I've now had the luxury of a few days to reflect on my earlier post reporting on the taxpayer subsidy for the Mixed Blood Theatre Company's production of Neighbors.
My biggest objection to the whole affair is the idea that taxpayers (through the state's Legacy Fund) should pay for professional theater to be free of charge to any theater-goer. I object to the idea that live theater should become--like health care, schools lunches, or (in Europe anyway) free travel for vacations--a basic "human right" that the citizen expects the government to provide, free of charge.
Once upon a time, consumers were expected to pay for their own trips to the doctor, lunch for their children, holidays in the south of Spain, and yes, tickets to the theater. Moral issues aside, basic economics requires a direct exchange of money for goods and services to ensure that the "right" amount of each good is provided. Put another way, if the "government" provided free vacation travel, all 300 million of us would decamp to the Costa del Sol (it's nice, I've been there) and we'd never get anything done.
As for Mixed Blood's thinking behind the free-theater-for-all-concept of "Radical Hospitality," they write
"For Mixed Blood, radical hospitality has not only social, but also political and economic implications; Radical Hospitality exercises our commitment to justice."
Local media celebrate the decision to be generous with your money. MinnPost writes,
"While the Mixed Blood has never really seemed to lack for an audience—every time I have been there, it's had a healthy attendance, and often sold out—[Artistic Director and founder Jack] Reuler realized that ticket costs were a barrier to attendance for many theatergoers. This has been the source of considerable discussion in the theater world, as tickets prices have, on the whole, been rising, which risks discouraging any number of potential audience members."
Minnesota Public Radio explains how this is financially possible,
"When quizzed as to how Mixed Blood will meet its bills, Reuler says in the past box office receipts have only made up 15-18 percent of the annual budget, and there is enough money in reserve to make it through the first year at least."
Of course that "money in reserve" belongs to you, in the sales taxes you pay to the state. The Minneapolis Star Tribune adds that,
"Revenue from ticket sales has been an important but declining part of the $1.4 million budget as the playhouse has ramped up fundraising efforts. "Radical Hospitality" will be funded in part by foundations, individuals and the Legacy Amendment, said Reuler....'The costs are still there, but they are being borne by others,' said Reuler. 'Theaters get funding for programming, for operations and for special programs. We're getting funding for our users, and putting them first.' "
In putting its audience first, Mixed Blood is putting your money first, as it explains on its website,
"Funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund will support the launch of Radical Hospitality in 2011-12, with individual, corporate and philanthropic sponsorships sustaining no-cost admission beyond next season."
City Pages fills in some details,
"Starting September 16 [2011] with the opening of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Neighbors, Mixed Blood Theatre will travel into the unknown. Not with its offerings, but with ticket cost. At that point, admission for anyone to all main stage productions will be free.
As for the kick-off production, City Pages notes that,
"Reuler saw Neighbors in Los Angeles and instantly knew the explosive comedy would be a fit for the theater even though it had several of his least favorite things, including being over two-hours long and having an intermission."
Ah, the explosive comedy that had patrons running for the exits. Curious about the content of this play, and whether such audience revulsion had more to do with the play (the nature of the material presented) or with us (a squeamish, flyover demographic), I tracked down some reviews of other productions of Neighbors from the coasts.
The New York Times liked the play, but their review spends at least ten paragraphs wringing their hands over the controversial elements in the show.
The Los Angeles Times wrote about the play back in 2010, opening with the sentence,
"Just when you thought beer summits were so 2009, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ bracing satire “Neighbors,” now at the Matrix Theatre, turns up to mess with your lazy liberal self."
The Times notes that author "Jacob-Jenkins knows that rage plays best as savage humor, and he takes us to excruciatingly awkward places--and then leaves us to fend for ourselves."
Back to the East Coast, the Boston Globe covers the play and reveals that the audience reaction was exactly what its Fulbright-winning playwright intended,
"The playwright’s aim in the interludes is to bring audience members to a place of complicated emotion, where humor mingles with grotesquerie. 'What happens when you take those kinds of ideas as far as you can go?' he asked. 'Then it becomes something that you don’t want to look at.' "
The Globe adds an interesting footnote on the earlier, New York production,
"At the Public Theater in New York, where “Neighbors’’ was staged last year, the play was heckled three times, Jacobs-Jenkins said. It also attracted a small, angry group who came to every talkback — and to an event uptown at the Juilliard School — and attempted to shame him."
Perhaps, then, it wasn't us after all.
The impeccably liberal Huffington Post reports on the Boston production and asks the tough questions, like,
"Is it an offensive play because it re-awakens appalling stereotypes from a painful past without offering new answers?"
"Most important: What do we want from theater, from art? To ensconce the sacred? To capture some mythological universality about experience and history? To splay our deepest anxieties and catastrophes -- as a country, community or individual-across a stage?"
My answer? Do whatever you want, just do it with your own money.
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