The Sparrow, Part I

In the absence of an "effective general mythology," writes Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces, each person, in his dreams, furnishes himself with a particular language of dreams and images springing forth from deep beneath consciousness that expresses all of the terrors, angst, and exhilaration stemming from confrontations with the movement across the stages of life. Psychoanalysis, for Campbell (what he calls the "modern science of the reading of dreams"), represents an effort to navigate and understand these images so as to successfully bring full mental effort to bear on the quotidian, trivial, and many times (for Campbell) regressive tasks into which we are inextricably woven by virtue of our having been born in the USA in the second half of the 20th century.

Mythology, however, has always been a living metaphor through which such dreams have found meaning. Mythology, in every culture, according to Campbell, guides us, teaches us, and reassures us as we take on new roles in our development. For Campbell, life in the USA has an inherently regressive character. In a more mature society, mythology establishes social conventions through which its inhabitants actually take on new roles both internally and externally. In the USA, psychoanalysis aims to ameliorate internal tensions of development to enable participation in an external fantasy of everlasting youth. Mythology aims to guide the individual internally through such tensions--as well as teach societies of the nature of social roles which we all, simply by virtue of certain constants of the nature of the human the human experience, must confront.

There is a universal form to both creation and hero myths, that, according to Campbell, expresses these tensions across every cultural barrier. It should not surprise us that adolescents facing their own pressing crises of development have relied throughout the 20th century on comic books of all sorts, movie myths (Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, for example), and sports stars and athletics as their guides. We laugh at the archetypal gawky teenage boy in braces, hanging out at the comic book shop. But this aesthetic impulse reflects, specifically, what Campbell is talking about.

One role of storytelling, in this formulation, is the contemporary reinvention of the mythological forms. But something has happened in the 20th century, apart from what Campbell sees as the aforementioned regressive permanence of the American glorification of youth. Artists have grown deeply afraid of myth, in my view. Sarah Kane's work articulates this fear, especially in Red Orchid's current production of Blasted. Blasted is more than an absurd portrayal of violence and war--it is a systematic attack on the idea that we can be safely guided in large-scale questions of war and death by storytelling itself. Storytelling, narrative, and myth all retrospectively make some sense of violence as the result of a meaningful chain of causality. But the experience of violence, especially the violence enacted by the contemporary war-machine, is highly decontextualized. There is no army approaching the countryside in wars with sensible causes. There are bombs that drop randomly from the sky, and soldiers who appear out of nowhere. The traditional forms of storytelling, for Kane, when it comes to violence, are inherently misleading, except from a most facile perspective.

As participants in a western democracy, we vote, from a safe distance, by way of just these very facile, inaccurate narratives of violence, whether they are supplied by the media or the strictly creative artist. We encounter these narratives between Cheerios and the morning paper. We never experience the true, decontextualized nature of violence in war. And thus, Sarah Kane has made works that illustrate this non-narrative, senseless reality.

I have meditated at length on this blog as to The Pillowman and Martin McDonagh's perspective on questions of the balance between suffering as a result of, and truthfulness in, art. My interpretation of the Pillowman holds that Katurian's stories are necessarily meaningful, if flawed, and that his brother's response to those stories is not necessarily one of mechanistic recreation. However, The Pillowman is the perfect vessel for the questions of the contemporary artist's fear of myth, because depending on one's interpretation we see arguments for and against meaning and myth, and arguments that directly press on the nature of readership. Kane, and possibly the director of the Broadway production, might hold that Katurian's stories are infused with narrative meaning, but that readers are too irresponsible in their relationship to story, and will necessarily recreate violence irresponsibly and harmfully. (Actually, Kane might hold that Katurian is deluding himself into believing that narrative can be a vessel for making his experience meaningful, too). Hannah and WB Worthen, in their recent article in Modern Drama, tend toward an interpretation that holds that Katurian's stories are internally devoid of meaning, and therefore become "blank allegories," externally—that is to say: easily subject to a mechanistic recreation.

The ideas woven into Blasted and contained within interpretive discussion of The Pillowman nicely encapsulate the contemporary artistic-intellectual reluctance to embrace myth and meaning as Campbell defines it classically. However, myth has lost none of its currency with audiences either in Hollywood or in publishing--Frank Miller's "300" is the perfect example of this. And the enduring currency of myth may also explain the popularity of Chicago's House Theatre.

The House has succeeded in attracting an impossible demographic (ages 15 to 35) to come out in droves to the Viaduct Theater--which is especially impressive considering The Viaduct's remoteness from CTA lines at Belmont and Western. Commercial and big-time non-profit theater relies on 40+ viewership and that audience’s subscriptions. Any ensemble that can inspire devotion amongst 20-somethings has captured an audience of which every big theater in Chicago is envious, as this is the building block for those theaters' plans for the next generation.

Steppenwolf, I assume for both perfectly altruistic artistic reasons, and to develop a younger audience base, has recently started commissioning many of the younger companies in the city to create work for their Garage space, and occasionally invites current productions to extend their runs in that space too. They have wisely done this with The House's "The Sparrow."

On the Sunday night on which I attended The Sparrow, the devotion amongst 15 to 35 year olds was apparent. Not only was this Sunday evening show sold out (Sunday shows are notoriously tricky for storefronts in Chicago), but also the entire rest of the run was sold out.

I attribute this devotion to a number of factors, aside from general considerations of high-quality work (scores of high-quality productions go perfectly unnoticed): First, a deft guerilla marketing strategy that utilizes the internet and social networks to publicize the House. Then, a reinvention of every detail of the theater-going experience from the moment an audience member enters the space (which also incorporates the marketing strategy)--the net effect of which is that attending a House show is a far less imposing, formal, intimidating cultural experience than attending a show at a more "institutional" theater. Moreover, this reinvention extends to an innovative story-telling technique that utilizes the cinematic and visual possibilities at a theater's disposal in addition to design work that creates events with sound and light in previously unseen and viscerally effective ways. They also creatively use dance and incorporate physical storytelling into their work.

Most importantly, however, in my view, they embrace contemporary reimaginations of the ancient mythological structure in original work. This embrace of myth by The House is tantamount to their endorsement of meaning in storytelling--and their staking out a significant position with respect to the theater's pressing dilemma on some of the questions previously considered here. The success of this focus is tantamount to a ratification of meaning in storytelling by the American theater's most elusive target--20-somethings. They are thirsting for this type of work and the House is providing it.

Other prominent directors, like Mary Zimmerman and JoAnne Akalitis have done and continue to do excellent work in the mythological vein. But The House's work differs in two respects--it almost universally utilizes contemporary scenarios (along the mythological lines) and it lives within its own universe. In Akalitis' work especially, there is an active "standing outside of the text" by the ensemble performing. This amounts to a contemporary running commentary on the ancient texts that she reimagines. This is fine and important work. But there is no "meta-theatricality" in The House's work. While they are happy to break the fourth wall, their work is in earnest, and is contained within an enactment of the world they have imagined, apart from running commentary on that world. This work is clearly in demand.

In part two of this article, I'll try to survey the work being done by the House in The Sparrow. Their work is rich: and a document of this densely packed, technically detailed work is bound to be a bit long. However, I believe that the House will be an important theater in the future of Chicago theater and that we should study their methods in order to understand what audiences are responding to right now.