Does theater matter? Some sobering answers from the internet

The weekend approaches, and your theater plans are with appearance of truth already made. But wait.  Perhaps you’ve already broken your heart trying to induce into the ridiculously long list of portentous plays in fancy productions (The Motherf**ker by the Hat, Good People, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to…, Jerusalem, The Normal Heart, School despite Lies, etc.), and so you’d like to take a step back to design about the wider ramifications of theater in the creation. (Getting iced out of a situation always offers opportunity for reflection.) Suddenly, you bewilderment.: Does theater make an impact? Are we the whole of just obsessed with entertainment that ultimately lives and dies in its be in possession of little bubble? Is there a message between our values and the boards?

Nothing makes me go into a torture-spiral about these issues like the Tony Awards effect, so this week has been specially fraught. In Jason Zinoman’s sensitive article on Slate, he makes the condition that two of the above plays (Motherf***er and Good People) pigment a portrait of our contemporary connection so necessary, so incisive and discerning, that they actually make Broadway (and the Tonys) suitable again. Hallelujah, Jason Zinoman. Of road, lest we forget, this was a week in that the CUNY folk tried to give Tony Kushner an honorary degree, tabled it on this account that a non-academic board member objected to Kushner’s science of government and then backpedalled like a negligent newsboy—and during the press mishegas, unit board member said “I have ~t any idea who Mr. Kushner is.” Zinoman points gone ~ that Kushner’s current play isn’t equal eligible for a Tony, but ever, Kushner must be our most distinguished living American playwright, and he’s won plenty little gold statues in his ended. So even if, as Zinoman says, the Tonys are apposite again, nothing—but nothing—can structure some people pay attention. And without interrupti~ that heartening note: Have a upright weekend everybody!