| THE NECESSARY EVIL or… SEEING OURSELVES SEEING OURSELVES |
| A condensed version of this
piece apppeared in The Monterey
County Herald under the title, "Universal Harmony Doesn't Pack Theaters", on August 14, 1994 |
I say let us not despise human suffering and depravity, for they have afforded theater-loving humanity its finest moments. Imagine a world without deceit, without jealousy, without guilt---and let us not overlook malice, disappointment, rage and heartbreak. Imagine a world with no mistakes and no compromises. A world in which everybody was satisfied with what he had (territories, possessions, spouses). A world in which no one was denied anything to which he was entitled. A world in which no one desired anything to which he was not entitled. Imagine a world in which children never disobeyed parents; in which wives and husbands never cheated on one another; in which nation never rose up against nation; in which no one went hungry, or died before his time. Imagine a world in which all was fair. Imagine a world at peace. TRY WRITING AN OPERA ABOUT THAT! OR A PLAY!
One of the hallmarks of civilized man has been his penchant for inspiring himself with his own wretchedness. Consider the great playwrights of the world: Sophocles,Shakespeare, Moliere, and Chekhov; music dramatists like Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. Do you suppose they made their reputations by portraying human righteousness and contentment? I do not deny that they were sensitive to man’s nobler virtues: his compassion, his valor, his integrity, his potential for greatness. Yet, I contend that it was man’s frailty, man’s folly, man’s vanity, man’s brokeness—in short, man’s fallen, sinful condition---that kept these theatrical heavyweights in business over the years. What made them great was their gift for translating our flaws and sorrows into poetry, drama and music; for relegating our grimmer passions to a nonthreatening medium where they could be played out, sung, exorcized, laughed at. Without the darkness of the human spirit, the light of their genius would hardly shine.Imagine our dramatic stage without its lagos and Macbeths and Richard III’s. Without its Misers and Misanthropes. And where would our opera stage be without its Fafners and Scarpias and Mefistos and Don Giovannis?
The theater mirrors and magnifies life, true, but contrasts are what give it definition and energy. (Prince Hal’s valor vs. Falstaff’s cowardice; Desdemona’s purity vs. Iago’s guile.) To those “Aquarians” and “New Agers” who would accentuate man’s positive, god-like potential, who would usher in an age of peace and perfection, I say beware lest you nullify our most vital cultural traditions. A world of heroes and benevolent beings does not a dramatic experience make. Universal harmony does not pack a theater; it does not boost television ratings; it does not sell products.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with the classics should not feel intimidated by this discussion. Your theater may be of the celluloid or tubular variety. Perhaps you prefer your opera less stagy and more soap-ish. However you choose to suspend your disbelief, the same principles apply. The names of the pieces may change, the characters may differ, but the types live on. You can superimpose your own.
Theater as a whole, no matter how it is dressed up, scaled down, translated or transposed, is a sublime paradox. It presupposes that man is intrinsically good, perfectible and worthy of an honest shake in this world. It hungers for his success; it proclaims his triumphs. It operates on the premise that happiness, truth and moral stability can be attained through human effort. Nevertheless, the theater thrives on man’s flaws, his defeats, his disillusionment, and on the fact that audiences are meaningfully moved by the soul's afflictions. As victims of a seemingly cruel and imperfect universe, we long for an end to heartache. As spectators, we cannot live without it. Certainly, there can be nothing as satisfying as watching someone else agonize in our place, nor as perversely sweet as playing at grief.
Ever since the age of six, when my father took me to see my first performance of La Boheme, I have been a devoted, teary-eyed fan of Mimi, Puccini’s beloved heroine. I confess it. (Where would opera be without its thwarted love affairs and its languishing sweethearts?) Watching her life ebb softly away in Act IV has become a tradition for cultured softies like me. It is impossible for me to see or hear a performance of this opera, even a bad one, without becoming intoxicated with remorse. Nothing in my own experience has filled me with such delectable anguish as those fatal last chords in Act IV, coupled with Rodolfo’s cries of “Mimi! Mimi!” In that moment, Mimi becomes every person in my life that I could ever love or fear losing. Her death scene breaks my heart with a grace and dignity unparalleled by real life hardships, such as losing my job, or watching the family pet get run over by a garbage truck. In La Boheme, Puccini elevated sorrow to a religious experience. There are other dying heroines in opera; you can take your pick. But Mimi will always be my favorite. She was, after all, my first operatic love.
I don’t know what my life would have been like had Puccini and his librettists written a happy ending for La Boheme. The very thought depresses me!
Verdi’s Rigoletto brings us to yet another plateau of despair. The hunchback jester in this music drama is the bitter spokesperson for every person who believes he has been wronged. He lashes out at the God who has deformed him and at the courtiers who mock him. His tongue is a sword; his laughter, death. Rigoletto’s only consolation in this world is his lovely daughter, Gilda. We know, of course---those of us who have been attending this tragic rite since we were six---that poor Gilda, like poor Mimi, is slated for an untimely “Addio”. For this we have human wrath and treachery to thank, mainly Rigoletto’s. Because even greater than his love for Gilda is his hatred of the Duke who has dishonored her. We also know that, through a bizarre twist of events, Rigoletto’s vengeance on the Duke will backfire, and Gilda will die in his stead. That fateful moment when Rigoletto discovers her body in the sack is a classic. We opera lovers anticipate it with the same trembling eagerness with which the ancient Greeks awaited the catastrophic finale of Oedipus Rex. The jester’s choked howls of "Gilda! Mia Gilda!”, like Rodolfo’s “Mimi! Mimi!”, or like Oedipus’ self-mutilation, will haunt and thrill us forever. A veritable orgasm of grief!
