Where do I live? Underneath a blanket on my living room couch? Inside my head? On my computer screen?
Where do I live when I am creating theatre? Locked up in black boxes and Vectorworks files? Between the loose pages of a flimsy script?
Where do I live when I'm going to see theatre? In one of the two nice dresses I own? Upon a creaky, uncomfortable second-row seat? Or is it somewhere else…?
Escapism, especially in our entertainment-driven nation, invokes the image of a lethargic man, whom, in stubborn refusal to accept his own reality, pours himself into a fantasy. He buys People magazine, plays World of Warcraft, loops the RENT soundtrack on his ipod, and can beat everyone at Friends trivia…even though he has no real friends of his own to challenge.
As an admitted (and defensive) escapist, I look to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary to clear my name with the true definition:
Escapism: (n) the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc.
Wait, wait. That’s wrong. I meant to use the American Heritage Dictionary:
Escapism: (n) The tendency to escape from daily reality or routine by indulging in daydreaming, fantasy, or entertainment.
That’s not quite it, either. Wordnet?
Escapism: (n) an inclination to retreat from unpleasant realities through diversion or fantasy; "romantic novels were her escape from the stress of daily life"; "his alcohol problem was a form of escapism"
Ok, ok, so the master narratives are making a fool out of me. But if escapism is romance novels and alcoholism, then I am sad to say that the most popular forms of theatre today perpetuate this stereotype. Broadway’s movie-musicals have provided us with redundant Utopian societies, where conflict is light and endings are joyous. Patrons are paying record breaking prices to sit in a cramped seat, turn off their brains, and consume a budgetless spectacle. I agree with those who fill the Broadway houses that escapism is valuable, even necessary, to maintain our sanity with the pace and pressure of our American lifestyles. But we are using it incorrectly. Escapism should not be an unhealthy obsession, it should be a tool that motivates and inspires those who experience it. Yes, escapism should temporarily remove us from this reality, but it should not throw us back empty-handed.
My personal definition of escapism is more idealistic than the widely accepted ones. I have felt the sensation of being summoned back to reality by the gradual illumination of the house lights after a performance. But where am I coming back from? My consciousness is too nosy to allow me to truly suspend my disbelief. Even when all the elements of a production are just right, I have never actually forgotten I was watching a play. For me, a successful escape is when I am invested in the characters and the world that is being presented and I have a definite, emotional interest in watching the piece unravel. When this happens, my creativity is stirred; afterwards, I dwell on the dramatic action and discuss it with others. Of course, you dictionary composers of the world, my physically being in the theatre allows me to temporarily escape from, oh, let’s say, the dirty dishes in my sink. But if I let myself escape even further, from my seat in the theatre and into the play itself, I am able to return to the dishes later that evening with something new to contemplate while I wash them.
Brecht proposed a solution to the theatre’s habit of producing mindless entertainment. By emotionally distancing the audience from the piece and insisting his actors have no emotional connection to his characters, he hoped to control the awareness of the viewers so that they would absorb the play actively, which, he believed, would spark discussion and lead to social and political change. In his Epic Theatre, he believed that the “spectator stands outside” studying the action, wherein conventional dramatic theatre, the “spectator is in the thick of it,” and “shares the experience[1]” Brecht preferred that a member of his audience feel as if they were in a classroom rather than a theatre. While today’s productions are guilty of removing the theatre’s fundamental purpose of instruction, Brecht wanted to remove the fundamental purpose of entertainment in its simplest definition: anything a play can offer that captivates its audience. I disagree with this solution, maintaining that escape (at least by my definition) is intrinsic to the theatre and is necessary for an audience to indulge in if the play is to affect them at all. The answer is not to eliminate escape, but to use the emotional investment that it generates as a way to communicate with the audience. Emotion inspires action.
I consider myself quite grounded in reality despite my devotion to the Harry Potter book series, thank-you-very-much. The need to escape is innate in my soul, but so is the need to create, progress, and change. Theatre has the capability of spring-boarding progress. It can raise questions and suggest answers. It is eternally searching to diagnose, treat and cure the ailments of our society. Yet its approach is paradoxical, pulling us into anti-reality in order to make a statement about true reality. Somehow, we are able see our world more clearly after we've been allowed to glimpse into another. In America, especially with the presidential election at hand, we are all dying for progression. For insight and direction, I, among many others, trustingly turn myself over to the theatre, the proverbial mirror of our society. But if we are considering escapism as a rally for inspiration, I am convinced that our society today is more complex than Shrek: the Musical. We are in need of a type of escapism that is enlightening and motivational.
