Tag: writing

Crooked Fool: I love theatre, but it has some problems…

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

“Why do you do theatre?”

I’ve heard a lot of answers to this question. For me, a lot of it comes down to the way the artform pushes us to trust our own instincts and explore heightened states of being. There’s also a humanizing element to live performance that I think is incredibly powerful. But one answer that I hear over and over, and one that also holds true for me, is community. It’s being an integral part of an ensemble and being fully seen by both the cast and crew and the audience.

A couple of years ago, I was fully, 100% ready to quit theatre for good. I was tired of the rigid hierarchies, of petty politics and fragile egos, and of being told that my basic needs had no place in the rehearsal space. When I eventually dipped a reluctant toe back in, it was the feeling of community and being wanted that brought me back.

At the same time, that particular production  was laden with the same tempers, toxicity, and director’s-desires-over-human-needs mentality that made me want to quit in the first place.

Theatre is one of those places people go to feel seen and to be part of something. At its best, it’s a place where people can be valued and welcome and exist in wholeness in ways they can’t elsewhere. I do believe that theatre is sacred.

But that doesn’t mean we have to cling fearfully and unquestioningly to its norms and power structures.

Ideologies that tell us to “leave our baggage at the door” and that the “show must go on” regardless of our needs deny us humanity. They insist that our main value is to the show and that our value and needs as people are secondary. In denying accommodations for needs, these ways of thinking can also become incredibly ableist, and even if accommodations are given with relatively little pushback, the labor of getting needs met still falls disproportionately on the marginalized and minoritized people in the room.

We all know that commitment and heightened expression are hallmarks of theatre, and they do have tremendous power to elevate a scene and affect an audience. But no human being can be at 100% plus all the time. Perhaps this is a byproduct of a late-stage capitalist society that doesn’t appropriately value or fund the arts, but thespians don’t always get a lot of rest. On top of juggling day jobs and the realities of gig work, we’re expected to come and do sometimes demanding emotional and physical work for hours more on top of everything else. Where’s the conversation about balance? And where’s the respect for varying capacities? If somebody has a health condition or even just life circumstances that limit their capacity to explore that 100 every moment of rehearsal, are we just going to write them off as a bad actor and take away their place in the industry? All that does is lose us good storytellers, and closing out unique talents and perspectives just limits the craft as a whole.

And then there are the hierarchies. The egos. Maybe it is actually a good idea to listen if your stage manager says “places,” but is it also great to not be able to question the director if they’re offering a potentially harmful or problematic interpretation of a story? Or what if a direction is being given that isn’t possible to follow, whether for reasons of ability, mental/emotional health, or because it increases marginalization of the actors or the characters? We probably all have blind spots, but that’s why we have to be accountable to each other and continually do the work to educate ourselves. Not everyone steps up and does that work, and even for those who do, we’re human. We can’t know everything and we always have to be open to learning, and that’s especially true for those of us with privileged identities.

Theatre itself may be powerful and sacred, but it’s just as corrupted as anything else by the colonized, carceral, capitalist society we live in. Questioning rigid norms is not a disservice to the artform, it is the ultimate form of respect. Taking steps to ensure that every artist in the room can show up in wholeness and complexity, without erasing any part of themselves, maintains integrity in storytelling and ensures that valuable voices are not shut out of the room. Ignoring needs only prevents people from accessing their full potential. The greatness of theatre is dependent not on upholding every industry norm, but on asking tough questions about what the artform is capable of and how our unwillingness to change may be holding it back.

Theatre is absolutely a place where people can go to be whole, seen, and part of a community, but that only remains true if we commit to keeping it so the same way we commit to our objectives onstage. Examining power structures and community norms based in scarcity, unnecessary urgency, and privilege does not diminish excellence, it is a commitment to it. When we hold power in the room, whether because of our identities or our role in the production, we have the responsibility to put checks on that power, and doing so serves both the production and the theatre communities we love and that love us back. But that does mean stepping into the discomfort of questioning entrenched industry practices. It’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, and in the case of directors or producers who prize compliance, it can even be a career risk, but it is necessary to keep theatre sacred.

Crooked Fool: I’m bad at resting

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

I’m an artist and I’m bad at resting. I am absolutely raging terrible at taking a break. I know rest is resistance…and I’m still bad at it.

As I write this, my brain is totally blitzed out and I can feel the blood vessels in my forehead slowly squeezing into migraine mode because I’ve been on Zoom more or less constantly since early this afternoon hosting meetings for everything from Ypsi Pride’s entertainment committee to a new theatre group I’m trying to get off the ground. I’m cranky and I’m sure I’ve gone a bit nuts and I still have to write this damn blog post. I also still haven’t done the reading for tomorrow’s classes, sent out the notes for either of the meetings I’ve hosted today, or responded to my cat’s ever more mournful meows for food (side note: he’s had like two dinners already; he’s fine).

I’ve written before about how deeply embedded grind culture has become in the arts. Students are also not known for their work-life balance, so I’m arguably twice screwed over in that regard, especially as a nontraditional undergrad trying to balance an existing life, career, and the need to support myself with an elite university built for younger, wealthier students who didn’t have to commute to campus or work their way through school.

