Looking Back to Look Forward, Part One: Foundations

In March, Charlotte M Canning's historical commentary on American theatre during the 1918 flu epidemic made the rounds on social media as newly-furloughed industry professionals struggled to find solid footing amidst a global wave of trepidation. The article in American Theatre Magazine affirmed, for many, that an entire art form could survive majuscule societal change, and that perhaps the closures of physical spaces was not the death knell many feared. Soon afterward, some began drawing comparisons between COVID-19 and the Black Plague, claiming the English lockdowns directly correlated with a new age of artistic, literary, and theatrical excellence in Europe. Tina Packer's Women of Will, amidst thoroughly-cited and researched scholarship, suggests that William Shakespeare himself may have dealt with the plagues more understandably than burrowing away to craft King Lear, insouciantly unchanged by the financial instability he faced- which negates popular belief. She writes, "And of course the tension of how long the plague would last was overwhelming to the players-- always hoping they could get back into London in the next few weeks, having their hopes dashed, perhaps returning for a week or two, only to be sent out onto the road again. I have to tell you it is my idea of hell- doubtful venues, doubtful pay, doubtful health! If Shakespeare hadn't been thinking of looking for a patron before, he must have done so now."

As the world has continued shifting since the publication of Canning's article, it seems more and more people have looked to history as a way to make sense of our world's uncertain future. With varying intentions and discrepant levels of accuracy, the pandemic, the upcoming election, and the continued state violence against Black people have sparked a surge of circulating viral tid-bits, quotes, and infographics about the rise of the Third Reich, Jim Crow-era politics, the transatlantic slave trade, Bush, Stalin, Castro, Davis, Gilmore, and a spurious pass through any verse of "We Didn't Start the Fire".

It is no coincidence that art is usually taught in tandem with history, as creative mediums can act as crystalized amber around the fossilized remains of the zeitgeist in which they were birthed. Both Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno cite the horrors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as influences on their macabre Butoh dance theatre style. Kurt Vonnegut, ever the demoticist, succinctly analyzes the effects of the Vietnam-American War on the arts in the United States as a whole, bemoaning, "every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high." Greek democracy, the courts of King Louis XVI, colonization, globalization, climate change, and war have all defined the ways in which theatre artists work and in which theatre is consumed.

Immediately upon reading Canning's article, I wondered what events- outside of the 1918 flu epidemic and the Second World War- theatre artists in Boston should be looking at for guidance, warnings, or hope for our future. Over the past few weeks, it has been my distinct pleasure to chat with theatre artists, scholars, historians, and writers about the specific challenges faced when we analyze the history of regional theatre in the United States, the history of Massachusetts, and the history of storytelling as a profession.

A formative starting place for my research was Anne Bogart's essay Memory from her 2001 book, A Director Prepares. In this ruminatively blunt analysis, Bogart traces American theatre from a Virginia colony in 1665 through her own works with the Siti Company, which she co-founded with Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She also advocates for artists' firm footings upon the shoulders of their predecessors, reasoning, "Our task, and the task of every artist and scientist, is to re-describe our inherited assumptions and invented fictions in order to create new paradigms for the future." As finding the ways our history may lead us to "new paradigms" nestled in the forefront of my mind as a rebuttal to a dyspeptic reality, I was thrilled that Bogart took the time to respond to my questions about her own thinking about theatre in America in this moment.

She astutely advises, "We cannot solve the immense issues and obstacles that are now afoot with the systems that are currently in place. I hope that we will come up with a new way to inter-relate with the environment, with the planet, with one another, and to co-operate and innovate in a way that reflects our growing understanding of quantum entanglement. Our current ills, including the Coronavirus, are a manifestation of our sense of separateness and a sense of entitlement. We are not separate from one another. Our every action has consequences."

Honing in on the land we currently occupy, there is a cultural history that predates European colonization, one that we must understand if we want to understand the uniquely American sense of individualism and entitlement to which Bogart alludes. According to Steven Peters, a member of the Mashpee-Wampanoag tribe and marketing professional with his mother's company SmokeSygnals, there has been a recent uptick in public interest from museums, organizations, and the general population in the ways the Mashpee-Wampanoag tribe has survived to this day. "When people talk about the history of this land, they want us to start in 1620 with the myth of Thanksgiving. But even if we just want to talk about early colonial history and European interactions, we have to go back earlier so we can understand why certain decisions were made." He believes the 1614 arrival of Thomas Hunt, his purported desire to trade with tribal members, and subsequent capture of members of the Patuxet tribe (including Tisquantum who would feature prominently in American folk history as the mythically noble "Squanto") plays a significant role in the ways seventeenth century Wampanoag people would have perceived of Europeans. In a way, the history he shares suggests that, rather than viewing our current civil unrest as a product that stems from one election in 2016, we should be considering the impact of roots of xenophobia, colonialism, and violence that were transplanted in the seventeenth century.