Personally, I tend to gravitate towards plays which present realities filthier, more tragic and dramatic, but just as detailed and complete as our own. Whether they are absurdist (Beckett’s Endgame), expressionistic (Torben Betts’ Unconquered), or conceptually realistic (Alan Bowne’s Beirut), these plays offer us a standard 1984-esque warning. Although they transcend genre, all of these dramas provide us a glimpse at a prospective future, which is why I refer to them as Portent Plays. Essentially, these pieces cry out for a drastic change before it's too late. Can these fantastically terrifying works lend themselves to escapism? After all, the term escape suggests going to a better place, not a worse one. Yet as an audience member, we are still being asked to accept the world that is being presented, even if it is just “different” as opposed to “better.” Once we’re able to immerse ourselves in this world, we are no longer distracted by the divergences and we’re left to pick out the similarities between it and ours. How far are we from a society which gruesomely brands the bodies of abortionists with the letter “A,” as in the one presented by Suzan-Lori Parks in Fucking A? That is arguable, but there is no question that women's rights is a touchy subject in our society, with the recent government proposal that would brand contraceptives as abortion. There is one similarity that all these plays share, no matter how bizarre the alternate society is: we are still watching human beings live and die, get raped and abused: be affected. This allows us to make the emotional leap and relate to the characters despite the lack of verisimilitude. The mere fact that these fictional places are conceived and produced by real people as a result of true life experiences is startling. Projecting a society that is worse or scarier than ours also gives us the ability to be thankful for the positive elements of our lives as we walk out of the theatre and back on to the street, as opposed to leaving the Winter Garden wishing our lives contained more spontaneous song and dance routines. Perhaps the Portent Plays have the greatest potential for political and social impact because we are able to escape from them back into our own safer, more concrete reality while simultaneously using them to acknowledge that problems such as sexism, racism, nuclear war, and disease exist all around us and pose a very real threat.
I am uncertain of exactly where I am when I am watching a play. If it is a bad play, I may be dwelling on those dirty dishes in my sink. If it is a mediocre play, I may be in seat F18. But if it is a truthful play, I am somewhere else: somewhere between my physical self and the action, somewhere in the air of the theatre, floating among the spoken words, the audience’s reactions, and the beams of colored light. Theatre is not as readily accessible as television and film. It is temporary and expensive. Therefore, it is more important that we leave the mindless entertainment to other media and use theatre as a medium with which we can indulge in our need to escape in a way that is beneficial as opposed to desensitizing. I would like to revisit this topic at some point. I think it is relevant to examine the elements of escapism in other areas of theatre, such as realism and even performance art. Unfortunately, there is a sink full of dishes calling my name.
[1] Theatre/Theory/Theatre, Edited by Daniel Gerould
Monday, October 13, 2008
"An artist, a man, a faliure, MUST PROCEED." - E.E. Cummings, HIM
After sitting around a table in a conference room of the New York Workshop Theater with Director Meghan Finn, some of her production team, and a decent sized group of actors to read through the entirety of E E Cummings' HIM, I left absorbed and amazed at the beauty of the lyricism and complexity of the characters, inspired to discuss with Kaitlyn the whole way home the importance of this work both in the time of its inauguration and now. But five months later I found myself leaving the Soho Rep. Walker Space silently wondering what happened.
At the E:Bar of 59E59 Theaters after the opening night of Disco Pigs, I wound up in a discussion about some problems in our contemporary Theater. And when I made a comment regarding Legally Blonde as baseless entertainment – purely in the sense of its perfect commercial “formula” and its movie-turned-Broadway Musical status, which it “is better at replicating its model than most”, as Mr. Ben Brantley boasts – that has its small place in the vast world of Theater, but does not embody the possibilities and ideas I feel so strongly should be more present in out Theater World, my conversational partner retorted:
“Mmm… be careful.”
I do not believe in being careful, I believe in being responsible; if we have reason behind our passion, we need to act on it. As Shakespeare explores in one of his most celebrated plays, Hamlet, and as American history illustrates time and again, it is important to stand up for what we believe in – Hamlet’s inability to act results in the death of nigh almost everyone, and America did not become an independent country, slavery was not abolished, women did not get the right to vote through calm, civil, obedient discussions. I bring up this comment in conjunction with a discussion of HIM because I feel the production, in its entirety, conveys both great examples of not being careful and not being responsible.
