“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”
—Goethe
We have tangible and financial needs, but more important than those is the essential and ineffable impact for good we aspire to have in this community.
We believe the art of theater to be more than desirable: We believe it to be necessary. Art is the expression and exploration of what it means to be human and to be in human relationship. We place the same value on it as we do on any of life’s necessities—shelter, water, food, rest—because it is the spiritual, ephemeral expression of these basic needs. Does the body truly live without the soul? Spiritual, emotional, intellectual needs are just as keen and real as their physical counterparts.
Human beings are made to do more than merely subsist. Would a life in which all our physical “basic needs” were met but was devoid of human contact, dreams, aspirations, knowing and being known, seeing and being seen, poetry, beauty, creativity, really be considered living? If we were fed, clothed, sheltered—but locked alone in the dark with no hope that there is anything else, any other way, any different future—would we consider that a life worth living? To connect, to hope, to reflect, to imagine, to escape, to conceive, to wonder are as basic to the human experience as to eat and drink. They are, in fact, the element in life that truly defines us as human beings and not just a particular species of animal.
“What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.” Who prompted us to reflect on such questions? A playwright. How else would a soul be prompted to seek an answer to such questions? What is the forum in our lives for inquiry if not the theater? How do we develop the vocabulary to reflect upon our values if not in and through art?
Yet, our ability to shelter and cultivate fledgling artists is at risk. Our ability to cleanse and nourish the spirit of our audience is at risk. Our ability to provide an oasis of pleasure, insight, and diversion is at risk. Our ability to introduce young people to the expressive and transformational power of the theater is at risk. Our ability to inquire into what we believe, what separates us, and what holds us together as a community is at risk. And, like many essential things, these elements of our society are most valuable when they are the most rare. It is when the arts are most assailed by the competing noise of other priorities that the values they explore and convey are most important.
It is a great fallacy to make decisions as though we are only physical or financial or political beings. We are mostly human beings, comprised of imaginations and aspirations, feelings and relationships, history and mystery—not merely the corporeal components of our existences.
While it is true that we genuinely need shelter, food, water, and rest, we need them in order to support life. They are how we live, but they are not life itself. Our need for love, understanding, connection, expression, and meaning are higher in the spiritual spheres and likewise must be held as higher in our sphere of priorities. True, if I am asking, “How will I feed my children? How will I survive the cold? How will I water my crops?” it becomes difficult to consider life’s “whys?” Yet, it is when we are cold or hungry, alone or sick, poor or desperate that we often sing a song, tell a story, make up an imaginary circumstance to help us navigate the current challenging reality.
Can we really afford the theater? How can we not? The question really needs to become, can we afford to set aside imagination, personal expression, beauty, empathy? Can we allow the values that the theater supports, develops, and celebrates—compassion, insight, individuality, ingenuity—to become luxuries in our society? If we do, what values are we working to uphold? Who will define those values, since we will have cut off one of the dimensions of our lives that allows us to explore, evaluate, affirm, or decry? And without theater, who will ask us these questions? Who will tell our stories?
Mark Booher is artistic director for PCPA Theaterfest. Contact him at mbooher@ pcpa.org.
This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 2, 2009.