EXTRA CRITICUM

So Much Talk of Commerce. So Little Time.

Lydia Stryk has a fascinating piece up on HowlRound about a movement to guarantee artists a living wage. And Stryk's wonderful piece (not all of which I agree with) is just the tip of the iceberg. There's an ocean of online commentary these days on art-making and the question of its sustainability in our current economic structure. I wonder why this might be happening.

Maybe it's just that a lot of over-educated folks with upper-middle-class parents (myself included) bought the story they were sold about devoting one's life to the creation of art: You can do it.

Or put another way:

You can be whatever you want to be.

Has there ever been a more profoundly dangerous message conveyed to an entire generation?

I have seen the future of opera in LONDON ROAD

I was in Toronto for a few days leading a Director/Dramatist Exchange for the Playwrights Guild of Canada. You know how I am. When I travel I like to see some local theatre. Purely by chance, during intermission at a performance of a mediocre new musical some friends had taken me to, their good friend Roy Surette (Artistic Director of Montreal's Centaur Theatre) suggested I join him for the first preview of LONDON ROAD at Canadian Stage. I hesitated at first, since this would be a second production of a British export and my preference is to see locally-grown theatre.

Here were the essential hooks, as presented to me:

1. Huge hit in London. Canadian premiere.

2. Documentary theatre, a la Laramie Project, i.e. interview transcriptions crafted into a script featuring dozens of characters, the result of which is a portrait of a community at a crossroads.

3. Tape recordings of the interviews were used by the composer as a guide for composing melody and rhythms to mimic the natural cadence of all those interview subjects.

Now, knowing me, which of these three enticements do you imagine sealed the deal for Rolando Teco?