Working on Antigone – I’m aware that generation divides have a long history in the western world and in the theatre.
That children desperately want distance and difference from their parents is so engrained in modern western thought as to be cliché when spoken aloud. The field of psychoanalysis is built around this want.
We are also in a specific time of generational shift. A massive and incredibly privileged generation in the Boomers is getting older. This is causing institutional upheaval all over the place. Theatre is no exception. In Canada, many of our mid-sized theatres were started by Boomers – inspired by the Massey Commission, Trudeau money and alt.theatre.nationalism.
We are no longer in those times, and questions of what comes next and how it comes is very much in the air.
Along with this, there is a mini-baby boom happening with mid-30s artists (at least where I am) – this also changes things: suddenly stability, parental leave and daycare are issues for the “emerging” class. People with babies and mortgages (not to mention years of experience) are less likely to wait patiently.
No matter what the strategies and tactics end up being, pretending there’s no generational difference or tension is irresponsible and naive.
A few things I’m thinking about generations:
Beware of speaking of progress
We need to see these differences and tensions outside the frame of linear progress. Things are not moving only in one, progressive, way.[1] The new doesn’t surpass, oust or necessarily improve the old.
Different times and ages require different responses. Looking for an “objective” better-or-worse is probably unhelpful.
Change subjects us all.
The privilege to deny difference.
(A great video game metaphor for explaining privilege)
- “Race doesn’t matter” says the Caucasian.
- “There’s no glass ceiling” says the man.
- “Class doesn’t effect success” says the wealthy.
- “The generational divide is a construct” says the generation in power.
Generational power is weird wonky stuff.
The trouble is that no one thinks they’re “in power.”
We can fetishize the aesthetic of young bodies, while dismissing the thoughts of young minds.
We can insist on experience and “out of the box thinking”.
We dismiss grey-hairs as conservative or old fashioned while relying on their wisdom, experience and resources.
It’s happening all over.
“Now entering retirement age, Boomer administrators are finding themselves hovering between holding on and letting go of their current leadership positions in a field they largely established. The next generation is markedly different from theirs, however, and they are apprehensive about handing over the reins.”
–(from Boomers, XY’s and the Making of a Generational Shift in Arts Management by Victoria J. Saunders
I believe in mentorship and the wisdom of elders. Experience is real and time on the deck can make us better. And there is something important about change and letting go.
Diversity mandates must include a generational diversity more substantial and honest than
fetishizing the next hot young thing,
supporting the younger artists who make work that is most like the work of the artists before them
and/or condescending to give under 35’s[2] a “break.”
It must include respect and meaningful relationships with elders and experience while acknowledging that there will be consequent difference in intent, aesthetics and approaches – artistically and administratively. These differences will sometimes mean disagreement and conflict.
Finding ways to navigate these questions is going to be the work for the next 5-10 years.
There is a phrase I have heard quite often from the over 35 set who have found success in the theatre world. Not that I’m subscribing to your daft categories, but the “Generation X” is to a great extent the generation in control.”Don’t they know who I am?”
This is unfortunately the position taken by most of the “leaders” of the theatre community in Canada that are in this category – whatever theses they’ve had published on working together and holding hands under the great banner of art notwithstanding. With a “theatre scene” that is relatively small (I’m talking about the number of people who actually get paid a salary to do the work of artists – not about the thousands who shell out for shit service and crap attitude from various “fringe” festivals), it is unsurprising that the people who make most of the decisions that affect the under 35s have adopted this attitude.
It’s not about baby-boomers letting go of the reins. It’s about baby-boomers who don’t have an exit strategy, and would sooner jump of a bridge than let someone else take their gig.
It also means PM Harper was bang-on in his comments about Art in Canada – theatrical or otherwise. We live in a country where the elders we are supposed to learn from have a vested interest in smacking down anyone who is a potential threat to their audience base, their funding or their social status. Our arts community is, to a great extent, being run by artists who are terrified of their irrelevance and know that if they lose the approval of the entitled upper-middle-classes they will be relegated to the sidelines where they have to beg for their dinner. By their standards it’s much more important to judge the theatre youth of today by how much time they volunteer for you, how many friends they bring to your shows, how much they praise you and how ready they are to do a few jobs at sub-union wages so that your company benefits from their work. “If just one person is affected by our show” is no longer an argument that gets any points from me, especially when I’m the one who’s banked paying the rent on my participation in a project.
There is also the problem that yes – very little has improved or even stayed stable for the upcoming generation of AD’s and artistic producers. Therefore, it is essential to the older generation that the new crowd learn to keep their mouths shut and eat the same shit they did – otherwise, everything falls apart. If you doubt this, read the “open letter to Ken” that circulated a while ago. The ousted AD is happy to sink his board, the board is happy to ignore the AD’s concerns, and the “objective voice” spends all his time moaning that it’s all just so nasty and the AD should be more conciliatory in defeat or it might upset the whole system. I have to say I’ve never read a more carefully worded “shut the fuck up an know your place” letter, or one that more closely resembled someone writing to a date rape victim to “keep quiet, or no-one will want to date girls like you.” So if people are smart, they’ll take note of whomever is promoting that particular bit of prose as sensible or helpful, and avoid working with them or supporting their work.
Let me describe to you the day I gave up, completely, on the idea of a career in theatre in Canada that didn’t involve being a sycophantic toad for the benefit of “my betters.” In one month the over-35 AD I worked with (the one with kids, and the second job, but with a 20+ year old company and loads of “community support”) cited a very talented young playwright’s work as finally being “mature” because it had no swearing in it, claimed that my own work was “the most beautiful thing he had ever seen” but that there was no way he would ever hire me to direct for him, and then proceeded to claim that the drug-addled kid from the shelter next door to the company offices – who threatened his staff with death – didn’t need the police called on him, but instead would do well to accept free tickets to his latest show about middle-class over-40 angst. This ass-hat sits on peer juries for arts funding in his home province, and decided to parlay his experience as a “community leader” into running for office. And he’s supposedly one of the “good guys” who has built up the strong theatre community in his city, which no-one should ever criticize. Christ on a bike. I still work occasionally for this person, but shall be failing to do so in future (any work I get is given at the last minute, and apparently it’s OK for me to dump clients who have paid me because it’s more important to help the theatre company. Yeah, fuck that – it’s more important that I eat and sleep).
Those in their mid-30’s with kids and other real concerns should recognize that working in theatre is not a “profession” in the same sense that other work is. Good work is more often punished than rewarded if it’s not good in the right way. Being a member of CAEA means spending your life waiting to be handed work instead of making it. Feeding the ridiculous argument about theatre/art’s power to help improve society doesn’t help – it just allows these sorts of vacuous AD’s to perpetuate the myth that their egomania is somehow justified.
If you do want to contribute to some change over the next 5-10, treat the older generation the way they deserve to be treated. The correct answers to the question at the top of my post would be “Why should anyone give a rat’s ass who you are?” and “Well, I know who you are, and I think you’re not really worth knowing that well.” When the person you give these answers to starts ranting about their work as an artist, “So you directed a successful play. I have too. What gives you permission to be a prick?” would be a good follow-up.
Otherwise, whatever the value of your work to “the community” is as an artist, you are in the business of show. Whatever the funding source, and whatever the “art” you are making is, you make money by doing what artists have done since art was born – find someone who needs their metaphorical cock sucked, and make sure you blow them with as much artistry and skill you can muster. Eventually, you may just rise to a position where you can get your ego stroked-off by those who want to succeed like you have.