“When [Henry Alsberg] suggested that the Provincetown produce [HIM]” in 1928, they were taking a great risk, as “most of the staff was horrified.” What with all the problems of practicality – 105 characters and 21 scenes – there was also “the fact that few of them could discover what the play was about.” But Cummings, director James Light, and designer Eugene Fitsch embarked then, in their downtown space, what many people and theaters today are either too afraid to try, or try far too hard to do: they explored “the most fundamental type of theatrical experiment – experiment in dramatic form.” The three of them did all they could to quickly resolve the problems of practicality strictly so this play could be done, acting out of pure passion for the story they needed to tell without concern of “moving them uptown” but finding “what they could not find elsewhere.” [1] And as Genevieve Taggard of the N.Y. Herald Tribune wrote: “That the reader has difficulties is true. But the reader’s difficulties come not from a lack of objectivity in Mr. Cummings’ work, but because this is not vague feeling or vague thought, but very precise in its intensity, and therefore very new and strange.” [2] But in spite of comments such as this, as well as a sold out run, the 1928 production suffered stifling criticism, which I would like to think, though can only rightfuly wonder if this meant the Provincetown Playhouse had no interest in being sensitive, or careful, of their contemporary critics, but were strictly concerned with creating a compelling human drama.
Eighty years later, in a world rife with skyrocketing divorce rates, unexpected pregnancy, and adolescent parents, HIM, a tale of the harsh consequences of irresponsibility, is just as important as ever. However, very little of Meghan Finn's production was compelling because it was deficient in the humanity or the complexity of the "Human Condition" that makes this play relevant and important. I have the sneaking suspicion it has to do with stamina, and all the fervor in Finns voice back in April at the NYTW wore sore by September at the Walker Space because a time-crunch-style rehearsal period of only five weeks – where every minute counted and everyone had to be on their game at all times – stressed out both Performers and Director: it caused the Artists to stretch themselves too thin over a project much bigger than merely a month, challenging far too much the vigor of Finn as an innovative Director. (And it was that strain on this production, though not necessarily Meghan or Cast specifically, that strangley reminded me of our responsibility, as Artists, to be in constant awareness of the discovery of who we are and why we choose to devote our lives to this practice – if we lack reason, we continue to degrade the immense power Theater can command, and if we lack an understanding of ourselves, we will forever flounder in inability of making a point.) For a first major directorial outing, I applaud the ambition, but Finn seemed to desire a quick discovery of her unique Artistic Voice here, where a vulnerable exploration would have far better suited both the occasion - a Thesis production for an MFA - and the play itself.
However, the texture of Cummings' luminous and emotionally wrought poetry was being chipped away at with a rather dull instrument: Dan Cozzens.
Him is E E Cummings' autobiographical character, and Dan Cozzens' portrayal reminded me of everything my high school English 3 classmates hated and could not understand about E E Cummings. Cozzens was not grounded or present as Him, lacking depth or personality, and unable to ever connect to Elan O'Conner's Me. There was no love or joy in his character or their relationship, and therefore no journey, sadly causing this beautiful story to be told without a point. I fear Cozzens' failed in his responsibility of doing the amount of work necessary to this character, instead just memorizing lines and, rather than living and breathing in Him's "childlike sensitivity and fragility," [3] forcing on character traits like some awkwardly shrunken articles of clothing, such as the irritatingly bad habit of… pausing mid sentence for some sort of emphasis. I assume that was an attempt to attach the visual style of Cummings poems to the rhythm of his character's speech, which would be poor judgment being as it is an actors job is to discover the rhythm of the text rather than imprint their own upon it. But even still, HIM is not a poem but a play, an art form inherently rich in the visual stimulus Cozzens must have mistakenly thought a good idea to bring to the foreground of his character work. I can only wonder how he won the title role at his audition, and maybe recommend a bit more pre-casting acuity in researching those of whom one is considering casting.
