The Bourne Dilemma: How to Survive Local Theater Without Going to Hell
It was air conditioning on a 100-degree day that made my partner and myself seek out the nearest mall and watch the only matinee that seemed at all bearable: two hours of kids-and-aliens kitsch, Super 8. When it was over we made faces at each other, grumbled at the inanity we had witnessed, and at last reluctantly re-entered the heat.
Perhaps a month earlier, it had been loyalty to the ideal of independent theater that had kept us from walking out at intermission, and instead made us stay to the bitter end of an excruciatingly bad production at a local playhouse. The script and the production were by a talented friend we both admire, and the actors were also our friends, and also talented, and they had done their best. When it was over we made faces at each other, stood in line to shake the hand of our friend the playwright/director, and at last escaped into the night.
But in the absence of either hot weather or loyalty, what was it that made me watch just now, for probably the 20th time, a DVD of The Bourne Supremacy, here in the comfort of a dull evening at home? The Bourne Supremacy has better production values than Super-8, but it is still kitsch. Its combination of romanticized violence and romanticized adolescent loneliness is as false and misleading a portrayal of human life as your typical TV Superbowl commercial for Lite Beer. My watching this DVD as many times as I have can only be construed as a defect of character, an offense against society, akin to driving while eating breakfast or disposing of recyclables in the garbage.
Thinking of all this, and reading on various blogs of late of the struggle to keep local theater alive––or for that matter, the struggle to keep alive any theater whatsoever outside of over-priced Broadway productions involving life-size puppets or flying wires––I wonder how people like myself ought to be judged for contributing so recklessly to this country’s economic and aesthetic decline. Clearly there must be judgement. Yet in my defense, did I not do my best in sticking out the play I have mentioned? And not only that play, but so many other painfully bad readings, staged readings, and full productions over the years by local troupes?
I am not alone in this. My partner has better taste than me, far better; but still she attends not only more theater than I do (both good and bad), but also watches much more bad TV: all manner of addictive junk narratives, Glee, Mad Men, American Idol, as well as reality shows featuring super-nannys and dog trainers and compulsive hoarders. And I would wager that you too, my reader, have your abhorrent tastes. Maybe it’s daytime soap opera, or graphic novels meant for teens with undeveloped brains, or Vanity Fair, or even (God help us) the zombiefied “Talk of the Town” pages of an increasingly underpowered New Yorker; but whatever it is, it’s not theater. And then again what are we to make of Tony Kushner’s love of The Wire and Breaking Bad (two shows my partner also praises) as “the best drama being written anywhere?” Should we believe him just because he’s Tony Kushner? The Wire has great production values but also tired dialog and offensive stereotypes with as much nuance as a yellowed paperback detective novel. Sorry, Tony, it’s not the best anything being written anywhere.
The truth is, we are all of us slaves to narrative––whether that narrative be contained in serial installments of the op-ed pages of the New York Post (for the Republican werewolves among us) or the New York Times (for the Democratic ditto) or in the gossip we pass back and forth like sweetmeats to each other when we meet for coffee or drinks or pizza. Intellectuals and artists that we may be, we cannot survive on art alone. We need our dirt. And yet so much of this dirt is shameful in the manner I have described.
So I ask again, how should we be judged?
My suggestion: karmic brownie points, with a goal of netting out good and bad points so as to say as close to zero as we can. Here’s how it works. We get “plus” brownie points for the terrible local theater we sit through; and also for the terrible but highly intellectual art openings we attend, the terrible literary novels we force ourselves to read like antibiotics (never read a bad novel on an empty stomach), and so on. Hence rule #1: if it’s high culture and it’s bad, we get plus points. This leads to rule #2: we get “minus” brownie points for the dreck we feed our addictions with. Counterbalance; equilibrium. But then, what about the good theater we see, the good art openings we attend, the good cinema or good novels we encounter, however rare these may be? For the system I am describing to work properly, these count as zero points. That’s right, zero. Rule #3 is that good art is its own reward, and does not tip the scales either way. In this respect my system borrows directly from Weight Watchers, where healthy fruits and vegetables are “free,” i.e. “zero points,” and count neither for nor against the dieter. For what is being a consumer of the arts, if not a diet in which the good and the bad must constantly be balanced against each other? Just as dieters do, we can pig out, or we can virtuously abstain. The one thing we know we will not do is be saints. We have too much of a sweet tooth.
And now behold the brilliance and the real utility of this idea of karmic brownie points: By keeping tracking of my score, I can constantly remind myself of what I ought to be doing as a patron of the arts, as opposed to what I am doing. By this means will it dawn on me sooner rather than later that my attendance of Thor and before that of Iron Man 2 must be compensated for. By this means I can recognize that to keep my soul from expiring, I must as soon as possible hunt down still more painful local theater to endure and to falsely and earnestly praise. In this way I can continue to support my friends and my ideals without totally losing my appetite for theater. And someday, thanks to such support, they will write something good. For it does happen. And in fact this is our true reward, even if we have to wait a decade or two to get it. Zero points, at last. The tears and wonder of good or even great theater by people we actually know.
Am I wicked? Yes, I am wicked. Pity rather than condemn me. And if you yourself are a writer/producer/director, please, I beg: as you stand in glory backstage after the curtain falls on opening night, surrounded by friends and admirers, do not ask me to say anything more as I come up to you to shake your hand than that which you have uttered so many times when you were in my position: “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Only if I begin tearing up and refuse to let go your hand (so that eventually you have to get help to detach me) can you take me seriously.
P.S. Turn and turn about. If I see you crouched down in an aisle seat at the mall movie theater I will pretend not to recognize you; and you can do me the same favor.
Randy Burgess's feature articles and personal essays have been published in Hudson Valley Magazine; he also teaches essay writing at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Education. He winters in Manhattan and summers in Woodstock, NY, on the grounds of the Byrdcliffe Art Colony. He is deeply interested in the creative processes not just that of fiction and nonfiction writers, but of visual artists, composers, and playwrights as well.
