Have you ever been going to the theater, in your home town? Or, in any town? Most theaters are catering for an audience that can afford it, and that doesnot need a stimulation to enjoy art.
But that audience is shrinking in modern society, and directors and actors need a stimulating audience as well, because art is essentially a way of communication.
I remember once a concert, of a famous set of artists, in a low budget setting, but the audience was limited to the same amount of people compared to the artists that performed (2) . We, organizing the event, enjoyed the concert, for sure, but would have enjoyed even more, not only for the small contribution of money, but also because the artists were frustrated. In another environment, they claimed, people would have paid big cash, and would have joined the rows to enter the Concertgebouw, and enjoy the concert. I guess that made some point, but the audience we organized it for, would never have gone that far, because the Concertgebouw wasnot in their tradition, and they might have been blocked by having to pay that amount of money.
So when I found out, we could enter the Stadsschouwburg of Amsterdam for free, and even get a little money paid for it, I was eager to participate.
Even though I was interested in art, stage, and associated things, I never had really felt attracted to enter the Stads-schouwburg, partly for the reasons I mentioned above. I got even more intrigued by hearing the name of Adelheid Roosen. I had never been to one of her plays, but I had once delivered a letter/packet to her, at the artist s entrance I have been going too recently more often. It was quite special as I wanted to know it came to the right person, so I waited till she came down there, and she made quite an impression to me even then, by being such a unpretending person. I know out of experience, the greatest people in art, sport or even politics donot need to pretend they are someone, because they already have a personality, that shows/showed.
I had never imagined I would be on stage like this with her, and other pleasing people, and some very disturbing people too, to be honest.
It isnot just to be on (and behind) stage that I like in this project, but also that we can sleep and be ourselves, when the performance ended, and we sleep, sometimes on stage and have breakfast together.
Human engagement being brought back in public places, I love it!
Please tell me your experience here, in comments, or via using a blog post of your own with this tag deoversteek
Greetings, Happy. I will share a few bits from my past in exchange for those you’ve already offered, but in truth I have sparse time this morn before starting the daily routine of research for a minimum two articles for my blog. That’s my standard, my commitment, my goal, for the moment, and I refuse to be too distracted by personal reflection.
When my mother, a concert pianist, and my aunt, her little sister, also a recognized and gifted pianist, practiced in the home of their father, my paternal grandfather, where we lived for a while, I sat as an infant at their feet, amazed with vibrations from their performances. By age 4 the torch was already being forced into my hand, and I was paraded before our city’s elite to perform my own piano recitals. By then I had learned at home how to read, write, paint, draw, or in other words, to express my little soul verbally and visually. The music, by contrast, offered a simple, natural way to breath, and it seemed less an expression but more of the base reality of existence.
By age 7 my little drawings and elementary paintings gained some attention in exhibits, by age 12 I performed in several local productions of theater, including such seasonal offerings as the Passion Play for Easter, the Christmas Carol for…of course, Christmas, the musicals in summer time that celebrated sunshine and bounty, and all the other wonder of stage life near the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin, where my father had returned from the war to finish an economics degree or two. By age 15 I published my first book of poetry and by age 17 I was an established painter in my region of the Midwest with patrons, a mentor, and an entire network of family and their friends, anxious to see what I might become one day.
At age 17 I performed in six local productions of various musicals, but at the same time, I earned athletic letters in American football, wrestling, and tennis. I also worked as a laborer along side Mexicans up for the summer to earn money in mint and tobacco fields, because I too wanted to earn money. My orientation to money adjusted, and I abandoned my piano practice altogether, deciding once and for all that life on the road as a concert pianist, which my aunt had chosen, offered nothing for me. Of course I sold all of my paintings as fast as I could produce them, wood cut prints, water colors, pottery, and attempts at metal sculpture, in exhibits sponsored by other hungry artists. But there never seemed to be enough money.
Although music never left my heart, I tried to define myself in a way that could earn my father’s praise. He loved money, so I thought I should do the same. It never worked out, of course, because by my late teens despite my best intentions otherwise, I was an artist and an actor, simply by the weight of life experiences.
Born of inner turmoil to define myself, I signed up to become an analyst for the US military. Details need no focus here. Leave it to this: I aced their tests and stayed in their military schools long enough to get accustomed to military life. After the withdrawal from Saigon in 1973, I returned to school in America, earned several degrees, and returned again to military life, as an attorney. I married, fathered three fine children, and lived almost normally for a few decades.
During that time, I truly loved my kids and my spouse, but I could not stay interested in the colorless life of a military lawyer without music, art, and stage. Here and there, when no one seemed to be aware, I sold a new painting or put together a quick exhibition for Manila or Hong Kong or Seoul. People heard me perform a few piano pieces I had composed and asked for more, so I performed at a few dozen charitable events. Well, maybe it was more than a few dozen. I volunteered whenever military assignments did not interfere to sing, dance, act, in regional productions. Never did equity attract me (I presume you know what ‘equity’ means to actors), no career or money entered into it, and in fact, I had by default resolved the inner turmoil over money by giving away at every opportunity my paintings, my piano recitals, my poems, my storytelling, and my on-stage performances.
Over time I realized that a military career could never satisfy me. I retired after 34 years and after my wife abandoned our three teenagers and me, and after I finished getting the kids into college and on their way, I returned full time to music, composition in particular but occasional recitals for charity, painting exhibitions but more mentoring of young people seeking self definition as painters, writing but instead of serious literature I played with spy novels, and of course the stage, where my singing, dancing, and long speeches still seemed welcome.
In the end, we reach today. I never think about money, although the voice of my father, his ghost really, warns me often that I will be homeless again if I am not careful. I never worry that the local regional playhouse will not have enough paying patrons. Someone worries about that, of course, but not me. I just don’t want to dwell on things that seem uncontrollable. I write, paint, sing, dance, play piano, try these days even to play guitar, and I let others tell me when the next event will be.
Am I a totally irresponsible reprobate? Maybe. I know that money matters, patrons who love us enough to cover our costs enable us to exist. And appreciative audiences energize us like nothing else. But mostly I just perform and create.
Now it’s time to cut off this reflection and start writing my blog. You’re invited, of course, because I need your eyeballs trafficking across my prose while being enticed by ads you didn’t realize you had seen, so here’s my link, if you dare: http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com.
hamilton.jerry
thanks Jerry. I hope there will be a blog of your hand here in vivaldi.net as well. But I missed an answer on my first question. Did you attend drama in the community theater of your town?
Or in any other town/region. Could I extend that to the zoo? In Amsterdam the Zoo is called Natura Artis Magistra, or more common referenced to as Artis.
thanks Jerry. I hope there will be a blog of your hand here in vivaldi.net as well. But I missed an answer on my first question. Did you attend drama in the community theater of your town?
Or in any other town/region. Could I extend that to the zoo? In Amsterdam the Zoo is called Natura Artis Magistra, or more common referenced to as Artis.
i watched some real play , actors and actress were members of the ensemble from military or local nation office, they played some stories of life, of literature that concerned war ( just some famous scene, or do played about one or two famous national hero…
the drama? i must understand the meaning of it really to answer more…
but i loved to watch real in theatre, especially : the merchant of Venice..?