Joining Averroës’ Search

One of my favorite stories by Jorge Luis Borges is “Averroës’ Search”.  It’s not a very good story— Borges himself admits as much in a rather tortured apology that he tacks on at the end—but it’s a story about theatre—at least in part—and since it’s one of the only times Borges, a favorite of mine, touches on the art form that I have sunk so much of myself into, the short piece has become special to me.  I can approximate how many times I have read it by counting the different colors of pencils I have used to mark it up: dark blue, light blue, purple, green.

The story opens with the great Islamic annotator of Aristotle lamenting the frequent appearance in the Poetics of two words  that, to a devout Muslim of the 12th Century, seem to have no meaning at all: “tragedy” and “comedy”. 

He had come across them years earlier in the third book of the Rhetoric; no one in all of Islam could guess as to their meaning….  Yet the two arcane words were everywhere in the text of the Poetics—it was impossible to avoid them.

In the very next paragraph Averroës takes a break from his work and looks down from his balcony. 

…  There below, in the narrow earthen courtyard, half-naked children were at play.  One of them standing on the shoulders of another, was clearly playing at being a muezzin: his eyes tightly closed, he was chanting the muezzin’s monotonous cry,  There is no God but Allah.  The boy standing motionless and holding him on his shoulders was the turret from which he sang; another kneeling, bowing low in the dirt, was the congregation of the faithful.  The game did not last long— they all wanted to be the muezzin, no one wanted to be the worshippers or the minaret.

For me, this is Borges at his best and most loveable: a great thinker imagining a great thinker struggling to imagine a concept that, in fact, palpably surrounds him.  As many of my friends who like to argue with me point out, theatre will always survive.  You literally cannot not have theatre.  But as Borges might counter, you can certainly have it without knowing you have it.  Perhaps that’s where we are heading.  The great Argentine did foretell the internet after all.

Recently, in a fit of frustration that so many people seemed to miss the point of my recent post about playwrights not making a living from their plays while plenty of folks make one making theatre, I recently wrote the following self-pitying status on Face Book. 

I somehow need to find a way to harness the average Seattle theatre artist's endless enthusiasm for arguing into an actual force for change.

Yes, we're all smart. We're all well read. We all know how to attack a straw man and cleverly defend the indefensible, but at what point do we decide we can do better and then take steps to do it?

It's a cliché, but it always applies: if not us, who? If not now, when?

Maybe self pitying isn’t the right description.  Maudlin?  Mawkish?  In any case, a good friend and theatre colleague blithely chimed in: “Shut up and do a show.”  It’s good advice.  Well, again, advice isn’t really the right word.  No one telling you to shut up is giving you advice so much as dictating a directive, and a rather ironic one at that, since it’s impossible to tell someone to shut up without opening your mouth.  Still though, the person who said this has a largely gentle heart, and I know he would not want me to do anything I did not really want to do. 

With the understanding that I did not have a lot of room to talk about Seattle theatre unless I was actually making Seattle theatre, I have been pushing pretty hard on producing over the last few years.  This spring I wrote and served as executive producer for The New New News: A Living Newspaper; a little over a year before that I served in the same capacities for It’s Not the the P-I: A Living Newspaper About a Dying Newspaper.  And before that there was The Ten Thousand Things at Washington Ensemble Theatre, The Don Juan Cult Concerto at NSCC, Tuesday and An American Book of the Dead- The Game Show at Annex Theatre.  Just listing those shows makes me smile and feel tired at the same time.  Boy, have I done some shows since coming back to Seattle in 2002!

Now it’s 2011 and I have foundered on a fact that frightens me a bit and that I need to share with you.  I don’t want to put on another show.  Even if I did, I don’t have one.  It’s just not in me at the moment.  And I don’t know if it ever will be again.  (It feels like a long moment, frankly.)  I believe this is something that every theatre artist has to face at some point.  A future with no shows.  But just like Averroës, I will be surrounded by theatre whether I know it or not, whether I want it or not.  After all, isn’t the Intiman’s colossal failure a tragedy in the truest sense?

