The Theatre’s Cry for Attention
Attention is our most valuable resource. It has the power to shape the patterns that define our minds, bodies, and spirits. “Attention is the beginning of devotion” begins poet Mary Oliver’s essay collection, Upstream. I suppose that means, then, that because I spend most of my waking life (And sometimes dreaming life) thinking about theatre, my attention to my craft is an act of devotion. I enjoy that idea. It reminds me that I am always in service of something greater than myself. I try my best to be really intentional about what I give my attention to these days. But when I think about attention, I mostly think of its opposite: distraction. I think of all of the things I have to battle to actually be able to give my full attention to something, and for it to therefore become an act of uninterrupted devotion.
Theatre requires attention. This should come as no surprise. Going to the theatre is a rare thing for most people. Not only does it require attention, but it often requires preparation, planning, time, and money. It requires effort. One is tasked with making a pilgrimage out into society, some obscure location, or perhaps in the middle of nowhere at all to experience this unique craft of storytelling. The things the theatre requires of its audience are the most valuable things we have available to us: money, time, and attention. In a society that is experiencing exponential technological advancement, and prioritizes economic efficiency, the theatre appears to most people antiquated, tedious, and boring. This is the reality all theatre artists are forced to grapple with today. How do we remain present in the ever-evolving rapid pace of society with thousands of other things designed to stealthily steal our attention? To ask the question: What is needed to revitalize the theatrical medium for modern audiences, is actually to ask, what do we still value placing our attention on?
For the past two summers, I have committed myself to working at American Players Theatre in rural Wisconsin. Known around the country for producing classics with immense clarity and depth, APT is nestled in the woods of a small town called Spring Green. It is home to a 1,000+ seat outdoor amphitheatre and a 200 seat indoor theatre. There are many things that make APT stand out to me, including its commitment to fostering the talents and appetites of young artists, its love of challenging plays and language, and its devotion to having a core company of artists that return year after year. This is a place that, for whatever reason, has largely been able to resist the modern temptations of the American theatre in its desperate battle for attention.
APT is a theatre that employs the use of the whole actor, restoring the power of the body and voice to the center of the theatrical event, which asks for a different engagement and attention from actor and audience alike. For instance, there are no microphones on actors in the outdoor amphitheatre, which is a big ask nowadays, especially since most young people are being trained for, and have a stronger desire toward, film and TV. It takes a certain kind of stamina and rigor to perform with ease in that complicated space. It forces the actor to return their attention to the conscious use of their instrument. Time is spent in rehearsals as well as with voice and text coaches figuring out how to maximize clarity and ease without the amplification of a microphone. Actors are taught to bounce their sound off of the hard surfaces in the space and to build this consciously into their performances. I like to think of APT as “analogue theatre”. It is this lack of technological mediation that allows for keener listening from both actors and audiences, and a deeper appreciation for the human being at its most bare.
APT has in spades what renowned theatre director, Tadashi Suzuki, calls “animal energy”. This energy is derived from the physical presence of the actor without the mediation of technology such as electricity or machinery. Visiting Suzuki’s company in the remote mountain village of Toga, I was able to experience first hand his philosophy of animal energy, as the actors there train rigorously to re-emphasize the body in performance. In fact, Toga has a theatre similar to the one up the hill at APT. Both employ the use of a “hanamichi bridge” which comes from Kabuki theatre (A traditional Japanese form) and is used to highlight important entrances and exits. The Suzuki Company has an “Open Air Theatre” in which the stage appears to float on a lake, with two hanamichi bridges going off both sides into the trees. The audience wraps around sitting on stone steps - very Greek theatre. Walking into both theatres feels like you’re stepping back into ancient time in a way. Or as playwright Brian Friel says in Translations, “It wasn’t an awareness of direction being changed, but of experience being of a totally different order.” These two theatres, in the woods of Wisconsin and mountains of Japan, through their commitment to the actor and “analogue theatre” ask us to challenge our attention, and what we deem valuable in our lives. They provide “experiences of a totally different order”, through the use of animal energy, so that we can return to the pace of our daily lives with a little more care and conscious attention.
The work of SCOT and APT both carry a reverence for tradition. They know the actor to be the life-blood of the stage, and don’t allow things to get in the way of the dynamism of the actor-led theatre. This ethos is literally in the name of American Players Theatre. The emphasis on the actor, of body and voice, today might be thought of as more traditional compared to the vastly different demands of film/tv or producing original work. Suzuki is nothing short of a genius when it comes to blending traditional forms together to create his own, entirely unique one. He brilliantly fuses together elements of the traditional Kabuki and Noh theatre, Shakespeare, Beckett, and Chekhov. He highlights this tension between our past and present to propose new ways into the future. This reverence for tradition is what makes both places so sacred and successful in their own ways.
Technology presents some serious questions artists must engage with in the face of upholding time honored traditions. I equate technology with distraction, which is the enemy of art (Especially if you’re trying to make it an act of devotion). Over the course of writing this essay, I have been distracted by technology around me countless times - my phone, my partner’s phone, the TV, and other things that pop up on my computer. I have seen theatre productions in the past that felt consumed and, indeed, distracted by technology. It makes sense. Technology has a seductive allure to it. When considering the aforementioned challenges to producing theatre today, the quickening pace of life, development of more sophisticated technology, and the disconnect from the body, it can feel like technology is the answer to the theatre-maker’s prayers about how to keep an audience’s attention. But the answer lies somewhere in the middle, in the balance between technology and its effects on our psychology/capacity for attention, and the traditions that go as far back as the first story ever told.
Just as we need to be wary of using technology as a crutch, we also shouldn’t hold on too tightly to traditions that keep the art form stuck in the past. Suzuki wisely states in his book, Culture is the Body, “Tradition is not something to be protected, but rather must be actively engaged so it may provide a springboard for new creation.” It is this tension between past and future, tradition and technology, that may actually provide a rich well of possibilities for the theatre, to creating work that is alive and resonant. All tenses must be in constant dialogue with one another. To deny the presence of technology as a part of our daily lives and as a tool that we have at our disposal would be delusional. It would equally be counter-intuitive to impose too much technology onto the live event of theatre. It distorts the one weapon the theatre truly has: presence. Technology can take our attention, tradition requires it. The theatre must be a place where we can go to encounter presence and be reminded of our own. It must have in its nature: animal energy, risk, communion, and attention. Without these factors, the flame of the theatre becomes smaller and smaller.
Theatre today can be a form of resistance, of protest to the quickening pace of life. Remember: time, money, attention. It has the power to oppose the mediation of technology between our bodies, to momentarily invite people out of the “attention economy” created by our devices and into something beyond daily life, providing satiating experiences, even uncomfortable ones. If attention is the beginning of devotion, then I am proud to say that I spend most of my life giving it to something as weird, beautiful, and human as the tradition of theatre.