Overlapping Circles of Connection
Posted by Paula Vogel on 6/06/2008
One of the moving things about life in the theatre is that there is this great sense of synchronicity: as I move into a new (small) space, in these past two days, I’ve been roaming through the streets and the spaces at the Yale School of Drama where Sarah Ruhl has already been; I’ve been passing by the theatre where soon Polly will set up residence (and someday, I hope, I’ll get to see Jessica’s work–). Yesterday, in a break, I had a dinner with my new second year playwrights; out of the corner of my eye, I watched the senator from Illinois’s delegate count edge towards the nomination, as we talked about the upcoming Yale Rep production of Passion Play.
The overlapping circles of connection, influence, missed connection, my best friend from school knows your best friend from school kind of layers, I’m in New Haven thinking of the performance at the Steppenwolf tonight–these levels of human complexity are exactly what Dead Man’s Cell Phone celebrates, and mourns the slide into solipsism that an addiction to technology brings. We must treasure the overlapping circles, and here, at a school where there have been generations of theatre artists, I do.
Still, although I love being where I am, in the midst of writers, in the midst of discussions about Steppenwolf, and Sarah, and Chicago theatre with young artists in New Haven, I rue the inability to stop everything and get on a plane and see the amazing synergy that occurs when Jessica Thebus, Sarah Ruhl and Polly Noonan are in the same room and place, the home of Chicago.
When a young artist walks through the door of my office (a short while ago in Providence, Rhode Island, and soon in New Haven) and launches into an animated discussion of theatre with a certain passion and sureness, I always ask: where did you grow up? And usually there are two or three answers: Seattle, Minneapolis, or Chicago.
Maybe it’s in the drinking water of Chicago, but there’s something Chicago has been doing that is so right in the raising of generations. Sarah once observed that there was a unique mindset from being raised in a city where she learned to love theatre at the same time she learned to love baseball.
And then again, it must also be Joyce Piven, whose impact in raising generations created unique circles of warrior/collaborators like Sarah and Polly.
And then again, hats off to the Steppenwolf, formed by a circle of warrior/collaborators who unpacked their bags in Chicago, and pledged to be true to themselves in the act of being true to theatre and each other. A revolutionary act.
I am thinking of you all this last week. I can’t wait to welcome Polly to my new home town. I can’t wait to see Jessica Thebus across the table again. Likewise, to catch up with Martha Lavey. And to have another cup of tea with Sarah.
Whatever you’ve been doing, Chicago, to give such amazing artists to the American theatre, keep doing it, please!