The public wanders through a collection of rooms, each with a different performance, exhibit, reading, meeting, game, discussion. Their experience is not fixed. They wander without moorings, the way a curious reader meanders through the pages of a magazine, not knowing what they’re searching for.
The theatre that must exist is ugly and unsatisfying, much of the time. It is defined by failed efforts and a bizarre-bordering-on-pathological determination to return to the scene of the crime (in this scenario, artists are the criminals; art is the bullet; guess who the victims are?).
We have to do better to offer arts programs in under-resourced schools. We have to do better to offer arts programs in communities of color. We have to do better in the future. But how are we doing better now?
A theatre foyer. Night. It is empty. The doors are locked. But if there were a woman there...
Duse’s superpower: her capacity to disappear, leaving only her plaster hands as evidence that she was a material presence in the world. Disappearance. Reproduction. She knew the theatrical drill.
They will surely become aware of the powers inherent in other generations, that the children and the elderly possess the wisdom of resurrection in our time.
After almost three weeks of “sheltering in place,” I noticed that an entire layer of language has been sliced off from my life. The texture of language consists not only of words, but of touches, gestures, bodily postures, smells, ambiance, and even the weather.
The play begins / The play does not begin.
The curtain opens on the cold, wintry Atlantic Ocean.
I’m standing in a queue waiting to get into my own show.