We identify with the character of Rigoletto because his pain is real, even if he himself is not. The hunchback takes on our vanity and indignation; he acts out our desire for retribution. As Aristotle would have pointed out, he suffers on our behalf. When he dies (spiritually, if not physically), our woes die with him. We leave the theater feeling refreshed, exhilarated, truly alive, because the tragedy of Rigoletto has purged us. Were we all denizens of a perfect human order, Rigoletto would seem deranged and incomprehensible to us. On the other hand, if Verdi’s opera portrayed human wholesomeness, joy and contentment, generations of foible-ridden opera lovers would have found the work just as ludicrous. Remove the suffering, straighten every crooked line (and back), turn the tragic wails into chuckles, and you have disemboweled a masterpiece.
Imagine Olga, Masha and Irina of Chekhov’s play, The Three Sisters, rejoicing for four long acts over how everything in life turned out exactly the way they had always dreamt it would. Let us suppose that, contrary to the plot, each sister enjoys meaningful and stimulating work and has achieved a perfect balance between duty and pleasure. Each has found for herself that rare, elusive man who is strong, tender, physically and emotionally captivating, and neither involved nor enamored with anyone else, on stage or off. Their brother, Andrei, is authoritative, self-disciplined and worthy of respect. There is nothing wishy-washy about him. He knows what he wants out of life, and he knows how to obtain it. The sweet, innocent, submissive young lady (Natasha) to whom he is engaged in Act I remains sweet and submissive after they are married; she does not degenerate into the selfish, faithless, castrating nag that Chekhov portrayed in Acts II, III and IV. She renders her husband the love and honor he deserves and treats his sisters with kindness. The other characters in the play, like Andrei and his sisters, are secure in themselves and happily resigned to their respective lots in life. There are no regrets, no hang-ups. There is no philosophizing, no fretting over the meaning of life. Three hours of unadulterated bliss. Who would watch it?
Finally, let us imagine a utopian Pagliacci. Anyone unfamiliar with the opera can infer, from the following bogus scenario, what the story is not about.
Nedda is rapturously in love with her husband, Canio. Theirs is a model union which is celebrated among the members of their little acting troupe, and among the villagers they meet and entertain in their travels. Their love is so secure that even the dashing young Silvio is unable to tempt Nedda away from her amiable, unjealous spouse. Far be it from Silvio to attempt such a dishonorable thing, for he is morally upright, self-controlled and honest before God and men. He knows in his heart that he has no business pursuing another man’s woman. So does the lecherous hunchback, Tonio. (Of course, Tonio would be neither hunched nor lecherous, since no deformity, physical or moral, would exist in a perfect world.) If village life is Leoncavallo’s mirror of the real world from which the opera audience has assembled, then Canio’s traveling stage is a mirror of that mirror. If the ethical purists had their way, adultery would have no place in human affairs, whether it was being portrayed in earnest before Leoncavallo’s opera crowd, or parodied by Canio’s troupe before the villagers (during the play-within-a-play segment in Act II). Therefore, the illicit tryst between Nedda and Silvio, for which Leoncavallo wrote his most beautiful music, would never take place. Neither would the farcical, commedia-style romance between Columbine and Harlequin. And since the very idea of murder would be foreign to a righteous man living in a righteous society, Canio’s climactic revenge would be unmotivated. For once the world is convicted of sin, offenders and spectators on both sides of the footlights would find sexual infidelity and jealousy so reprehensible that they would neither engage in it nor permit others to entertain them with it. There would be nothing to laugh OR cry about.
Let us, then, carry this premise to its natural conclusion. Behold: the eleventh hour finally rolls around. The villagers gather together and take their seats. There is excitement and merriment as the long awaited play is about to begin. The bell sounds. The drapes on the traveling stage part. And what do the villagers see? A group of actors, dressed up as villagers, seated on benches and staring back at them. The villagers applaud the actors; the actors applaud the villagers; the opera lovers applaud the entire ensemble. Then the drapes close, the grand curtain falls, and everybody goes home. The commedia is “finita” before it has even begun. Because once you have taken pain and impurity out of the human condition, you have neutered Pagliacci.
The same might be said for virtually every musical or nonmusical drama you could list and dissect if you had forever to do so, including comedy. Find your own examples. You need not look any further than your television.
If we deny man his natural propensity for evil, we must deny the dramatic and musical geniuses of the world the freedom and the resources with which to enrich our lives. We would also deny ourselves the joy of seeing our dismal reality reinvented before our eyes (and ears), of witnessing our most profound trials acted out by individuals other than ourselves. If we want God to put an end to war, cruelty, sadness, infidelity and death, then we might as well offer up our theaters, concert halls, movie houses and TV sets as sacrifices. Eradicate all suffering, fulfill all longing, answer every question, and you have depleted the performing arts.
Here, then, is my proposal for the New Age: T.F.A.:
The THEATER OF FULLNESS AND AFFIRMATION---the self-negating mirror and magnification of only positive and perfect things. Why “self-negating?” Because in this age of fallen man, the theater, as we know it, provides a necessary release for us; it consoles, encourages, edifies, transports, compliments and completes us. Once sin, misery and death have been abolished from human existence, there will no longer be any need for escapism, for tragedies that purge, or comedies that amuse. The pure, well-balanced, untroubled soul will have no use for anything that the theater could possibly provide. There will be no mysteries, no contrasts, no debts to pay, no fantasies to indulge. In sort, the theater will reflect a world in which there is no theater. Hence, it will negate itself.
How badly do we desire human perfection anyway?
Othellos of the world, be reconciled to your Desdemonas. And you lagos, repent. Hamlets, make peace with your consciences. You wheezing Mimis and gasping Gildas, arise! All you dreamers, ensconced in the dark theater of your minds, awake! Turn on the lights!
THE SHOW IS OVER!