in their faces and wags it around in their ears until people are required to shout something back. Or at least retire to the bar after the show and speak very loudly at each other. I also want theater to be disciplined, high-quality, entertaining, deeply satisfying, relaxing, and, at times, even comforting. I just don't see these things as being mutually exclusive or in any way contradictory to also being challenging. [Teaching a class of ten year olds once, I ask, What is theater for? Kids reply, To teach us something. Thinking they're bored by that, I add, What about to have fun? To which one kid replies, affronted even, Learning stuff is fun! At what age do we lose that feeling?] Every September/October is the Theater Season Opener. The Fishing Opener happens in May. Bear Season begins September 1 and runs until October 16, and, at the same time, the local theaters roll out the plays they are most excited for you to see. The History Theatre produced Kirby in 2007. Mixed Blood did the Pulitzer Prize winning Ruined in 2009. Remember when the Guthrie opened their new building with The Great Gatsby in 2006? Each of these shows were exciting events in their own way and perhaps difficult for the artists to produce or the audiences to sit through (for various reasons), but none of them should be described as challenging. Ruined may have enlightened the audience; Kirby may have intrigued them; and The Great Gatsby may have excited people—but none of them directly challenged their audiences to see themselves in fundamentally unsentimental and sometimes truly uncomfortable ways. On September 16 alone, August: Osage County opens at Park Square Theatre; Neighbors opens at Mixed Blood; and The Pride opens at Pillsbury House Theatre. (Full disclosure: I also work at Pillsbury House.) Up in the Dowling Studio at the Guthrie Theater, you can see reasons to be pretty by Neil LeBute, presented by Walking Shadow Theatre Company, opening September 17. None of these plays are sentimental journeys. I don't know Neighbors but I'm told by some already-pissed off people that it will piss you off. Osage County is, yes, hysterically funny but also, at the same time, a stunningly brutal experience. At times, The Pride sounds like a Savage Love column live on stage and at other times dramatizes such explicit emotional and sexual pain that you may need to avert your eyes. I have never seen a play written by Neil LaBute that didn't motivate heated, sometimes angry, conversations afterward. [On the same weekend, you could also see Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Lab Theater, opening Sept 15—a musical entirely about celebrating transgressive behavior. Or, at Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, Hairspray based on the movie by professional weirdo John Waters. Or a comedy about 9/11—yes, a comedy about 9/11—from Dominic Orlando and Workhaus Collective called A Short Play about 9/11. It's like the Fringe Festival for professional theaters, only this weekend you know the sets will be better. More disclosure: I am a member of the Workhaus Collective.] In reality, I actually doubt audiences will be that pissed off. Each of these theaters have cultivated good communication and developed trust over time with their regular ticket buyers and, if there are new audiences to be had, they most likely prefer a little bite with their entertainment. —Have you seen what people watch on television lately? The popular television show Criminal Minds is absurdly dark and often wildly narratively complex. While watching television, I sometimes wonder how long it will be before the theater catches up with the culture. And sadly, here in Minnesota, these challenging, potentially dangerous shows that excite me were all first produced by someone else somewhere else. I hesitate to say what I think that means about the Minnesota theater scene. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the weekend of September 16 as a turning pointing. Nice, fun work is nice and fun but people want experiences. They like to be scared. They hunt out thrills. Risk taking is addictive. People hunt bears, for cryin' out loud. Challenges make life more interesting. I'm hoping that when the mid and large theaters and their audiences get a citywide injection of it, they'll want to do it more—and maybe even nurture the next generation of local voices in town ¹ in order to make thrilling, distinctively new plays ² that mix dark and light ³so well that other theaters around the country will come clambering to Minnesota next year to see what we're doing for our 2012-2013 Theater Season Openers. The hunting could be very good here indeed.