ARTICLES ON THEATER
I’ve heard it said many times that a play isn’t finished until it’s performed, interacts with an audience, evokes and receives many responses and settles itself in the public’s heart. Of course this is a dream all playwrights share. Unfortunately, however, many of the plays we love and labor over, many of the characters we live with, who come to us to write their stories, are never fully born. They do not see the light of day. They live in our minds and on our pages. We send them out to be read by literary managers, artistic directors and anyone else who wants to take a look. Even when letters arrive in return that are positive, expressing interest, there are usually many hurdles to the play actually coming to life.
There is an unspoken law in theater that it’s difficult to get our plays on, that the opportunity to work is rare. Somehow unspoken laws, deeply accepted and believed have a way of turning into truth. I’ve accepted this situation for years now. I keep writing plays because I have to, because no matter what other work or writing I do, there is nothing more powerful and life changing for me than the live interaction between characters, coming to life on stage.
By and large I would say I’ve been fortunate. I worked for some years as playwright in residence at the Jewish Repertory Theater and had other plays produced elsewhere as well. Yet, years would pass when new plays were written and not see be staged. Even plays that won an award, would often slip quietly into the draw. Or, perhaps a play would have a reading, sometimes a few performances, and then fade out into the night. Needless to say this is disheartening. It can easily take the energy to do this work away.
I actually never planned to turn all this around and do what I am doing now. The idea came to me quite unexpectedly. A young man called after having seen an article I’d written about theater and told me about a one man show he was writing and performing. He was taking it to neighborhood Jewish Centers he told me. This was an observant young man who would perform only for men. He asked if I knew a good coach for him. I was taken aback. What a wonderful idea, I told him. I used to do that as a young girl, just write plays, act in them, direct them and get the neighborhood Y to give us the auditorium for a Sunday afternoon.
“That’s what I have in mind,” he murmured. “Do you think it will be hard?”
“Of course not,” I encouraged him. “In fact I don’t see any problem at all. It will be wonderful. People will be so happy to see your show.”
I thought back to my early days when I did exactly that. It wasn’t hard then. It was natural, fun, exciting. There was always some place we could put the show up. People in the neighborhood were always happy to spend some time seeing something live right at their doorstep. And admission was affordable. Twenty-five cents in those days. What a far cry from today. This young man took me back to the ease and delight of “doing” theater, doing all of it naturally.
I searched for a coach for him. We talked some more. I wanted to greatly encourage him. I didn’t want anything get in the way of his vision. I remembered, I used to be like that. As we talked, I told him about a one woman show I’d written a couple of years ago that got a wonderful response from theaters, but no production.
Then, of course, it hit me. Why not? What’s the problem? There’s no problem if you don’t make one. Act in it yourself. Get some direction. Then just make few flyers, make a few calls. Go to where the audience is waiting. Go to neighborhood centers, synagogues, and churches, Y’s. Why not? Do it for fun.
Some of the old excitement started returning. I can just perform this anywhere I like. Why do I have to travel the old, trodden paths of theater submissions? Energy started to come to me. I stood up tall. I would perform my own play.
I hadn’t acted for many years, but began performing the play for anyone who wanted to see. First time, I did it in my apartment when some guests arrived. They liked it a lot. I was encouraged. I did it alone, fine tuned details. I did it again unexpectedly at a friend’s party, just mentioned I was doing a one woman show, was anyone interested in seeing some of it? People were excited to see it. Okay, the play went on. They thanked me so much for making the party so special, for giving them such a treat. This was amazing. Soon, I realized, there would be no stopping me.
I got a couple of offers then to come to neighborhoods and do the play there. Great. It’s not hard to be produced, I realized. Theater is wherever you are. There are no impediments to performance, except what we put there. There are Y’s, churches, synagogues, schools, colleges, senior residences, homeless shelters. Who wouldn’t love a play that came right to the door?
