Editor's Note: Note that the following is written in a conversational, free-associational fashion—in other words, a blog rather than a treatise. Please read it in that spirit.
Risk mutual incomprehensibility.
These are the words that have been rattling around in my brain since the TCG Conference in Chicago June 17-19.
What is "mutual incomprehensibility"?
The conference's keynote speaker was a kid named Jonah Lehrer—and when I say kid, I'm not being dismissive. I think he was actually 27 even though he looked like a stylishly-dressed bar mitzvah boy. He's the author of the bestselling nonfiction book,
How We Decide, and while his keynote speech was a well-delivered compilation of fun, accessible psychology and neurology anecdotes that reinforced what we already know about storytelling and theater (it's good for you and society!), it was one answer he gave in the question-answer period that has stuck with me.
Someone asked him whether a theater conference might be better served if it combined with industries or interests entirely outside the theater. Wouldn't we all benefit from different information rather than approaching problems from the same perspective?
In response Lehrer told a story about two teams of scientists—one of which was made up of only biologists(or chemists or something, I forgot) and one made up of scientists from all different disciplines. At some point, both these teams encountered the same problem. The team of biologists (or chemists or whatever) put their heads together, heads down, and used brute force to experiment and eliminate all possible explanations until they came to a solution. It took them two and a half months to solve the problem.
When the mixed group of scientists approached the problem, they began by frustrating the crap out of each other. Everyone talked in language and in metaphors that were incomprehensible to the other scientists. However, relatively quickly, Lehrer said, as the scientists searched harder for metaphors that would communicate, the conversation became more coherent and, eventually, this team solved the problem in ten minutes.
The conclusion Lehrer drew from this story was not that the different disciplines informed a more creative approach to the problem; he summarized by saying that the study showed that it was the mutual incomprehensibility that created a more creative approach to the problem. It wasn't the combined intelligence of the group that mattered; new ideas came from the creative stimulation required of the scientists to bridge the gap of mutual incomprehensibility.
Confronting the conflicts
There are incomprehensible aspects to the theater world right now—and many of them were touched on at this conference. The Artists and Artistry "motif" was described in the program with gentle questions like "Do we need to create new models to support new work today, and what would those look like?" and Race and Gender with "What would it look like if we fully embraced pluralism?" which are both questions underscored by the simple incomprehensible facts that while there is more money than ever before in the history of theater directed toward creating theater, many good artists simply cannot make a living, and many arts institutions are static, unwelcoming places—especially for artists of color and women.
There is a tension right now between arts administrators who have salaries (though of course not high ones) and freelance artists who don't have those things even though their work is what these institutions exist to display. There is a tension between a pioneering population of artistic directors, many white men, who built up the regional theater movement (though never forgetting that there were a good number of important women who made some of the most significant contributions) and who still occupy the top positions at institutions around the country. That tension exists between both artists of color and artists of a new generation who are ready for newer, bigger challenges—either at institutions that have already been created or at their own budding institutions, if they could just siphon off some of the funding.
There is also some tension between playwrights and artistic directors, playwrights and dramaturges, actors and development directors, the theater world and America, and on and on. There is tension everywhere. I think it's sometimes called conflict. In the theater, we're supposed to be better at handling that.
Unfortunately, I think, like everyone else in society, the theater industry has trouble sometimes clearly addressing all these conflicts—especially when many people take the attempt to identify a problem among entirely well-intentioned people to be the same as an attempt to find who to blame. And, also, addressing conflict becomes especially difficult when the concerns and issues of marketing people, for example, seem so incomprehensible to actors or the anger and insecurity of playwrights can seem so incomprehensible to artistic directors.
Which is where the word "risk" comes in. Risk is one of those words we throw around in the theater all the time. We've got to be vulnerable, we say. We've got to be adventurous. We forget that "to risk" is literally to expose yourself and/or others to danger, to loss, to serious harm. The part of it that theater folk often add, the part where we assume that well-intentioned risk will result in greater reward, is an optimistic invention rather than a well-documented fact.
Why clowning
Risk was the word at the top of the blackboard at the first session I attended at the TCG Conference, an artist workshop led by Adrian Danzig, producing artistic director of the Chicago company 500 Clowns entitled, in fact, "Risk and Play." In the description in the conference brochure, participants are warned that " 'Risk and Play' introduces students to their risk threshold and mines it for theatrical value." In practical terms, it meant, I spent some part of my first hours at the TCG Conference last week being led, blindfolded, around the Goodman Theatre by a person I had just met. It was fun.
