Expansion

"Homer told us certain truths about the Trojan wars and what they did to individual human beings; Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times told us similar truths about wars in our own times. The two Homers, thousands of years apart, were doing the same work. They were adding to our knowledge and understanding. In the end, newspapers must provide both. We are part of the knowledge industry. We can't be a mere diversion from the realities of the world; we must help people to understand that world. Few of us are presumptuous enough to believe that we are offering the readers the gift of wisdom. But without knowledge, wisdom is impossible.

...Every true journalist is trying to add to our knowledge. That is often at the heart of the conflict with the businessmen who had arrived late to the world of newspapers. The expansion of knowledge and the expansion of profits can be compatible; too often they are not."

-- Pete Hamill, News is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century

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That essay, incidentally, makes for some awesome reading. The guy is so passionate about newspapers and journalism in general. He offers a unique perspective on how the media handled the Clinton scandal and how the then-new Internet was corroding the tradition of reporting.

What Hamill says about newspapers, to some extent, can be said of theatres. The arts of reporting facts and acting out lies seem to be such polar opposites, but they are not. They involve the same purposes, storytelling being the most obvious, and "the expansion of knowledge" and wisdom perhaps less obvious. Common to both businesses, too, is the inherent obstacle--I will not say it's a flaw--of being a business. You gotta sell papers, and you gotta sell ads, and you gotta sell tickets. (I was told once during a callback that I could sell my own shit in a bag, and now whenever a director says to "sell it," that's what I think about: bullshit.)

At least in my experience, the topics discussed in theatre company meetings are not artistic but financial. A room full of artists vaguely trying to make the bottom line bigger. Numbers outnumber words. No one mentions company-wide devotion to the arts, and instead figureheads push employees to make donations to the arts (the incentive for this is not to help other arts organizations, but to increase one's tax credit).

As a professor recently told me over lunch (after I told him I didn't like how acting had become "just a job" so quickly): "Whatever job you hold will at some point become just a job."

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So much for jobs, though:

With the hope of finding a small gig to keep me busy over the summer (and yes, to earn some more money), I'm auditioning tomorrow night. There are not many opportunities to act in this area if you're non-Equity and still want to be paid. You have to take these things as they come.

When people are in a show because it's a hobby, those who regard it as a job quickly feel aggravated to be in the same production. That is true of any profession.

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Been watching a lot of the HBO series The Wire. In fact, I spent almost all of this last weekend watching seasons one and two. Great show. It's rare that economics factor so strongly in any TV show, let alone a crime drama series, but when it does, you know you've got a winner.

Reading, too. Finished a short novel called Isn't It Romantic? By way of Jack H., I came upon this solid Nebraskan writer, Ron Hansen, who sets a lot of stories in a much-too forgotten state. Most novels, poems, movies and plays set in the Heartland tend (for whatever reason) to take place in Iowa. Maybe I'm playing my home state as a victim falsely, but I think I'm more than "just biased": justly biased.

(Or something like that.)

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And how's about a name drop, while I'm at it. The artistic director just dropped by to flaunt an old Cincinnati Opera program which proves, for I had doubted, that he worked with Placido Domingo back in 1967, when the tenor was still just an unknown singer from Spain. Sure enough, there's ol' PD, and then down the page, listed as Choreographer, is ol' Jack Louiso.

"And look at this," says Jack, pointing to another page, "there's his picture. That's what he looked like when no one knew what he looked like."

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After Liturgy yesterday, I was invited by a fellow inquirer to come to some reader's theatre gatherings that take place near the UC campus. Apparently, students have formed a group whose joining interest is a love of the oral storytelling tradition. It's voluntary, but for those who show up, reading a part is compulsory. It's not the sort of thing that you can just sit and listen to; everyone reads.

It's just the sort of thing I want to do right now: to read, vocalize, perform--for its own sake. Not for the rent's sake, or to cover utilities. For itself. Unto itself. By itself.

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A few nights ago, some Tom cast members and I went to see our friend in a community theatre production of Godspell. It was enjoyable. Aside from Leslie (who played Jesus--and very well, by the way) there was one actor who seemed especially energetic, very fun to watch. I mentioned him later and was told he is an Equity actor who did this show for fun. Made sense...at least, it made sense that his performance was so good. What didn't make sense was, Why did he do it?

But I think I understand. For a similar reason, I came close to doing a community theatre Our Town a few months ago. You want to keep doing what you do even when your job doesn't require you to do it. It's a different kind of expansion, one that widens your experience and perhaps shrinks your expectations--and, if possible, helps you to forget them.