A Response to Basic Observations and Assumptions

With permission, I'm posting an exchange Malachy Walsh and I had about Basic Observations and Assumptions. His part is italicized. Mine is in bold.

I read your post Observations and Assumptions. Not sure what to make of it - which half you're odds with and which half you're not... Anyway, this paragraph was sort of disturbing to me:

Selling-out can be defined by becoming involved in a project that doesn’t put art first, or by leaving theater entirely. In fact, if you are a playwright who chooses to work in other literary forms, then it appears that you aren’t as committed to theater. Perhaps you aren’t a true playwright after all.

Do you really believe that highlighted bit? That definition means Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Neil Labute, Lisa Loomer, Marsha Norman etc, aren't true playwrights. Hell, even Shakespeare missed the boat since he wrote a few sonnets now and again.

And selling-out is a funny concept here as well, since most of us are involved in one very big project that doesn't put art first almost ever. It's titled: Putting Bread On The Table. Again, by this definition, Wallace Stevens, Bernard Malamud, Joseph Heller, etc. would all be sell-outs since they all were involved in daily projects that didn't put art first. (And what about Dickens? I'd bet he'd say he put
entertainment way in front of art most of the time.)

You're a playwright for god's sake when you're writing plays.

I agree with you about the selling-out thing. It is a disturbing paragraph, but I've run into that attitude so often... I felt like I had to mention it. What I like about theater is writing plays. What I don't like about theater is most of those attitudes. (Half was a conservative estimate. It is most likely more.)

What I do notice is that it feels like there is a pressure in theater. A kind of peer pressure. It's taken a while to diagnose what that pressure is, and how best to respond to it.

Perhaps it's different when you achieve a level of success as Marsha Norman or Mamet. If your first success is in theater, can anyone doubt that you are really a playwright? Then you can go off and follow your muse...

I had *major problems* with what Albee said. I thought it was pretentious and ridiculous. Yet, I find that attitude crops up often. Too often.

I just wanted to let you know how absurd I think this purism is. And, as I think you're sort of suggesting, damaging. I think working and living and doing in my different areas of interest make me much richer as a writer.

Of course, some of that is simple pragmatics. I need to make money.

And sure, I'd love to work in theatre pretty much most of the time, but I can't say that what I've done so far in theatre hasn't been greatly informed by what I've done, and have to do, outside of it.

Anyway, you're not alone in those feelings about pressure to be one thing or another - a pure playwright. And I don't like it either.

I appreciate what Malachy writes. I sometimes think I'm the only one who thinks/feels these things. I guess I should clarify things... I’d say that I’m at odds with 3/4ths of the observations. Isn’t it human nature to notice what annoys you, instead of what you like?

In my opinion, theater is thick with a poverty mentality. I’m tired of hearing how government doesn’t support the arts. Guess what? The national debt is so high that the government can’t even support itself. And do you really want all those governmental strings attached to your work? Handouts are terrific, but what’s the real cost?

This is the situation in America. In other countries, I have no doubt that the situation is different. You have to play with the cards you’re dealt.

Some people really get off on the poverty/martyr situation. I know I did, and there are plenty of others who do currently. It’s not unusual. After all, we’re producing a kind of mystical experience which capitalism can’t measure – right? We’re artistes; we’re above capitalism. (She said, sarcastically.)

In the Seminary, I learned “like attracts like.” So, my friends, good luck with that poverty mentality.

When I quit theater in 2004, I left because I couldn't do theater in the same way any longer. Coming back on a temporary day pass, I wrote War. Now that it's pretty much done - for the moment - I'm gravitating back to novels. It's a different world, outside of theater, and it's nice to be away from that poverty mentality. But I still feel that odd pressure...