Not everything about this production was worn-out or lacking depth. In opposition to Cozzens' weak work here was Corinne Donly's incredible performance as the Doctor. Opening night, she appeared slightly exhausted, but I could not expect anyone attacking this role with as much commitment as Donly to appear refreshed - besides, it allowed her to live so seamlessly in this dark world Cummings has created. As he wrote it, the Doctor appears in the majority of the show, including all the scenes of Him's play within the play, often taking on the major characters, and has countless monologues rife with dense subtext. All that, add Finn's thought that this character should ominously embody Him and Me's Daughter throughout the play, combined with Donly's aggressively grounded performance, and you have a character that might cause insomnia in any actor.
During the last ten-or-so seconds of the Doctor-as-the-Barker's final speech of the show, directed at Him, I saw a spark, a change in Corinne Donly's eyes - she suddenly morphed into an all-out Ball-of-Rage that I, sadly, saw as Donly stepping out of her character ever-so-subtly to yell at Dan Cozzens for not being present on-stage with her. Kaitlyn corrected me: "What you saw was Meghan's direction." Finn's and Donly's brilliant slight-of-hand glimpse of the Daughter behind the many masks of the Doctor was sadly obscured - for me, anyway - by Him.
Also, the design elements were incredibly successful. Justine Lacy found solid worlds of both history and fantasy in her costumes of the countless visually distinctive characters, Michael Hochman seamlessly found the darker underbellies of the story being told in his lighting design, Michael Cassidy, with his sound design, created the fear and impending viciousness of the blob scene, and Kaitlyn Mulligan’s set found both the grit of vaudeville and the circus which Cummings was so obsessed, as well as visually sucking the audience into incredible depths I never noticed at the SoHo Rep. Walker Space. These successes are due to the fact these artists were all working fervently those five months previous to the actors five weeks, as well as that their vehement work ethic never ended until the play opened – I know, I was there the morning of opening night after an all-nighter of painting the set while Lacy was tweaking costumes downstairs.
The play is long, the language dense, the plot difficult to follow, but the story is there – one of responsibility itself. And Cummings explores this, for all the flair and style of his poems, in the only way that seems to make any sense: he has written a history of himself through the perspective of an anesthetic-induced dream of his former wife, mother of his daughter – and more than that, he wrote it theatrically: living, breathing, naked, and honest. To tell this story fully, it not only required Cummings to write it, but it needs people to relive it; we can learn all the facts we want from everything our history professors lecture on about, but it is the parts of history we live through, our history, which we will carry with us forever and deem of most importance – it is why we feel so passionately about the coming Presidential Election or think Post-Modernism will be the death of the Art World as we know it. I am not interested in Theater exploring our world as it should be, but as it is or could be, for while “the beautiful… is form considered in its simplest aspect… the ugly… is one detail of a great whole” which “constantly presents itself in new, but incomplete shapes” [4] – an admittedly Romantic view of Theater Cummings’ play explores so skillfully. So while HIM may instruct and it may delight, which many critics since Aristotle argue to be the intention of Theater, this play's purpose is much simpler: "it simply is;" [5] Cummings is offering his play to an audience "as a glass through which to examine the sublime" and make their own judgments, a play where "the grotesque… is the richest source of inspiration that nature can throw open to art." [4] But I found no grotesquely beautiful breath of life here, due to Cozzen's strange approach to such an immense character, as well as the stretch Finn’s Direction had to endure.
And this play can be done, this story can be told. I could not imagine, due to my biased opinion generated from the uncontrollable fact that I am a young adult in 2008, a more necessary time to do this play. But if we heed the calm advice to be careful of voicing our own thoughts and opinions – the tools of progress – we lose the significance of HIM by not demanding we do better in learning from our failures, thus forfeiting the Theater's power to every unconsidered, uncriticized play and production as mere acceptability (consenting it to be the best we can do) and lack the hope and ability to move forward.
1. Helen Deutsch and Stella Hanau, The Provincetown, 1931
2. Gilbert Seldes, him AND the CRITICS, 1928
3. Linda Wagner-Martin, Cumming’s HIM – and Me, 1992
4. Victor Hugo, Preface to Cromwell, 1827
5. E E Cummings, HIM playbill, 1928
At the E:Bar of 59E59 Theaters after the opening night of Disco Pigs, I wound up in a discussion about some problems in our contemporary Theater. And when I made a comment regarding Legally Blonde as baseless entertainment – purely in the sense of its perfect commercial “formula” and its movie-turned-Broadway Musical status, which it “is better at replicating its model than most”, as Mr. Ben Brantley boasts – that has its small place in the vast world of Theater, but does not embody the possibilities and ideas I feel so strongly should be more present in out Theater World, my conversational partner retorted:
“Mmm… be careful.”
