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Lowlifes and libertines – the myth of the artist in theater
By guest writer
April 30, 2011 · 1 Comments
Post by Deb Miller
Artists have long captured the imagination of writers, and this spring Philadelphia offered several plays focusing on artist as subject, or containing telling references to society’s view of them. The portrayals range from lowlifes and libertines to eccentrics and egomaniacs, to inspired geniuses and avant-garde trailblazers.
1812’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor, running through May 8 at Plays & Players; photo by Mark Garvin.
Artist as political non-conformist
BCKSEET’s Losing the Shore; photo by Oona Curley.
Two plays, 1812 Productions’ Laughter on the 23rd Floor and BCKSEET’s Losing the Shore, are set in 1953 and refer to artists, albeit briefly, as the antitheses of the conservative period’s reactionary extremes, forced conformity, and appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Laughter on the 23rd Floor is based on the writers’ room of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, which fell under scrutiny during the McCarthy era. When network executives tell the writers of a popular TV show to stop creating intelligent humor for American audiences, and, instead, to “give ‘em shit,” one responds with the insightful comment, “Maybe if Van Gogh or Goya were wrestlers they’d put ‘em on Saturday night.” For Kenny, the literary wit modeled after Larry Gelbart, artists epitomized the misunderstood geniuses who rose above their times to create high-quality uncensored work that would be respected for posterity.
Losing the Shore offered a well-crafted fictionalized account of a cruise taken by Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in the aftermath of his 1952 presidential defeat by Dwight Eisenhower. Aboard ship, Stevenson’s jilted mistress laments, “Maybe I’ll go to Tangiers and consort with bisexual artists who find me amusing.” This offhand remark, the script’s sole reference to artists, celebrates them as examples of self-expression and acceptance, whose unabashed openness would pave the way to the more liberated Sixties.
Artist as sexual non-conformist
Wilma Theater’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play; photo by Jim Roese.
The artist’s legendary world of sexual freedom arose again with the Wilma Theater’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play. Following Doctor Givings’ observation that “hysteria is rare in men,” the extreme sensitivity (and insinuated bisexuality) of lovelorn painter Leo Irving are dismissed with the retort, “Well, he IS an ARTIST!” Later, when Leo is asked if he’d loved many women, he replies with a relative ranking of sexual conquests: “I have loved enough women to paint. If I had loved less, I’d be an illustrator; if I had loved more, I’d be a poet.”
Artists’ affinity with modern women
Arden’s production of Wanamaker’s Pursuit, on stage through May 22; photo by Mark Garvin.
Set in Paris in 1911, Arden Theatre Company’s Wanamaker’s Pursuit considers the avant-garde circle that would come to define Modern Art: American expatriate writers and collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein; fashion designer Paul Poiret; and Pablo Picasso, whose well-known exploits as a womanizer surpassed those of any poet. The eccentric Gertrude Stein and dissolute Madame Poiret, who has a passionate off-stage fling with Picasso, enjoy a bond with those true artists, for whom “certain rules don’t apply.”
Artist as starving schemer
Horizon’s The Credeaux Canvas, in Norristown through May 1; photo by Cherie Tay.
Along with the tradition of the iconoclastic libertine, the notion of the starving artist remains a commonplace. In Theatre Horizon’s The Credeaux Canvas the Romantic concept is updated to a grungy cramped apartment in New York’s present-day East Village, where three desperate roommates concoct a scheme to swindle a wealthy collector with an art forgery. The story paints a bleak picture of artists, who treat themselves and each other as badly as their intended victim, and endlessly extol the virtues of art, while disparaging humankind.
Theatre Horizon’s The Credeaux Canvas; photo by Dan Plehal.
Artist as doomed egomaniac
People’s Light and Theatre Company’s The Master Builder photo by Mark Garvin.
People’s Light and Theatre Company offered the most complex and thought-provoking foray into the creative spirit with Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, in which an aging architect faces his own fading powers and imminent mortality. The protagonist tenaciously denies his talented assistant the opportunities he deserves, and engages in unbefitting flirtations with younger women. In the end, the master builder “can’t climb as high as he builds,” and his refusal to acknowledge that he is not divine causes his own demise.
Not always flattering, these portraits of artists nonetheless make for good theater.
Tags: 1812 productions, arden theatre company, bckseet, in the next room, laughter on the 23rd floor, losing the shore, or the vibrator play, people's light and theatre company, the credeaux canvas, the master builder, theatre horizon, wanamaker's pursuit, wilma theater
UPDATE: Philadelphia theater’s fascination with art and artists continues!
1812 Productions takes another hilarious jab at the myth of the artist in Our Show of Shows (running in repertory with Laughter on the 23rd Floor through May 15 at Plays & Players). In one skit, David Ingram plays an alcoholic, turpentine-swigging has-been, rediscovered while painting lines on country roads. When his supervisor complains that the lines aren’t straight, he replies with the humorous cliché, “I paint what I feel.”
And from May 10-June 5, Ambler’s Act II Playhouse tackles the age-old questions of “what is art?” and “what is its value?” in Yasmina Reza’s comedy Art, as three friends (played by Pete Pryor, Tony Braithwaite, and Ian Merrill Peakes) battle over a Minimalist painting and the exorbitant price one paid for it.