Inside Out
From the Executive Director
By Ben Cameron
Last month in this column, I charged us all to reevaluate our commitment to advocacy. Need a reason? Consider the 42-percent drop in city/county and local funding to theatres, as reported in Theatre Facts 2002, or the more recent report on state giving from the National Assembly of Arts Organizations, which traces a two-year erosion of aggregate state funding from more than $440 million to today’s roughly $260 million. Corporations and many foundations continue to re-prioritize to the disproportionate detriment of the arts. Was anyone in the theatre community truly surprised by the recent Chronicle of Philanthropy report, noting a 1.2-percent drop in charitable giving as a whole—but a 25.6-percent drop in giving to the arts and culture?
At the heart of these failures lies our historic inability to adequately convey our value to our potential supporters—a value that has largely demanded articulation in extrinsic terms. These extrinsic values are connected to such positive indicators as economic/civic vitality (as in the oft-used economic impact arguments, or the more recent groundbreaking research of Richard Florida); educational achievement and intellectual enhancement (noted in the work of Shirley Brice Heath at Stanford University, among others); or community identity/social empathy (the ways in which theatre promotes cross-cultural understanding, identity and tolerance, as examined in studies from UCLA, among others). Each of these arguments is well worth citing at every opportunity. Indeed, in a time where we must rely on support from those who may not share our love of theatre and who view us through the lens of other values systems and structures, these kinds of arguments lie at the heart of our ability to succeed.
But let’s face it: Do any of us actually go to a theatre because we believe it will lead to a better economy? Because we are happy that it has raised a child’s SAT scores? Because we will leave the building and suddenly redefine ourselves, or reassess our close circle of friends? To beg the obvious, has anyone ever said, “Gee, honey, I’m really exhausted, but if we go to a challenging three-hour play tonight, it will help improve our tax base!” Whatever extrinsic values the arts may present by their existence in the community, we who patronize them clearly do so for the intrinsic value of the theatrical experience—for the uniqueness of that experience, the richness that can only be found in the interchange between live actor and audience, between audience member and audience member.
At a recent luncheon where I spoke on behalf of a large repertory theatre company, I found myself reminded of this difference. Addressing a group of leading citizens who were not necessarily theatregoers, I tried to briefly convey the importance of the theatre using all three of the aforementioned extrinsic arguments. In order to attract allegiance (and presumably dollars) to the theatre, I did my best to convince my listeners that their support of the theatre was actually an optimal strategy in developing a healthier city—an approach that encouraged them to be economically supportive without saddling them with the responsibility of actual attendance. (Haven’t we all heard, “I’m happy to support it, but please don’t make me go!”?) Indeed, several significant checks were written, and strides were made toward improving the financial condition of the theatre in question.
But, frankly, my most powerful memory of the event came from a board member. While generously seconding my arguments, he seized the occasion to link his own support of the theatre to his desire to experience “the art of the possible. Every time I go to the theatre,” he said, “I believe that when the curtain goes up, anything can happen.”
For me, the waning days of 2003 were, in fact, a veritable feast of that power: Timothy Near’s production of Wintertime, by Charles L. Mee, at the San Jose Repertory Theatre, a roller-coaster ride into a landscape of unforeseen possibilities, a courageous foray into all the emotional possibilities that, day-to-day, we are all too often “persuaded to forget”; a startling Mabou Mines Dollhouse, exploding and expanding the possibilities of a text I thought I knew (and one I feared had been exhausted), with the glory of fearless acting by its entire cast, led by the luminous Maude Mitchell; or the breathtaking yet anguished Long Christmas Ride Home, by Paula Vogel, at the Vineyard Theatre, delicately and yet powerfully rendered in all respects.
Jeanette Winterson wrote, in “The Secret Life of Us” in The Guardian, “Art is a different value system. Like God, it fails us continually. Like God, we have legitimate doubts about its existence, but like God, art leaves us with footprints of beauty. We sense there is more to life than the material world can provide, and art is a clue, an intimation, at its best, a transformation….Art reminds us of all the possibilities we are persuaded to forget.”
Our own unfailing quest to uncover the infinite possibilities of surprise in the live experience—rather than the deadening procession of the known and comfortably affirmed that so much popular entertainment seems to represent—cannot be forgotten. Amid the imperatives to define our value in extrinsic terms, we must equally strive to convey its intrinsic uniqueness. Should we remember only the extrinsic and overlook our essential quest in the worlds of imagination, we may find ourselves with healthier civic budgets—and, ultimately, emptier houses.
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