An interesting phenomenon of the 1970s was the byproduct of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the culture war. We sent them rock and roll groups and Hollywood films. They sent us the Kirov Ballet and the Moscow Art Theater. Culture in the United States exists on many levels. Except for middle class adventurers who will seek the new, the experimental, the classics, wealth dominates all arenas, save theater. Opera, ballet, classical music, are funded by government and private donors. They are invariably not-fot-profit endeavors, whose mission is to provide the highest quality of performance achievable.

           The peculiar nature of fine art is so removed from performance requirements that it exists in its own unique plane. Only the rich can afford to buy masterworks, though the public can visit well stocked art museums and see fine art. The problem is that most of the public have no idea what they’re looking at, evinced by their rapid transit through display galleries. The public is invariably too intimidated to go into commercial art galleries, a condition encouraged by pretentious art gallery personnel, who assume the public are not customers, ergo of no interest. It’s even more difficult for the artists. Once it took a long time to become an old master. Warhol, Lichtenstein and a few others did it in record time, their paintings commanding multi-millions, pressuring art students, who may not be taught that there is room at the top for only a fortunate few.

           Theater is by far the strangest artistic endeavor. Broadway productions are a financial venture that are only incidentally exercises in art. The cost of a Broadway production is so high that the goal is to produce a hit that will run a long time, repay the investors, then make a profit. Obviously this is not an arena for experimentation. Production values are generally high, but content, designed to reach mass audiences, tends to become safer and safer, the more production costs soar. The bread, butter and entrées of Broadway are musical theater. The most successful productions are revivals and formula stories.

           Off-Broadway production costs are becoming increasingly expensive, so a capital investment is required to present a play that must earn money, or suffer a financial loss that ends the show. Regional theater must cater to its subscription audience, a graying group, not readily replaceable, less and less susceptible to challenging drama.. Off-Off Broadway is usually a yell-in, or so sloppy that only Mommas love their actor sons and daughters. There are a few good small theaters that try their best to produce entertaining work, but their audience is also aging rapidly. At a recent Saturday night performance of a classic, at a respectable small theater, the house was only ¾s full and the average age was 65. American theater suborned by middle of the road university theater department mentalities, correlated by the deleterious products of the superficial showcase system, has further fallen victim to increasingly visual innovation in tvs, nourished by cable and the internet, all these formats combining to obsolete theater.

 

Gary Beck