J. Michael Miller
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 2, No. 2
Ongoing Concerns:
Every red blooded American surely knows the ringing cry of “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Paul Revere’s rallying cry awoke sleeping patriots to the advancing armies of King George. A version of that cry, uttered in 1775, rang out again on February 9, 2010, occasioned by Patrick Healy’s article in the New York Times, announcing “Shakespeare’s New Home: Park Avenue.” Not that Mr. Healy raised anything like a call to arms. He simply reported the public announcement by the Lincoln Center Festival and its partners (the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ohio State University, Park Avenue Armory) on a major initiative for their 2011 season. The cry of rage and concern rang out the next day. I am told that the phones at the Festival office rang off the hook with calls from patrons, theatre artists and politicians deeply upset by the level of deference and financial support being accorded a British theater, when our own theaters are struggling to survive. My inbox was rife with concerns expressed by actors and directors, saying essentially, “Here we go again!”
The basic issues that raised hackles and/or provoked envy were:
- Every time we turn around, it seems, the Royal Shakespeare Company, or one of its founding directors or one of its internationally recognized actors, is being subsidized to come here to do our work. Shakespeare was born in England to be sure, but he is also the most produced playwright in American theater history. Are the British really better than we are in producing his plays? Put a “Sir” or “Dame” in front of an actor or director’s name, and we seem to think so. Those great land grant universities, first Michigan and now Ohio State, have paid the Royal Shakespeare Company handsomely to bring its high profile cultural image to add balance to their football reputations. Do the British automatically warrant this largess and opportunity to shine on our shores in work we might have done better and truer to our own idiom?
- Is it only the exotic “Royals” that are able to take on projects at any cost? This little foray across the pond is expensive in a way that is beyond conception for even our largest not-for-profit theaters. They are going to install an exact replica of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new 900 seat theater in the Park Avenue Armory, at the cost of “several hundred thousand dollars,” for a SIX WEEK run, as well as bring their full company of actors, technicians and support staff to these shores. Really! You can probably double the actual costs coyly mentioned above and add a considerable “financial incentive.”
- The topper? The proud admission that got under everybody’s skin? Michael Boyd, Artistic Director of the RSC said “that support and collaboration with artists and patrons in America was increasingly important for the Royal Shakespeare Company.” He then claimed that forty percent of its annual fund-raising revenue comes from the Unites States.
What is wrong with this picture? It is not the Lincoln Center Festival. Their mission is to bring outstanding international companies to New York to promote wider cultural perceptions and personal growth. Without this festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I would feel under served in this most sophisticated of cities. It is not the Royal Shakespeare Company. They should spread their seed to every audience that craves it, and should be supported and compensated by their devotees. The problem was deliciously stated years ago by Walt Kelly in the comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
The American psyche is still in search of confidence in its cultural values. The original forbearers of this nation sailed from the land of monarchies in Europe, and our heritage still holds a secret if grudging respect for “royal” and historic cultural precedent. While over 200 years of immigration of myriad nationalities has forged a richly layered American culture, it continues to change and grow. We may be the most dynamic cultural force in the world, but it is through the energy of our constantly evolving pop culture that is reflective of our constantly deepening melting pot. We do not seem to have a common need to focus our major non-profit theaters on classic themes that resonate across ethnic divides. Other nations do that, or at least attempt to do that. Why don’t we have a theatre like England’s “National” or “Royal”? Like Russia’s “Moscow Art” or France’s “Minushkin”? Is it that we cannot afford them, as we are constantly told? Or is it cheaper to let them do it, and import what we need. Or is it that we do not yet possess a collective sense of self-worth that permits our own public examination of human nature in this way? In music, yes. In ballet, etc., yes. Why not in the theater? Three hundred and thirty-five years later, we still cry, “The British are coming.” Then, we did something about it. Today?
See J. Michael Miller’s “A Call to Arms,” in the January issue of this Journal.