I do not believe in being careful, I believe in being responsible; if we have reason behind our passion, we need to act on it. As Shakespeare explores in one of his most celebrated plays, Hamlet, and as American history illustrates time and again, it is important to stand up for what we believe in – Hamlet’s inability to act results in the death of nigh almost everyone, and America did not become an independent country, slavery was not abolished, women did not get the right to vote through calm, civil, obedient discussions. I bring up this comment in conjunction with a discussion of HIM because I feel the production, in its entirety, conveys both great examples of not being careful and not being responsible.
“When [Henry Alsberg] suggested that the Provincetown produce [HIM]” in 1928, they were taking a great risk, as “most of the staff was horrified.” What with all the problems of practicality – 105 characters and 21 scenes – there was also “the fact that few of them could discover what the play was about.” But Cummings, director James Light, and designer Eugene Fitsch embarked then, in their downtown space, what many people and theaters today are either too afraid to try, or try far too hard to do: they explored “the most fundamental type of theatrical experiment – experiment in dramatic form.” The three of them did all they could to quickly resolve the problems of practicality strictly so this play could be done, acting out of pure passion for the story they needed to tell without concern of “moving them uptown” but finding “what they could not find elsewhere.” [1] And as Genevieve Taggard of the N.Y. Herald Tribune wrote: “That the reader has difficulties is true. But the reader’s difficulties come not from a lack of objectivity in Mr. Cummings’ work, but because this is not vague feeling or vague thought, but very precise in its intensity, and therefore very new and strange.” [2] But in spite of comments such as this, as well as a sold out run, the 1928 production suffered stifling criticism, which I would like to think, though can only rightfuly wonder if this meant the Provincetown Playhouse had no interest in being sensitive, or careful, of their contemporary critics, but were strictly concerned with creating a compelling human drama.
Eighty years later, in a world rife with skyrocketing divorce rates, unexpected pregnancy, and adolescent parents, HIM, a tale of the harsh consequences of irresponsibility, is just as important as ever. However, very little of Meghan Finn's production was compelling because it was deficient in the humanity or the complexity of the "Human Condition" that makes this play relevant and important. I have the sneaking suspicion it has to do with stamina, and all the fervor in Finns voice back in April at the NYTW wore sore by September at the Walker Space because a time-crunch-style rehearsal period of only five weeks – where every minute counted and everyone had to be on their game at all times – stressed out both Performers and Director: it caused the Artists to stretch themselves too thin over a project much bigger than merely a month, challenging far too much the vigor of Finn as an innovative Director. (And it was that strain on this production, though not necessarily Meghan or Cast specifically, that strangley reminded me of our responsibility, as Artists, to be in constant awareness of the discovery of who we are and why we choose to devote our lives to this practice – if we lack reason, we continue to degrade the immense power Theater can command, and if we lack an understanding of ourselves, we will forever flounder in inability of making a point.) For a first major directorial outing, I applaud the ambition, but Finn seemed to desire a quick discovery of her unique Artistic Voice here, where a vulnerable exploration would have far better suited both the occasion - a Thesis production for an MFA - and the play itself.
However, the texture of Cummings' luminous and emotionally wrought poetry was being chipped away at with a rather dull instrument: Dan Cozzens.
Him is E E Cummings' autobiographical character, and Dan Cozzens' portrayal reminded me of everything my high school English 3 classmates hated and could not understand about E E Cummings. Cozzens was not grounded or present as Him, lacking depth or personality, and unable to ever connect to Elan O'Conner's Me. There was no love or joy in his character or their relationship, and therefore no journey, sadly causing this beautiful story to be told without a point. I fear Cozzens' failed in his responsibility of doing the amount of work necessary to this character, instead just memorizing lines and, rather than living and breathing in Him's "childlike sensitivity and fragility," [3] forcing on character traits like some awkwardly shrunken articles of clothing, such as the irritatingly bad habit of… pausing mid sentence for some sort of emphasis. I assume that was an attempt to attach the visual style of Cummings poems to the rhythm of his character's speech, which would be poor judgment being as it is an actors job is to discover the rhythm of the text rather than imprint their own upon it. But even still, HIM is not a poem but a play, an art form inherently rich in the visual stimulus Cozzens must have mistakenly thought a good idea to bring to the foreground of his character work. I can only wonder how he won the title role at his audition, and maybe recommend a bit more pre-casting acuity in researching those of whom one is considering casting.
