The Playgoer last week posted a link to a very interesting “thinkpiece” that Scott Timberg wrote a couple of Sundays ago for the Los Angeles Times, which discussed various cultural trends that seem to be currently in play, most especially the blurring of the distinction between ”high culture” and ”popular culture”. There are a lot of intriguing tidbits in the article that I’ve been reflecting on, so I’ll probably come back to it in subsequent blog posts. One of the things that first struck me, though, is this quote from the terrific writer Pico Iyer (his twenty-year old book Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far-Eastis still, in my opinion, one of the most informed, most understanding, and most articulate observations of Southeast and East Asian cultures that I have read from someone not from those cultures), one of the culturatis and intellectual types that Timberg interviewed: “What we seem to have nowadays is more of a hierarchy of media…whereby, for example, dance, classical music, opera, and even theater and books, all of which commanded their own sections in Time magazine only a generation ago, are now regarded as lofty and remote subjects for only a handful of connoisseurs.” Timber then says that Iyer further notes that we feel guilty that we have become “elitist” if we go and listen to chamber orchestra or jazz, or any of the arts that the current cultural milieu have labeled “elitist”. It’s a fascinating, and to be honest, frustrating point for me. I have touched on a similar vein in this blogpost from last November: I’ve noticed that many of my peers, my peeps, the late20/thirty/early40somethings desired as cultural consumers, have not had consistent experiences in the theater, or at the opera and symphony, or with modern or classical dance. Actually, some of them have never had any experiences at all. Which is really disturbing for me, because for these art forms to continue and flourish in the future, they should have an influx of new, fresh, rejuvenated audiences. One thing I wanted Iyer, or Timberg, for that matter, to further expound on is the reason why our current culture have labeled these art forms as “elitist”. Is it because theater, the symphony, etc. are seen as “expensive”? Hmmm…last Saturday, I was at a FREE (yes free) Grant Park Orchestra concert, sitting in the orchestra section of the fantastically minimalist and acoustically-superb Harris Theater, listening entranced to highly-acclaimed (and current Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence) composer Osvaldo Golijov’s searing, profound masterwork “Last Round”, based on a short story by famed Argentinian novelist Julio Cortazar, while some of my friends paid for a $60 day pass (or maybe even a $190 three-day pass) for Lollapalooza. The Hypocrites, TUTA, Greasy Joan, Red Orchid, Strange Tree Group, or any of the myriad storefront theaters who bring innovative, intelligent, exceptionally acted and directed theatrical productions to Chicago audiences, charge only 20 bucks a ticket, which is so much less than what one would be spending at Retro on Roscoe or the multitude of interchangeable summer street fairs in Chicago, and only slightly more than an IMAX ticket for The Dark Knight. Is it because theater, opera, etc., require a lot of time commitment? Well, only if you’re going to Wagner operas or O’Neill plays. Keith Huff’s Pursued by Happiness, the most impressive of the three new plays currently being staged in repertory at Steppenwolf’s First Look Repertory of New Work, clocks in at a compact 90 minutes of engaging and surprising emotional situations. Or is this purported “elitism” really a codeword for cultural forms that require focus, concentration, introspective appreciation, abstract thinking? Of course, going to a Brecht play is a different intellectual experience that going to a Radiohead concert. Both can be equally satisfying, but not a lot of people in my generation seem to want to give Brecht a chance. Yes, it is a generation that is used to mass media, commoditized consumption, and instant gratification - and have these then made it a generation lacking in intellectual curiosity bordering on laziness?
I think it’s safe to say that storytelling is almost primal. Every culture has a strong history of oral tradition; before books, newspapers, cable television, the internet, stories were handed down from one generation to the next when someone- an elder, a designated storyteller, a performer/actor- gave an oral recounting to someone else, or more likely, to a group of someone elses. A community’s collective myth, folklore, symbolism, and cultural tenets were codified, institutionalized, and transported through time via the art of storytelling. The Ijo tribe of the Niger delta recounted their Ozidi saga through a seven-day storytelling, dance, and drama event. Korea’s p’ansori tradition shared stories within a community using sung storytelling. In Siena and its surrounding Italian countryside, the veglia, a nightly communal activity made up of storytelling and verbal games, was a popular social custom during the 15th century. Storytelling and its communal nature helped established the roots of theatrical tradition, in conjunction with religious ceremony. Unfortunately in our age of soundbites, elevator speeches, adult ADD, the “in and out”, the 2 minute pitch, of everything needing to be instantaneous, storytelling can be seen as archaic, old-fashioned, unhip, a little too “kumbaya around a campfire”. If only people used to webzines and half-hour sitcoms will give it a chance- the power of a shared communal experience listening to stories leisurely and passionately told live is astounding and addicting. It is the power that the terrific theater group Serendipity Theatre Company is harnessing in its storytelling event, Second Story, one of the best-kept secrets, and one of the most interesting cultural experiences, in Chicago (although seeing the good-sized crowd last week at Red Kiva when blog mentor Tom and I attended the most recent edition of Second Story, the secret might be out- which is a great thing!).
It was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and as I have come to expect all these years I have been living in this city, much of Chicago (the northside particularly) was plunged into the usual incomprehensible drunken stupor that this weekend brings (this is the one time in the year when it seems like many Lincoln Park Chads get the same idea that it’s really cool to run whooping through green lights, without a coat in 40 degree weather- yeah, gag me). Fortunately, there were a lot of things to do over the weekend in Chicago other than sit at a bar named Molly’s or Kelly’s or O’Doul’s downing pints of Guinness. On Saturday, I went to see the highly acclaimed A Steady Rain which had transferred to the Royal George Theater’s cabaret space from a sold-out run last year at Chicago Dramatists. Intense and searing are the words that immediately come to mind about this play, and the deafening buzz for an off-Broadway or a London production coming soon makes this Chicago theater lover proud. I’d be interested to see how audiences in those cities respond to a work that is so powerfully Chicago in terms of tone, milieu, and characterizations. On Sunday, I was at the MCA Chicago for the unique experience of seeing William Yang, Australian photographer and performance artist, tell stories about aborigines and German immigrants in Australia, as well as recollections of two highly charged, very different trips to Berlin (before and after the Wall came down), in a piece called Shadows, a powerful combination experience of a theatrical performance, a musical concert, and an art exhibition (which was seen a couple of years ago in the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, the festival of innovative, cutting-edge theatrical work). I love the contrast between these two live performances - A Steady Rain is punch-to-your-gut, sweat-inducing, jaw-numbing; Shadows is cerebral, thoughtful, provocative; both give its audiences a euphoric high that can only be brought about when witnessing compelling, memorable, high-caliber art, a high that ten bottles of Irish beer would be hard-pressed to replicate.
Several interesting events are coming up in the next couple of weeks. From October 18-21, Opera Cabal, a new artists’ collective focused on experimental theatre and opera, is presenting “Delusions: Chicago 2007″ at the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport. From Nick DeMaison, music director of Opera Cabal:
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