But here’s the truth: grind culture has also embedded itself in me. Even as I scream into the abyss about how the expectations placed on people by their jobs and passions alike are unhealthy, ableist, and oppressive consequences of late-stage capitalism, I still can’t even personally practice what I preach.

The sad truth about artists is that we care deeply about what we do, and that makes us all too willing to give in to unreasonable and unhealthy demands on our time and capacity. Taking a break becomes a lot harder when you genuinely want to be doing everything on your to do list. There’s a level of guilt woven into it when you can feel in your bones the importance of what you’re doing.

I know that I do not owe any project or entity institution energy beyond my capacity or the exhaustion of my body. But all too often, I still give it. And there are surely power dynamics at play, especially when we’re talking about massive, powerful institutions that hold sway over my future. But then there are the passion projects and the volunteer-run community orgs…and sometimes, taking those projects on also feels like a form of rebellion in the face of so many power structures demanding my time. Resistance itself takes up energy. And rationally, I know this is by design. My exhaustion and the struggle to keep up with the things that are important to me in addition to those that are required of me is a byproduct of some incredibly unjust and unnecessary power structures.

But still, if I’m being honest, I find it hard to let go and do nothing. Grind culture has worked its way thoroughly into my thinking, and even though I know it’s not right, I still often give into it.

So yeah, I know it’s hard, and I get why we do it. Even so, I’m still going to keep trying to get myself to leave things be and not operate at 110% all the time. If I can channel my innate stubbornness toward an extra project I frankly don’t have the time for, maybe I can also channel it to doing nothing.

In other words: I’m going to bed after I post this.  

Crooked Fool: *How* the arts create change

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

When I was younger, I used to insist that the arts were the most effective agent of change. I’ve also heard arguments to the contrary: that the arts may inspire or even change minds, but that they do not by themselves create change, and that, for some, consuming political art without engaging in other forms of activism may serve as a cop out. I don’t disagree that this is a pitfall, but I do still think that the arts play a bigger role in creating change than we often give them credit for.

The intersection between arts and activism (or, as some would call it, “artivism”) has been an interest of mine for a long time. Lately, I’ve been trying to think expansively about the various roles the arts can play in creating change. I’m still not sure that what follows is an exhaustive list, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

Challenging Narratives

We tell ourselves stories all the freaking time. We think up stories about how our day might go and build memories into narratives to understand where we’ve come from. We tell ourselves stories about how the world works and our place within it, what we’re capable of, and how we relate to other people. And the arts are particularly adept at drawing these stories into question.

 If the story we tell ourselves is that everything is fine, things will most likely stay as they are. But if we tell ourselves that the ways things are is unjust, then at least some people will want change. In story B there’s at least of chance of change happening.

Maybe a book shows us how a scenario might play out differently, or a movie makes us see ourselves in different roles than those we are used to playing. Maybe there’s a plot twist or an ending  we never thought was possible. Collective narratives play a massive role in how we live our lives and what changes we choose to fight for. They can either uphold power structures or call them into question. Under the right circumstances, the arts can poke holes in narratives we may take for granted and help us understand what a different story could look like.

Educating

Whether we’re talking about a play with a clear plot or a painting that captures an artist’s state of mind, the arts can teach us about people, places, times, and ideas that are new to us. Expanding our worldview can call entrenched ways of thinking and being into question and expand our view of what is possible.

Humanizing

Part of what makes a narrative compelling is empathy. We can understand another living being’s experience because we’ve felt those same needs and emotions play through our own bodies. Maybe the circumstances were different, maybe the stakes weren’t as high, but the sensations are familiar. Understanding how a given narrative can cause someone joy or pain can help us better understand the difference between right and wrong. It helps us understand justice and care and why human beings act the way they do in all their complexity.

Inspiring

I think maybe this is the part some folks get stuck on when they say that the arts do not, in and of themselves, create change. But that doesn’t diminish its importance – if we’re going to fight for something we have to believe it’s important. We have to decide it’s worth taking a risk and raising the stakes. We have to see enough beauty in the story being proposed that we decide it’s worth the cost to get there. Maybe inspiration is still a step or two away from change, but sometimes it’s what kicks our butts and into action.

Visioning

What are we moving toward? What is possible? We want something better, but what might it look like? We may be able to name what the injustices are and insist that we want them abolished, but what do we want to build in their stead? Visioning is where we figure out how we’ll actually move into a more just future. It’s where we dive deep into our creativity to think about what could be. It gives us direction and tells us where to steer a movement, and gives us a comeback when those who would preserve unjust systems ask how we can possibly do better.

Healing

Oppressive systems rely on shame. Everyone has to know that whoever is being oppressed deserves it because they’re Bad, Defective, Lazy, etc. We’ve spent our lives being told stories about all of the ways in which we’ll never measure up and how our humanness is wrong. The arts can challenge these narratives, show us how things might be different, and help us picture ourselves in a future where we exist in wholeness.

Again, this is a working list. I’d be very interested to hear if anyone feels there are points that I’ve missed. But at this moment in time, especially, this is how I’m building a narrative for how I understand my role and what I want to accomplish.