FENN'S IN MEDIA'S RACE

GOODBYE NEW YORK, HELLO AMERICA
THE THEATRE DE-CENTRALIZED

One of the best kept secrets about American cultural development is the inexorable rise of an American Regional theatre and the decline of Broadway as the primary force originating new drama in this country. In the sixties, the off-Broadway movement began to infiltrate the primacy of the "main stem." Small theatres and tiny budgets attracted new artists and generated exciting, alternative plays.

In the last forty years, the flowering of regional theatres, was encouraged by the Irish Johnny Appleseed, Tyrone Guthrie. He planted many superb classical companies, which shifted American Drama away from Manhattan. Now, new American plays are originated "out of town," then toured to Broadway for sometimes lucrative and lengthy runs. In the meantime, Broadway has been sustained by innumerable imports from England and revivals of old musicals like BELLS ARE RINGING or ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. (There's a couple of sleeping dogs that should have been let lie.)

Playwrights like August Wilson, David Mamet, Lee Blessing, Kevin Kling, Marion McClinton and the fast rising Jeffrey Hatcher all developed their work in the Midwest before achieving national recognition. All but Mamet were nurtured by the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis.

Two recent productions typify this de-centralization.

First, Arthur Miller's re-write of MR. PETERS' CONNECTIONS, which he chose to premiere at the Guthrie Lab in Minneapolis.

I believe the finest play in English in the last 200 years is DEATH OF A SALESMAN. Miller, with incredible genius, chipped at the huge block of Aristotelian dramatic principles in subtle and skilled ways. He was adroit enough to flagrantly flout the Aristotelian unities of time and space. Miller also disregarded the Old Greek's behest to use only exemplary, larger than life, heroic figures as protagonists, but still he created "real" human beings with whom we could identify. Even Stanley, the waiter, emerges as a kindly, sensitive and sympathetic person.

With MR. PETERS' CONNECTIONS, Miller, carrying through on the work of Becket and the Absurdists, shows us a character inhabiting a world which he perceives as basically incoherent. It is a chaotic world peopled with malevolent, superficial human beings and stereotypical women, including Marilyn Monroe character.Mr. Peters struggles with the universal effects of aging "Where are my glasses?" and repeatedly interrupts his conversations with a desperate, "Excuse me ... but ... could you tell me, what is the subject here?"

I regretted that the thinly disguised autobiographical Mr. Peters is a decidedly old-consciousness male with regard to the women in his life. It's as though the last twenty-five years had rolled by without Miller being tuned into women's issues. I would like to think that Miller himself had come to grips with Marilyn Monroe as a human being in a more mature way.

Nevertheless, this new version is a giant work by one of the most significant dramatist in America today. That he gave the premiere to the Guthrie is a great affirmation of his respect for, and the power of, regional theatre.

I asked Edward Albee recently, while he was in town for the opening of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, what playwrights' reactions were to working out of town so much.

"We always enjoy going where we are loved," he replied with great sincerity. Then he continued that due to the economics of Broadway, playwrights are not loved in New York.

This charge could never be leveled at the Twin Cities. VIRGINIA WOOLF was such a smash hit here that there is a lot of talk about moving it to Broadway soon.

The second example of de-centralizations is a remarkable new play STAR OF ENGLAND, premiered at Commonweal Theatre of Lanesboro, Minnesota. Lanesboro is a tiny (900 souls) community which supports a superb, paid, non-Equity acting company virtually year round. When I was working at the Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, we would have hired any one of them.

We went to Lanesboro largely because of my significant other poet Jill Breckenridge's excitement after seeing a production, VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE, by another home grown but well known playwright, John Olive. She had nothing but praise for the company and the script. So when I heard they were producing a new collage of three Shakespeare history plays (HENRY IV parts I and II, and HENRY V) I was on the road, filled with great expectations.

I was tremendously impressed with the production. As to the work done in cutting and "collaging" the Shakespearean material, it's hard to imagine a better job. I reveled in the basic choice of putting the material from HENRY IV as a sort of pre-Bosworth dream sequence (as in RICHARD III) in the nocturnal pre-Agincourt scene. I would have included the luscious "Upon the king" soliloquy, but that's just because I love it so.

Both of these vastly successful projects are part of the wonderful harvest we are reaping and will continue to reap, from the artistically fertile Midwest American soil.

by John Fenn