
The other night Gary Garrison and I attended the inaugural ceremony for the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, which was given to the immensely talented and shockingly young Tarell Alvin McRaney. In his remarks, McRaney (who is African American and 28 years old and pictured here) referred to his background, having grown up in, as he put it, "the part of Miami that is not South Beach." He was raised by his single mother in Liberty City, which from the sound of things, may be Florida's version of South Central L.A.
I was struck by how much stage time during the event was given to McRaney's background. His plays are not exclusively autobiographical in content, so the only reason for all this attention to his humble origins just may be how unusual they are in a field cluttered with trust fund babies or at least children of privilege. And this got me thinking: Is the lack of serious governmental funding for the Arts in this country directly resulting in the majority of our new plays being written by children of privilege?
Certainly the road to a professional life as a playwright (or even an actor, director or designer) in the U.S. is made a helluva lot easier without the burden of student loans, a crushing day job, or needy aging parents who require constant care and attention.
Although my first year of college was covered by a scholarship, the rest was paid for by my generous parents and on several occasions along the way, they have come to my financial rescue and—perhaps more important—offered an unwavering stream of moral support as well.
In Germany or Canada or virtually any other developed nation, a young man with my inclinations and talents graduating from university would find not only a wealth of grants to which he could apply, but he would also encounter a collection of cultural institutions, large and small, supported by and large by tax dollars.
Young American artists don't enjoy the same governmental warm embrace. By and large, we're left to fend for ourselves. I've heard colleagues argue that this makes our work more immediate and essential, less soft and out of touch. This may be true. But I'm wondering if our system inadvertently weeds out those who lack a financial safety net, the result of which may be that the majority who persevere into their 30s and 40s as artists have mostly come from a certain socio-economic stratum.
When I attend Off-Off Broadway theatre these days, I often get the impression that the work I'm seeing has sprung from the imaginations of the young elite. How else can one explain why so much small theatre resembles agit-prop and tells us about our social ills without really showing?
Furthermore, most of the fare filling the subscription seasons of the LORT theatres bring their audiences in for a couple hours of easy social comedy and/or drama, perhaps sprinkled with some stinging witticisms or shocking situations, but in the end, the audiences who can afford to drop $75-$125 on a ticket, are able to leave the theatre unscathed. No one gets bruised by most of these plays. I'm reminded of what Joe Chaikin once confided to me about my own work in relation to one of New York's more established non-profit theatres. "They'll never produce you, Roland," he explained, "because you don't support the Status Quo."
What do you think? Am I onto something? Or am I just being terribly judgmental and self-hating, since I am myself, a child of privilege. Most of us who came out of the Ivy Leagues were, if we're really honest with ourselves. Come on, now, you know what I'm saying... My life is pretty cushy. And that, I suspect, makes a difference in the end.
On the other hand, I abhor the notion that we are helplessly defined by our backgrounds. I count myself squarely in the camp of Tom Wolfe, who argues that the job of an artist is to engage his or her imagination and that to suggest that one ought to write only about one's experience is ludicrous.
Still, I do wonder if the fact that most of our new plays spring from minds that have never had to wonder where the next meal was coming from is having an effect on American theatre in general... perhaps in ways we can't see now but will be crystal clear to future generations looking back.