Spirital Atelier

A brief summary: Anne Marie Welsh describes the salvation and renovation of the Balboa Theatre, a dual vaudeville/Spanish cinema house with a history of involvement with the San Diego community.

(Click the picture to view the article)

Response: It amazes me to see that how when we talk about the flexibility and versatility of theatre as an art, it’s so easy to forget that the building that holds theatre often is as flexible, if not more so. The fact that this was a movie theatre and vaudeville house is not surprising – that this was also a bordello, a circus, a ice show house, an orchestra house, and even a WWII hotel shocked me. The place additionally was designed with the ability to keep sound alive over great distances, though not initially to be built for theatrical use. Because of this, coupled with its orchestra pit size, touring companies are well-suited for the space.

I suppose the more pressing issue, however, was twofold – why did it take twenty-two years to be considered significant enough to keep, and what changed Centre City Development Corp.’s five years ago? It resonates with our studies in Theatre Management, so that drew me into the article more that if I was not in the course. The building has participated significantly in the history of San Diego, specifically connecting to its Latino population. It has seated between 1600 and 1300, making it a sizeable space. It has changed its core of operations to suit the times, but by 1985 the building was deemed run-down. The planned demolition was stalled by activists until 2002, when Dave Allsbrook, CCDC’s VP of public works, took steps to modernize a building that, according to him, was “nicer” than theatres in most other cities. After five years and $26.5 million dollars, he has the reopening of what Welsh and others describe as a San Diego landmark.

The reason this speaks to me is summed up by Paul Westlake, the architect behind the renovation: “It’s like something you’d find in Seville or other areas of Moorish Spain. The building thus feels anchored to San Diego’s climate and history – and that creates its sense of meaning for the city.” DC has had Arena Stage as a long-standing building that manifests an intimate connection to the city; New York has Broadway as a district that continues to define a great deal of the cultural standards of not only the city itself, but the modern world; San Diego, though probably not as prolific a theatre region, still has a past that lives largely because there is still a phyiscal area that links the past, present, and now futre.

A brief summary: Kirsten Tagami discusses the homegrown roots of “Cold Sassy Tree,” an opera opening Saturday in Atlanta.

(Click the picture to view the article)

Reaction: Before anything else, it just seems odd that an opera about Northern Georgia and the life of a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was premiered in Houston, over 700 miles and entire histories segregated from the source.

This article affected me on two levels. First, I was amazed that Betty Guffin, a close friend to original author Olive Ann Burns, made a point to describe the production as “do[ing] justice” to the essence of the book. As someone who does not watch operas or has not at any point, I cannot reconcile an opera and a episodic, slice-of-life set of stories sharing a spirit. The word “opera” (for me) carries an onus of prestige, sophistication - even of class. An opera tells an epic story using grand orchestration and powerful vocal lives. An opera does not describe a great-grandfather owning a store and a father remarrying. It does not tell a pastoral memory piece akin to Annie Dillard. But this works on a biased view of opera; an opera is a performance, just as a play, so it can tell any story. An opera is, in fact, just a vessel – nothing more, nothing less.

Secondly, the production of this opera uses theatre to tell the story of a place and a people that otherwise would not get represented. Had this opera not existed, there would be a generation that knew nothing about the (fictional) town of Cold Sassy and how it stood as microcosm for life in (actual) Commerce and surrounding areas. I can say that I personally have not heard of the book prior to this article, at least. It brings to mind The Laramie Project – had Kaufmann not decided to spend a year speaking to and interviewing the inhabitants, the city itself and the citizens therein would be one-dimensional figures in a two-dimensional report of the death of Matthew Shepherd. I guess what this comes to is that there is never a shortage of stories to tell. You will never run out of things to talk about, as long as you look for things to talk about.

A brief summary: In honor of an upcoming production of Samuel Beckett’s “Fragments,” (opening today), Sid Smith describes the playwright’s resonance with the mood of modern audiences.

 
(Click the picture to see the article)

Reaction: Once again, the disussion of voice drew me to read an article. The three pioneers of the Theatre of the Absurd – Beckett, Ionesco, and Pinter – have captivated me; the power of their writing transcends much of the literature, making it seem futuristic even today. Interestingly, they wrote in a very similar voice despite their geographical differences (Irish, Romanian/French, and British, respectively). The main segregation that I find between the three is: Ionesco is defined by what he said; Pinter is defined by what he didn’t say; Becket is defined by how he said what he said.

Beckett truly is stylistically singular. Others can use repetition, others can write compelling stage directions, others can even debate the world. But Beckett does all three. Waiting for Godot is among the greatest plays written, but it is possible that no action ever occurs - we are left with no resolution, no sense of accomplishment, nothing. While Pinter pioneered the modern use of meaningful silence and Ionesco established the skeleton of the anti-play, Beckett left us with an existential darkness that means echoes our growing discontent.

The main reason I chose to post this story was that the mood consistenty referred to in the article is ever-present in the production I’m involved in at the moment, Far Away. Caryl Churchill manifests a great deal of Absurdist practices in this play – politically charged, surreal realism mirrors Ionesco’s Rhinocerous, and the workshop vignettes feature the haunting paucity of words that gets labeled Pinter silences today. Most important, however, is that this work offers us a discussion of what happens if what we fear is true. Beckett was obsessed with the presence of God or lack thereof; for Churchill, God is hope and the question remains.

A brief summary: Peter Marks applauds the artistic quality of the production (particularly its pace and energy), but describes wanting more time to absorb the messages.

Reaction: There’s something offsetting about describing a production in the way the title does, and now I know what it does. Red Light Winter, which many of us saw last year, was very much in the same vein. RENT (mentioned by Marks) was very much in the same vein; Avenue Q was very much in the same vein; Spring Awakening was very much in the same vein. Please excuse my language, but I’m starting to get a bit pissed off about people who are our age, having our problems and living our lives, yet being impeccably dressed, masterfully choreographed, trained to hit complicated and non-intuitive melodies with people they don’t live and work with, and being inexplicably articulate and profound – though the former had people simply had the profundity and the dressing.

Part of the problem is that there isn’t much more that we can explore for a while without repeating ourselves. Centering a play around twentysomethings dealing with life through life is not a new thing, nor is it an underexposed subject. The timing works for the musicals because there was a window between each opening; had Spring Awakening and Rent opened simultaneously, neither would be as lucrative because of a split demographic. So what does this mean for me? I doubt I’ll be as affected by the production because the subject’s already been brought up in recent memory. I’ve anticipated the play’s voice.

I feel horrible that I think this, but whenever I hear the word “youth” in the description of a play I get a song in my head:

and it won’t stop until I forcibly change the subject.Why am I talking about this? I guess it’s because I want to say something, not just talk. Gregg has told me repeatedly that I love to talk, and I’m starting to internalize it. It’s very easy to talk about things, especially if there are people around you talking about the same thing. But to say something, to communicate in a way that makes people think and listen – that’s where I find a great deal of theatre’s spirituality. People listen when you say something, and it’s an active process. They hear when you talk, which they do whether they want to or not.

EDIT 1/30: The picture now takes you to the article.