“The Play’s the
Thing…”
The quote above is
from that infamous Prince of Denmark by Mr. S. Further into the speech, it espouses to
capture the conscience/essence of the personage…and so it is, too, with all
performing artists…to touch the heart, the guts and the very soul of its live
audiences. This is now absent and sorely
missed, as “touching” and gathering is no longer allowed, and so that personal
contact between artists and human beings, in order to rouse one’s spirits to
action; to awaken new thoughts; to escape from the everyday; to inspire; to
change behavior, et. al….is lost in the translation, and we all suffer from
that loss of personal contact of mind and body, between one fellow being to
another.
The Performing
Arts/Artists affect everyone. In the
case of OSF in Ashland, it affects the whole town. The restaurants, pubs, book stores,
galleries, retail shops, motel/hotels, et. al. (and the livelihood of their
employees that work there), rely on their main attraction/draw to this burg for
their very existence. When the essence
of this Art form dies, they die. This is
not only true of this vibrant village in Southern Oregon, but also of any
performing arts communities in any town…for they truly are the “conscience” of
Mankind.
I don’t pretend to
know the way out of this darkness, only that we cannot let “…these few, these
chosen few…” that sustain our dreams, pass into non-existence. We must support, and celebrate, in any way we
can, that which sets us apart from the pack, as reasoning creatures with free
wills. We fall, we fail…but we should
never let our dreams, and the dream-makers, fade away. We Artists cannot be quantified, perhaps, but
we can be qualified, as to our importance to growth of Spirit
My bias, of course,
because of my performing arts background, is personal. Part of that is two years at, what was then,
SOC, studying with Dr. Bowmer and spending two seasons as an actor at OSF in
the late-60’s. My brief time there
taught me that we artists/dreamers, have a special place in this world, and
know that our lives will not be easy, as acceptance by an industrial,
technological world will be an uphill battle, but a battle that must be won,
for all our sakes.
“We are such stuff
as dreams are made on…” and we need to keep that dream, those dreamers, alive,
so that through this medium, we explore, via the stage world, other periods of
time; other areas of imagination; other cultures; other ways of thinking and
behaving; and are we are educated, enlightened and entertained by such folks as
these.
From the seeds of our imaginations, and the
artists who foster them, we can be stronger and more united than before,
rallying to fuse Nature, Progress and the Arts, into a “brave, new world.” Dr. Hawking espoused, “be brave, be curious,
be determined.” “This, too, shall pass,”
let us make sure that what is forthcoming supports a philosophy of “We the
People…”--All People, and their dreams, so that we “shall not perish from the
earth!”
--DJS
