Brave, new, needy
The “Brave New World” series of 9/11-linked plays is a positive thing, I think (I’m referring to the marathon of new play readings going on at Town Hall in the City). There are enough obscure playwrights on the schedule to make me think that the event amounts to more than celebrity preening, even though the organization didn’t accept unsolicited scripts and there are a lot of big guns involved. At any rate, all ticket receipts are going to charity. But I do have a quibble. In the website’s mission statement is the following phrase:
We believe that an artistic response is essential towards understanding not only the repercussions of terrorism on our most intimate relationships, but also the reasons for a type of warfare that is grinding away at the foundations of cultures around the world.
We artistic people feel an intense need to matter. And, being sensitive types, traumatic events may well nag us more than most people. So the desire to play an active role in the response to 9/11 is understandable. Perhaps it even leads to good art, in some cases. But that doesn’t make us essential in coming to terms with terrorism. The open dialogue of a free society, the formulation of a decisive national policy, and compassionate service on behalf of those personally afflicted are and have been the indispensable follow-up to what happened a year ago from tomorrow. Art can help with the healing — and I’m hoping the music at Central Park tomorrow night helps me — but it’s still optional. Provocative, enlightening, comforting — those are all good things to be. Why do we have to be essential?
Posted by Scott Reynolds at September 10, 2002 05:22 PM
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