Before I went further, I decided to find a director to help me fine tune the process. I found someone wonderful. We are in rehearsal now. The entire experience is not only thrilling, it frees me, it frees the play, it puts the power back in my own hands and opens endless vistas for the play. It also brings theater to so many who need, love and want it, but for whom it may be inaccessible now, for many reasons. After the play, I will offer a live discussion about it. By the way, the play is called Where Prayers Come True. It takes place both on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and in a small, ancient synagogue, hidden on a side street near by.
The magic and joy of theater is back in my life. The sense of endless possibilities and endless people to reach. Actually, it’s all so simple. You can do this too. Why not try and see?
Bringing Spirituality To Jewish Theater
In these war-torn times,
we look everywhere for answers, meaning and a way to approach the deepest issues
of what it means to be alive, respond honestly, and walk the path of
righteousness for all. On a deeper level
these questions convert to the issue of what it means to be a Jew, to respond to
the call of Torah and “be a light unto the nations.”
As many of our Jewish forms, traditions and beliefs are being both questioned and abandoned, as conflict soars between the various denominations it seems that theater is a final possible outpost for the exploration that needs to go on. Theater is a place where we can come together without restriction and explore who we are, where we’ve come from and what the future can possibly hold. The radical openness and creativity of theater welcomes conflict, permits confusion, upholds deep exploration and radical honesty in looking beneath the masks and costumes we live with each day.
Theater,
to be successful, demands truth, not only in the moment, but in the trajectory
of the play. Pretense is stripped aside and we must stand inside who we really
are, and what is truly wanted of us. We are encouraged to strip ourselves bare
and look, without condemnation and fear, at how we behave, who we have become
and what we truly hold most dear. In most Jewish theater, up to now, there have
been no lack of plays about our culture, history, personal and family conflicts,
and issues that have arisen from the Shoah. When Jewish identity is explored it
has most to do with our psychological or sociological selves - the way we relate
to others, to our place in the prevailing society, questions about assimilation
and how the forces of anti-Semitism challenge our lives.
Unfortunately, there are very few plays which focus upon the most crucial question of all for Jews - how they stand before God, what they take as their spiritual practice and how they manifest this in their everyday lives. Our very existence has been formulated not by belonging to one nation or culture, not by our family relations, but by the Torah which binds us together through centuries, lands and different tongues. Why haven’t there been plays dealing with our relationship to Torah, to God, to the very essence of who we are? Why haven’t we seen characters, like Jacob, who wrestle all night with both heavenly and dark angels?
The Jewish people are the people of the book, of God’s calling, and yet we shirk away from confronting this and from being seen this way in the world. We avoid defining, struggling with and expressing our spirituality in theater and also perhaps in our lives. Both for theater artists and for ourselves as individuals, the question seldom confronted remains - how can we fulfill our Jewishness.
To reduce Jewish theater to dealing with our psychological, historical, or cultural issues only presents half of who we are and what we are here for. This is a limited image of the Jew, which does not take into account the very source of our existence. We call upon the Torah to claim our right to the land of Israel, and we must also call upon the Torah to make ourselves worthy of inhabiting and upholding the land. Unless we do this, as Jews, both on and offstage we are not fulfilling all we are capable of. We are not rising to become larger than life, to become the kind of characters called for not only in theater, but in the Torah as well. Great theater tackles issues and characters which are larger than life.
The
very calling to be a Jew, is to approach this world in a manner that is
“larger than life”, different from that of the nations, (which means in a
way that extends beyond the material, political and psychological concerns that
drive us). To be a Jew is a call to walk with God and to understand what that
walk really consists of. It is to have our struggles and issues elevated into
that which takes us both through and beyond the daily matters of our lives. This
is perfect material for great theater. There is perfect direction for a life
lived grandly. This is a perfect prescription for healing the many wounds and
agonies we face as a people and as part of the world today. As theater artists,
we have the great privilege and responsibility of showing this possibility to
audiences who come to see more deeply who they are and what it means to be a
Jew. In order to answer this longing we must explore a Jew’s spirituality,
where it takes them, and how it manifests in the world.
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This article by Brenda Shoshanna, was published in the American Jewish Theater
newsletter.