The Round-Up So Far

Here's what I've seen so far in NYC, including a movie and a concert:
The Bacchae (Lincoln Center, with Alan Cumming & Nat'l Theatre of Scotland)
Tell Out My Soul (part of the SPF festival)
Boeing-Boeing on Broadway
a reading @ New Dramatists
Slavey @ Clubbed Thumb
Sunday in the Park With George on Broadway
Palace of the End @ Playwrights Horizons
Penalties and Interest @ Labyrinth Theater
Canary (a reading) @ Rattlestick
The Philharmonic in Central Park
High and Low, a Kurosawa movie

There have been some great performances in this set of plays. There has been some great writing. A few gorgeous sets, some great tech. Even, at The Bacchae last night, some honest-to-god pyrotechnics.

But pyrotechnics of the heart? Not so much.

I could turn this into a cranky post about "how do half these things get produced?" -- and yes, the thought has crossed my mind over the past couple of weeks. But after letting all these performances sink in, that's not the lesson.

The lesson is: Theater is frickin' HARD. Everything about it is hard. It's hard to write a really, really good story (be it traditional or experimental), it's hard to direct a play so that you're SUPPORTING and ELEVATING the story rather than miring down, it's hard to assemble a fantastic ensemble of equally skilled people who can work as a true ensemble and who are dedicated to telling that story, but who manage to make it seem effortless (who was it who said actors are "acrobats of the heart?" these days we need them to be straight-up acrobats too, half the time). It's hard to create a gorgeous design (costume, sets, lights, sound etc...) that supports the storytelling...and it's really, REALLY hard to do this on painfully small budget, over a punishingly short rehearsal period.

I'm surprised anybody ever manages to do it at all. It's a miracle, really.

And of course, the Broadway shows above weren't exactly strapped for cash (granted). And some of the more successful designs I saw were the most minimal (partially my own taste, likely). And I'm not saying plays should be let off the hook that fail on several counts...BUT.

It's important to know that what we're attempting to do, here, is not easy.
And that that only makes it more imperative that we give this thing all it deserves.
And if we're content to half-ass it, we should get off the stage.
Because when we do theater right, there's God in it.