But, here's the point: I took the workshop because I generally find "clown" work in the theater to be incomprehensible. I know many talented people who do it. (Local artist Noah Bremer, who just ran away to be a clown in Cirque de Soleil, is a wonderful, lovable, talented guy. Don't take offense, Noah.) I also know that there are many audience members who totally get into it. It just doesn't do it for me—and it's kind of pissed me off over the years. Is everyone crazy or is it me?
So I threw myself into this workshop as completely as I could, and while I would hesitate to draw too many generalizations from one workshop from one company who probably has their own special variation on "clown" work anyway—I will say that the experience helped me understand something in a way that I think will make my own work better.
Part of what it taught me is that I'm actually probably never going to like "clown work" and that's OK.
Danzig talked about ignoring the "cool" emotions that we use to get through our days and indulging the "hot" emotions that we cover over: embarrassment or joy, childlike obstinacy or a childlike sense of adventure. It was fun to explore those things, and even more importantly, it helped me understand what clown work I have seen is attempting to explore.
Because it also helped me see that it is actually the "cool" emotions I am most interested in exploring as a theater artist. It's our relationship to society, our coping mechanisms, our illusions, that fascinates me most in a theater. Finally, I feel I understand that clowns aren't crazy and neither am I; we're just interested in different aspects of the human experience. And that realization is useful for me as I approach my future work.
I never would have had that chance if I wasn't willing to risk the incomprehensibility of a three hour workshop on what I have honestly and secretly sometimes thought of, dismissively, as "fucking clowning." (I apologize, Noah and Bob Rosen and everyone else I like who does it. I apologize.)
I feel as though, even though it's uncomfortable, even though we want everything to be perfect, even though we're afraid of "airing our dirty laundry in public," we really have to risk mutual incomprehensibility, and then risk it again, in order to do what the TCG Conference was encouraging in this year's title, i.e. turn
Ideas into Action.
Un-affinity groups
I heard from other participants that the "affinity group" sessions where people with similar experiences in the theater world gathered together were of great value. Artistic Directors of theaters with budgets over 5 million, for example, and Associate Artistic Directors and freelance artists and marketing directors and more met separately each day and shared their particular experiences with other people who were highly likely to comprehend. Secrets were shared; advice was provided; support was available.
I'd like to suggest that, next year, TCG also organize un-affinity groups, where artistic directors of theaters with budgets of over $5 million are randomly forced to listen to the incomprehensibility of a 27-year-old artistic director of theater with only a $200,000 budget who thinks she has all the answers. If they can sit still for the frustrating first 20 minutes, and approach the sessions looking for stimulation rather than escape hatches, there might be a lot to learn. Mutually. (I'm sure this happens naturally in some sessions, but I also think that the frustration that comes with mutual incomprehensibility means it is something we have to remind ourselves constantly to endure.)
Allow me to add one final note on networking—since I'm told that one of the main purposes of these conferences is to network with other people in your field. I've been told that by putting my name and face in front of institutional leaders, then maybe later they'll think of hiring me for something.
Since I'm no longer as shy as I was when I was a teenager, I always feel as though I should be good at networking—but I'm not. The idea that I'm talking to a person not because I'm interested in them but because I'm interested in getting something from them paralyzes me with shame.
For those of you who feel the same way, allow me to share with you my revelation—which seems so obvious now that I've realized it that I also beg you to forgive me if I am the last person to understand it.
Here it is: Only network with the people who you're actually interested in, artistically. Because the odds are you're only going to get hired by the people who are interested in artistic values you hold in common.
Pick out all the sessions that are particularly interesting to you and the work you do. Go to them. Speak up about the things your passionate about. Listen to the other people who speak about the things they're passionate about. Later, in the social situation/cocktail hours at the conference, approach some of the people in those same session with you and continue the conversation.
Somehow, I missed this lesson in school.
If TCG is interested in welcoming more artists to the conference (and the vast majority of people at the conference are administrators), it might be useful in the future to schedule more sessions that will concern artists more than just administrators—and I don't just mean sessions about the business of surviving in the theater world or selling new work to old audience but sessions about the actual making of art.
Anyone know what that those sessions would look like?