So, with the understanding that one earns one’s right to speak about Seattle theatre by making Seattle theatre, I need to cash in for a while and keep my mouth shut.  I will still keep Just Wrought active, and still post here, but my advocacy for Seattle becoming a World Class theatre town, and all the kvetching and posturing that goes with it, is hereby retired indefinitely.

It is time for me to shut up, sit back, and watch the show… as produced by others.

Comments

[Jeremy M. Barker]

Not to entirely be a bitch, Paul, but I'm going to dissent from the ethos of "just do a show." I think that's a dumb, wrong-headed mindset that keeps Seattle in the dark ages. People always think making work is the most important thing to do, because they're artists and that's what artists do. But I'm actually pretty bored with artists pointing fingers at everyone else and blaming others for the failures of art in production. If Seattle's not actually a world class theater town, it's not just because audiences aren't properly engaged, the ADs at the big houses ignore local artists, and so on. It's also because most of the work sucks.

Now I'm not directing this as a criticism at you--you seem to get this. But honestly, the difference between Portland and Seattle (where Seattle comes out on top), and Seattle and New York (which I think is one of your World Class Theater Towns) is a matter of infrastructure and support. Portland has none. Seattle is luckier than it deserves. The loss of 4Culture would have been a death-blow to important art being made there. An entire generation would have been screwed. People who think the death of the Fringe Fest set Seattle theater back would have had their minds blown.

So maybe the thing to take away is that more work needs to be done to create opportunities for work to be made by others rather than just making whatever work can be pulled off. I just found out about an effort in Minneapolis for about 8 or 10 smaller independent theater companies to pool marketing and development resources in order to try to stream-line the process. I'm skeptical, but really, that's one of the more realistic and ambitious plans I've heard about lately. We need more of that: better support, better infrastructure, more organization, and less ego. Fuck doing shows; most of them aren't good anyway. In a world class theater town, sometimes you gotta grow up. What the arts needs is less argument, less art, and more adults to ensure that support and opportunity exist for the artists who really have the need to say something. And that's in desperately short supply, as even an occasional outside observer would note.

[Paul Mullin]

Well said, Jeremy. As always, I appreciate your thoughts.

We certainly do seem to be thinning out infrastructure just when we should be reinforcing it and building more. But that also sounds like the nation at large, and not just in the arts.

I am literally almost constantly haunted by the question: "What should I be doing?" And my bio/cv reflects my different answers at different times. Just Wrought was my answer a year and a half ago. Now, not so much. Honestly, the best I can come up with at this particular moment (large, like I say in the post) is a respectful zen "nothing".

[Scot Augustson]

Paul, first, thank you for sharing the Borges quote, it was beautiful and inspiring.
OK, when I said "Shut up and put on a show." First, it wasn't directed specifically at you. And second, yes, it was the end of the day and I was being flip and dismissive. You know I have a snarky side.
Can I clarify?
OK, sometimes when we set out after something big, like making a place a world class theater town, it's a problem best met not head on. The solution will instead emerge from the work we do, from the community (And yes, I hate the overused word community) we create. If we grab for it, it will always elude us.
Lastly (no, not lastly forever, just lastly right here) it made me happy you used the phrase "good friend."

[Paul Mullin]

Thanks, Scot,

"OK, sometimes when we set out after something big, like making a place a world class theater town, it's a problem best met not head on. The solution will instead emerge from the work we do, from the community."

I do think there's huge truth to that. Which is a big part of the reason I'm going to shut up for a while. I was starting to get that "rope-pushing" feeling. Whatever momentum might come will come without me yelling for it from the sidelines. And that's where I will be for awhile, show-less and no prospects of one.

Good friend. Always.

[Scot Augustson]

Good friend...with benefits?

[Louise Penberthy]

I hope this is just temporary. I can't help thinking it is. You have too much energy and too many things to say to retire forever.

Do something you've never done before, maybe. Take a letterpress class at Pratt or learn how to rock climb. Or play the trumpet.

Sometimes, you can just get burned out.

[Paul Mullin]

Thanks, Louise. That's very sweet of you to say.

[los angeles seo]

As many of my friends who like to argue with me point out, theatre will always survive.