Playing Home and Away
Posted by Martha Lavey on 5/25/2006
We begin the final weekend of performances for Love-Lies-Bleeding at Steppenwolf today. Tech rehearsals at the Kennedy Center start on June the 15th, and we open the show in the Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, June the 18th. We will do eight shows the following week, closing on Sunday June the 25th. I’ll be very interested to see if audiences in Washington respond to the show differently in any way from our Steppenwolf Chicago audiences.
Over the years, we have taken a number of shows to other cities, nationally and internationally. The venues have ranged from the large commercial houses on Broadway; to large, subsidized theaters like the National Theatre and the Barbican Theatre in London; to international festivals in Ireland and Australia; to the smaller houses of off-Broadway; to other regional theaters in the United States like the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, or most recently, the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.
It’s always interesting to observe how the re-contextualization of a production nuances its reception. When Steppenwolf tours a show, we are a visiting company – the “event” of the production is different. At Steppenwolf, we are your hometown theater: you make the choice to attend Love-Lies-Bleeding against your other Chicago theater choices. You are more likely weighing factors like subject matter, actor/playwright/director personnel, or the show’s reviews and word-of-mouth. When we visit another city (and perhaps, most particularly, when we visit another country), local audiences are more likely to be electing to see a Steppenwolf show. They may know the reputation of the theater and want to see the work of the theater, whatever the play or artists be. They want to see a Steppenwolf show, to experience the theater about which they have read.
The differences in expectations that I have just described do not apply in every case – folks in Chicago and folks in cities that we visit come with more and less knowledge and experience of the theater. (And in the case of Love-Lies-Bleeding in DC, some of the people in the audience will be my family members living in the area. Quite frankly they’re there to see their daughter, their sister, their niece. Talk about pressure). But again, the re-contextualization is interesting. Mostly because it points toward the impact of frame on understanding and experiencing event.
I noticed this particularly in our recent transfer of after the quake to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven. Our ensemble member, Frank Galati, adapted after the quake from the short stories, gathered under the same title, by Haruki Murakami. Frank directed the production in our Upstairs Theatre for our subscription series. Frank has an international reputation signaled most prominently by his productions of The Grapes of Wrath and Ragtime. He is also an adapter and director who works regularly in Chicago at Steppenwolf, at the Goodman, at the Lyric Opera. We regard him as our Chicago artist. Given Frank’s deservedly illustrious national and international reputation, when after the quake moved to Long Wharf, the show had a different “event” status. This was an opportunity for New Haven audiences to see a singular artist’s work in the intimate confines of the Long Wharf Theatre. The reviews of the play and the audience reception to the play reflected that heightened regard. It’s not that the production was blindly lauded on the basis of Frank’s reputation – it was that the play was received with a level of careful regard accorded to any work rendered by a singular artist. I know, from having conducted post-show conversations with our Steppenwolf audiences, that many members of our audiences were moved and captivated by the work. But I do suggest that the particular opportunity to see Frank’s work in Long Wharf may have altered the audience to a level of attentiveness and regard that disposed them to read the work with its quality and seriousness as givens. This pointedness of attention may apply, as well, to the critical community.
I am by no means making the assertion that to play for hometown audiences is less urgent or gratifying an endeavor. (If anything, the opposite is true). I guess what I am saying is that it is a real privilege and an honor to be able to represent our work, our theater, and by, extension, our city, to other audiences both nationally and internationally. We have a real treasure in Chicago theater because we have great artists we can call our own and because we have the smartest, most adventuresome audiences I have ever encountered. Thank you for that. (And I’ll let you know how Washington goes. The safe bet is that my family will like it…).