"Other European merchants had come and been captured and executed, but that was a response to the diseases French and English merchants usually brought with them. From 1616 to 1619, a plague ripped through the Patuxet and Wampanoag tribes." Because of this plague, roughly 100,000 Wampanoag people would have died, so the Mayflower pilgrims were allowed to set up their homes after quickly sweeping up the bones from the clearing where Patuxet Village once stood. "Our research is backed up by oral tradition because there was no written language at that time. (The surviving tribe members) would have left Patuxet Village and not gone back, but we have no knowledge of how they would have otherwise mitigated the plague."

Beyond serving as a tool for engaging the general public and carrying traditions on to younger generations, Peters sees the survival of Wampanoag art- like the creation of wampum belts which communicate historical events in a pictorial sequence to aid in oral storytelling- as imperative for the continued understanding of a living culture. Specifically, he says, the Mashpee-Wampanoag tribe has arranged a traveling exhibit of recreated wampum belts which is currently in Europe. After King Philip's War ended in 1678, a long wampum belt which belonged to King Philip (Metacom) was seized and taken to England to be archived by the royal family. Though the English have claimed not to know of its existence for centuries, Peters and many others hope an increased awareness of the significance of wampum belts may force aristocrats to double-check their archives. "We want to return Metacom's belt back to people who can pray over it in the traditional language. Plus the lost written history could be very important for us." In this way, we can see how the study of history tangibly, inarguably holds a key unto the future of our cultures.

It seems, for many with a knowledge of theatre or art history, it is difficult to isolate the ways in which American theatre must change without first looking back at the historical influences on the theatre by the canonical, academically-endorsed road through Europe. Although wary of attempting to predict the future, Bogart muses, "I do think that we will re-animate and somewhat re-invent the art of gathering and the art of performance. We will probably move away from our assumption that the go-to theater architecture should be the Renaissance invention of creaky prosceniums with illusion machines. We will experience a period of intense re-arrangements and adjustments."

A Nora Long, director, dramaturg, and co-founder/ artistic director of the New Exhibition Room, seems to endorse the probability of this prediction. "No artist in any art form can help being in dialogue with their present circumstances- even though there is little artistically marked about the 1918 pandemic... it's hard to dramatize a virus. But our theatre architecture is still based on the tennis courts from seventeenth century France. Because of this, we see a lot of theatre being made in a style that was popular 200 years ago, even though contemporary playwrights have been largely influenced by television and film, they're still limited by the same architecture." One can infer how this dated architectural assumption constricts the ways in which theatre can evolve, grow, and shed its old skin, which artists must do in the face of a shifting zeitgeist. "We need to start exploring non-traditional venues, rethinking storytelling in a live format- the most creative among us will reinvent themselves. But it will take a major financial investment to reestablish this industry."

When looking at other times crises have forced Boston to evaluate theatre architecture as a whole, Long thinks of the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, in which a crowded Boston nightclub briefly replaced World War II in national headlines after catching fire and killing 492 people. The newly-implemented fire codes in Massachusetts forced theatres to either close or seriously reconsider their architecture. For instance, the Bijou Theatre- which was between where the Paramount and the Opera House now stand- had to close because there were not enough exits. She examines what this tells us about how we move forward, "a big disaster happens and the industry needs to be able to adapt. Our nimble-ness is indicative of our ability to survive."

What will it look like to reimagine the ways Americans interact in crowds in response to COVID-19 and what might that mean for theatre architecture? Bogart digs back to the root of the interaction issue and examines the way we think about our collective relationships. "Our interactions with one another currently are less casual, have higher stakes and greater meaning. Not only do we have to be apprehensive of what our hands touch, but the space between us matters and timing matters in a newly intensified way." Again, she draws on European history to explore how we might progress, "It may be useful to reexamine the notion of courtesy, which arose in the Middle Ages from the concept of chivalry and the chivalric code. Courtesy is not politeness, rather it teaches deference for the other person who may very well be dangerous and to show respect and awareness of that danger. Courtesy requires both restraint and responsibility." Certainly, one can see the ways which our propensity to harm each other has increased under a pandemic.

What will it look like to reimagine the logistical structures of theatre-making? Long looks to European history as well, laughing with feigned elán, "The Renaissance was paid for! Michelangelo wasn't swinging from the roof of the Sistine Chapel for the experience. He was getting paid. Shakespeare. Mozart. They did it for the money. 2020 has revealed and exacerbated the existing inequities and issues across the board-issues that the theatre industry has been fixing with duct tape solutions for decades, and it's not sustainable" Part Two in this series will give insight into how Long and other local artists and educators see Boston's historical woes in regards to theatre funding- and what it might suggest to us about moving forward. What can we, an industry in which, as Long surmises, "no playwright can survive without a day job" learn from historical modes of funding art? How did Boston theatre resurface after the Revolutionary War? How was the industry affected by the Great Depression? How has Boston specifically engaged with Black theatre makers and audiences throughout time? These questions and more will be answered by A Nora Long as well as Lisa Simmons (Roxbury International Film Festival) and Dr. Heather Nathans (Tufts University) in Part Two on Thursday.

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