Trying to get back into the swing of things...
Due to my recent work load/exhaustion, I've been lackadaisically posting external links that have interest me, but provide me the minimum amount of work while still attempting to keep up the blog. And because some of that weight has been lifted as of today (read: business trips) then I thought perhaps this would be a good time to get back into the swing of things.
A question was posed to me a few weeks ago (in my Oscar's post) as to whether I agreed with a Tony Kushner statement that "political theatre is usually theatre of the left. That right-learning theatre tends not to be progressive or socially engaged theatre." I attempted to look for the article of which this reader was mentioning, and couldn't find a free version (I really need to set up my Times Select account...), and will therefore have to take this quote as is (not that I assume he was misquoted, I just prefer to get an entire background on something before forming an opinion).
As for the question, I would honestly have to say I don't know. As I'm not a huge theater buff, I couldn't tell you that I know a lot about theater, political or not (though having a sister obsessed with Broadway has kept me in the loop). It would seem to me, however, from life experience, and theaters distant counsin the cinema, that Kushner's comment would be a true one.
Considering my recent viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, (which Puff over at General Musings for Generalists recently blogged about), and the wealth of documentaries out there, I supposed I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to why this is.
What it seems like to me, is that "the political left," to me, is nothing more than advents of positive change (or perhaps not-so-positive change, but generally people don't like for things to change for the worse). The reason I say this is not because I think "the political right" doesn't want positive change as well. The way I see it is that we still, today, have a conservative leaning society (which I beleive will always be the case), and because of that "the political right" are more comfortable with the way things are. If you're comfortable with how things are, you're not going to make a documentary (like Who Killed The Electric Car?), a movie (like Brokeback Mountain), or a play (like Caroline or Change). It would seem to me that the point of writing political theater is to stir up something - be it a movement, an idea, or whatever - to change the way society behaves. Nobody would spend their best efforts writing/producing/filming something that would cause you to leave thinking "boy let's keep things the way they are," because that would be a waste of time, energy and money (and as much as we in this country like to waste all three, we prefer to be less obvious about it).
I think another reason for this would be that, it seems, those in Hollywood and in the Broadway community are more "left leaning," (or so they say), and therefore what they put out would generally have more of a "left leaning" tendancy. I think, the ultimate fact is, that it's "cool" to be a rebel, to disrespect authority, and even in your adult years the "popular" people will express that. In this case, government and society are more "right leaning," and therefore any type of response from what would be considered the popular crowd would be opposite of that.
That's really just my take on it. Feel free to add yours.
A question was posed to me a few weeks ago (in my Oscar's post) as to whether I agreed with a Tony Kushner statement that "political theatre is usually theatre of the left. That right-learning theatre tends not to be progressive or socially engaged theatre." I attempted to look for the article of which this reader was mentioning, and couldn't find a free version (I really need to set up my Times Select account...), and will therefore have to take this quote as is (not that I assume he was misquoted, I just prefer to get an entire background on something before forming an opinion).
As for the question, I would honestly have to say I don't know. As I'm not a huge theater buff, I couldn't tell you that I know a lot about theater, political or not (though having a sister obsessed with Broadway has kept me in the loop). It would seem to me, however, from life experience, and theaters distant counsin the cinema, that Kushner's comment would be a true one.
Considering my recent viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, (which Puff over at General Musings for Generalists recently blogged about), and the wealth of documentaries out there, I supposed I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to why this is.
What it seems like to me, is that "the political left," to me, is nothing more than advents of positive change (or perhaps not-so-positive change, but generally people don't like for things to change for the worse). The reason I say this is not because I think "the political right" doesn't want positive change as well. The way I see it is that we still, today, have a conservative leaning society (which I beleive will always be the case), and because of that "the political right" are more comfortable with the way things are. If you're comfortable with how things are, you're not going to make a documentary (like Who Killed The Electric Car?), a movie (like Brokeback Mountain), or a play (like Caroline or Change). It would seem to me that the point of writing political theater is to stir up something - be it a movement, an idea, or whatever - to change the way society behaves. Nobody would spend their best efforts writing/producing/filming something that would cause you to leave thinking "boy let's keep things the way they are," because that would be a waste of time, energy and money (and as much as we in this country like to waste all three, we prefer to be less obvious about it).
I think another reason for this would be that, it seems, those in Hollywood and in the Broadway community are more "left leaning," (or so they say), and therefore what they put out would generally have more of a "left leaning" tendancy. I think, the ultimate fact is, that it's "cool" to be a rebel, to disrespect authority, and even in your adult years the "popular" people will express that. In this case, government and society are more "right leaning," and therefore any type of response from what would be considered the popular crowd would be opposite of that.
That's really just my take on it. Feel free to add yours.
posted by Intellectivist at 8:38 AM
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