- Here’s something.
In most entertainment fields, it is widely accepted that the more you understand the thing you’re watching, the greater your enjoyment. This is especially evident in The Sports, where men (and women, dear my lord) who would otherwise be unable-or-unwilling to memorize a phone number can regale you with statistical databases, coaching strategies and counterstrategies, and dozens upon dozens of detailed career histories. They discuss these with each other. They debate. And they interpret the otherwise repetitive (and arguably redundant) plays in light of this information.
But while the formula “Education = Entertainment” is the obvious paradigm in Sports, games of all kinds, and anything that involves mutual activity; the more Arty something becomes, the more this trope is called into question. Kanye West is infinitely more popular than Johann Sebastian Bach because Kanye The Giant requires very little understanding of the artistic discipline in which he operates (and changes in cultural milieus, blah blah blah). I sure don’t know much about music, and even I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold-digger.
My appreciation of Bach, meanwhile, is largely incidental. I like the sound of some of his work, and I appreciate that he wrote music in every key and style and structure (a friend once told me that we could rebuild Music from scratch using only the works of Bach), but by and large I can’t tell most of his songs apart, nor could I tell him from most of his disciplinary fellows.
This apparent contradiction, that accessibility trumps investment where ART is concerned, seems perfectly acceptable to most of us. Sneering at someone who doesn’t understand Classical Music is just that, sneering. There are certain disciplines that Americans are expected to invest in (Football, Screen ‘acting,’ and Public Relations being chief among them), and others that are optional.
This works just fine for Bach and his philosophical bedfellows for two reasons. 1) They’re dead, what do they care? 2) They were backed by patrons, and their concern over popularity was greatly mitigated by this.
But now we come to the present, where everyone wants to be the 10-500 people who made their living simply by producing Art (a vague and assumptive statistic that sadly has not increased to meet the population-inflation of the past two-hundred years). Not only that, but popularity is strongly linked with our evaluation of the artistic quality. Whether for self-promotion or to defend our own feelings, sales and turn-outs are among the first subjects mentioned regarding any artistic endeavor.
I should stop and point out: I realize that we frequently go through long stretches of time where popularity is inextricably linked with quality, this has been exacerbated by Capitalism, and I’m not trying to suggest that our current generation is somehow less artistic than the last. We all know these things, except possibly the Capitalism bit, but I stick by it.
Increasing your knowledge of the Discipline of an entertainment field invariably increases your appreciation of the entertainment itself, even if it doesn’t increase your enjoyment enough for you to bother with said entertainment. Yet when it comes to Theater, we are expected to find the lowest-common-denominator: our sales are poor, so we have to bring the Mountain to Mohammed (Spoiler: that analogy was applied inaccurately for effect).
I spend a lot of time with Shakespeare (we’re homies), and every time I learn something new, my love is increased. And that learning requires that I sit forward, focus, and pay attention to what’s being done in front of me, rather than just sitting back and letting things happen at me.
I guess all I’m saying is we aught to find a way to make audiences interested in Theater as a discipline, rather than just a vehicle for entertainment. Evaluating the execution should be part of the entertainment, just like in sports, video games, and really anything else. And if that means that only theater-kids come to see theater shows, well that’s okay. If you just want things to happen at you, you should probably just stay home and watch TV: it’s cheaper and takes a lot less effort.
Blort