J. Michael Miller
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 2, No. 3, July 2010
J. Michael Miller’s Response to Ben Cameron
My response to Ben Cameron’s vision of our future: This is not to be read as a debate, but as an invitation for dialog, with Ben and others.
Ben: “Every chapter brings a sense of loss as a new chapter opens. If there is no anxiety, you’re not really contemplating change.”
Michael: What you say is wise reflection, but does not necessarily speak to the moment. Anxiety is not just a psychological condition, subject to re-evaluation. Chickens, not the most brainy of birds, know when the fox is about to get in the hen house. Their anxiety leads to strategies for survival, because the change that awaits them is unacceptable. Our theatre is entering that chicken’s state of anxiety, and we deeply feel, not the prospect of a lost profession, but of a loss of an art form that plumbs our sense of our own humanity. Or should. Norms will, should and must, change. Conditions will change belief systems. But truths will persist, and must be acknowledged. That, I submit, is as key to our survival and advancement as change and adjustment. Mozart will be as important and revelatory to future generations, even though his currency may seem non-existent. There are human values that must continue to serve us as we evolve.
Ben: “In retrospect, the notion of the Artistic Home may have inadvertently been interpreted as promoting insular, hermetic environments that kept the artist shielded from the world. Now that sense of insularity is being dismantled…..”
Michael: “I assume you are referring to the time of permanent theatre companies, when you speak of artistic home. But the fact is that most actors no longer seek that hermetic haven, yet yearn for an artistic home in the sense of an open place in which to work that values what they have to give. Technology cannot replace them. It is not so much the technology that defeats them, but the bottom line mentality that undermines or at least intrudes upon their every possibility to reach an audience. Technology may be becoming their tool, in this technological age, but it is the corporate mentality that turns the best of intentions into the most compromised of efforts. And that is largely true of our not-for-profit, chamber of commerce oriented theatres.”
Ben: “The new chapter may be that the artist must be of the world, not apart from it. This could also place a new role on the artist as cultivating arts participation, not mere observation….”
Michael: One could say that artists have always been of the world, rather than apart from it. “The most human of humans.” For centuries, artists began as apprentices, laboring like their neighbor. Only the most gifted survived, and they survived because they saw life and their fellow man with uncommon honesty and sense of possibility. People with that gift exist today, but we want them to do something else. We want them to make money or to go out into the community, and they do. But that can be misuse of a precious resource. Everybody thinks they can act, and with the advent of reality shows on television, anybody can. The fact is that the number of truly gifted actors in America may be less than the number of players in the National Basketball Association, and the NBA searches increasingly world wide to find players talented enough to help an American team. We have over 300 million people in this country, and we have trouble finding a sufficient number of basketball players? When there is a hoop on almost every garage door in America. Well, we have the same problem with actors of that caliber, and I believe they are much more important to the health of our society than Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. And those guys are surrounded by the best other players the team can sign. Is that true in our theatre? When are we, as a society, going to recognize that the most gifted people among us need the room and opportunity to serve us all?
There are major artists who do not get to contribute to this society. That has been a fact for centuries, but one would think we would learn, adapt and take advantage. Thank you, Ben, for your thoughts and for allowing us to publish them. There is some distance between your vision and my anxiety, and I hope it can be bridged in a way that most benefits us all. Hoping you can find time and are willing to continue this dialog in the future.
All best, Michael