Polite Cruelty: The Future of the Non-Profit Theatre in American Society

POLITE CRUELTY The Future of the Non-Profit Theatre in American Society Richard Nelson In PAJ 19 we published Richard Nelson's essay "Non-Profit Theatre in America" which raised many issues that are characteristic of private attitudes toward non-profit theatre, though little acknowledged publicly. Nelson criticized the bureaucratic administrations running the theatres for their attachment to buildings and money more than to artists who can barely eke out a living working in these theatres. He also accused the non-profit theatre of betraying the revolutionary ideals that spawned the movement. "Our theatres have begun to sell themselves as tourist attractions, and thus as valuable tools for commercialism," he wrote. The second part of his essay, published here, expands his views on the role of theatre and the artist , with specific suggestions for structuring non-profit theatre according to the new structures of American society. [Editors] "Fear of the indifference with which the economic system of the West treats its artists and scholars is widespread among Eastern intellectuals. They say it is better to deal with an intelligent devil than with a good-natured idiot. An intelligent devil understands their mutual interests and lets them live by a pen, a chisel, or a brush, caring for his clients and making his demands. A goodhearted idiot does not understand these interests, gives nothing and asks nothing-which in practice amounts to polite cruelty." (Czestaw Mitosz, The Captive Mind) The non-profit theatre movement, as its name suggests, was defined and articulated as a movement against something--profit, commercialism. 49 However, as is common with anti-movements, when the time comes for the movement to articulate what it is for great differences can emerge among the constituents or-even worse-an awful embarrassing silence can emerge. As with any revo!ution, bizarre alliances have been made, and these alliances, in time, by the very nature of the constituents' different or unarticulated aspirations, can create confusion, in-fighting or even impotence for the movement as a whole. As with, say, an anti-Reagan movement where both those who feel the President to be too conservative or too liberal can align, the non-profit revolution too was created out of disparate interests. Those who saw the movement as the first step toward a new kind of theatre in this country where theatre art would become an integral, even a necessary, part of our culture and nation; those who simply could not find work in the commercial theatre; those who longed for fiefdoms-are just a few of the strange bedfellows who participated in the creation of the nonprofit movement. And in this time when the very notion of non-profit is again being questioned in our society, an awful fear has gripped our theatres, to where they are once again defending their existence with the argument of being "different" and are growing increasingly silent on the question of what they want to be or should become. However, as long as we in the nonprofit theatre continue to articulate our goals as being non something, the more we evade the more difficult and important question of what we are, what we want, and why. The above quotation from Czes+aw Mitosz gives us a starting point from which to analyze our situation and our aspirations in relation to our society. Let us ask ourselves: what does our society give and what does it demand of us, theatre artists? Clearly, it gives very little, not only in terms of financial support, but also in terms of encouragement, prestige, and position. In his article, "Revolution and the Intellectual in Latin America," (New York Times Magazine, March 13, 1983), Alan Riding writes: ". .. intellectuals exercise enormous political influence in Latin America. It is they who provide respectability to governments in power and legitimacy to revolts and revolutionary movements, they who articulate the ideas and contribute the images through which Latin Americans relate to power.... Literary fame, then, has given political clout not only to Garcia Marquez and [Octavio] Paz but to other writers." We, American artists, can only read such a statement and laugh (or cry). The notion of an American artist giving legitimacy to an American political...