Not everything about this production was worn-out or lacking depth. In opposition to Cozzens' weak work here was Corinne Donly's incredible performance as the Doctor. Opening night, she appeared slightly exhausted, but I could not expect anyone attacking this role with as much commitment as Donly to appear refreshed - besides, it allowed her to live so seamlessly in this dark world Cummings has created. As he wrote it, the Doctor appears in the majority of the show, including all the scenes of Him's play within the play, often taking on the major characters, and has countless monologues rife with dense subtext. All that, add Finn's thought that this character should ominously embody Him and Me's Daughter throughout the play, combined with Donly's aggressively grounded performance, and you have a character that might cause insomnia in any actor.
During the last ten-or-so seconds of the Doctor-as-the-Barker's final speech of the show, directed at Him, I saw a spark, a change in Corinne Donly's eyes - she suddenly morphed into an all-out Ball-of-Rage that I, sadly, saw as Donly stepping out of her character ever-so-subtly to yell at Dan Cozzens for not being present on-stage with her. Kaitlyn corrected me: "What you saw was Meghan's direction." Finn's and Donly's brilliant slight-of-hand glimpse of the Daughter behind the many masks of the Doctor was sadly obscured - for me, anyway - by Him.
Also, the design elements were incredibly successful. Justine Lacy found solid worlds of both history and fantasy in her costumes of the countless visually distinctive characters, Michael Hochman seamlessly found the darker underbellies of the story being told in his lighting design, Michael Cassidy, with his sound design, created the fear and impending viciousness of the blob scene, and Kaitlyn Mulligan’s set found both the grit of vaudeville and the circus which Cummings was so obsessed, as well as visually sucking the audience into incredible depths I never noticed at the SoHo Rep. Walker Space. These successes are due to the fact these artists were all working fervently those five months previous to the actors five weeks, as well as that their vehement work ethic never ended until the play opened – I know, I was there the morning of opening night after an all-nighter of painting the set while Lacy was tweaking costumes downstairs.
The play is long, the language dense, the plot difficult to follow, but the story is there – one of responsibility itself. And Cummings explores this, for all the flair and style of his poems, in the only way that seems to make any sense: he has written a history of himself through the perspective of an anesthetic-induced dream of his former wife, mother of his daughter – and more than that, he wrote it theatrically: living, breathing, naked, and honest. To tell this story fully, it not only required Cummings to write it, but it needs people to relive it; we can learn all the facts we want from everything our history professors lecture on about, but it is the parts of history we live through, our history, which we will carry with us forever and deem of most importance – it is why we feel so passionately about the coming Presidential Election or think Post-Modernism will be the death of the Art World as we know it. I am not interested in Theater exploring our world as it should be, but as it is or could be, for while “the beautiful… is form considered in its simplest aspect… the ugly… is one detail of a great whole” which “constantly presents itself in new, but incomplete shapes” [4] – an admittedly Romantic view of Theater Cummings’ play explores so skillfully. So while HIM may instruct and it may delight, which many critics since Aristotle argue to be the intention of Theater, this play's purpose is much simpler: "it simply is;" [5] Cummings is offering his play to an audience "as a glass through which to examine the sublime" and make their own judgments, a play where "the grotesque… is the richest source of inspiration that nature can throw open to art." [4] But I found no grotesquely beautiful breath of life here, due to Cozzen's strange approach to such an immense character, as well as the stretch Finn’s Direction had to endure.
And this play can be done, this story can be told. I could not imagine, due to my biased opinion generated from the uncontrollable fact that I am a young adult in 2008, a more necessary time to do this play. But if we heed the calm advice to be careful of voicing our own thoughts and opinions – the tools of progress – we lose the significance of HIM by not demanding we do better in learning from our failures, thus forfeiting the Theater's power to every unconsidered, uncriticized play and production as mere acceptability (consenting it to be the best we can do) and lack the hope and ability to move forward.
1. Helen Deutsch and Stella Hanau, The Provincetown, 1931
2. Gilbert Seldes, him AND the CRITICS, 1928
3. Linda Wagner-Martin, Cumming’s HIM – and Me, 1992
4. Victor Hugo, Preface to Cromwell, 1827
5. E E Cummings, HIM playbill, 1928
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