AFK DEATH

Celandine Films

NOTHING QUESTIONS PRIORITIES LIKE DEATH, whether impending or passed, close or distant, singular or grouped. It sharpens up focus for a bit, asking pointedly what actually matters. For a bit, anyway. The duration of the effect varies as wildly as the circumstances. This enforced clarity and reassessment could go on for months, or merely moments. Still, when the end of all things is unambiguous, most people will at least reconsider their activities, regardless. Like the Moon, it is, from anyone's position, the same Moon. No way around it. Likewise, for everybody, sooner or later, it passes.

Shortly after David Bowie died, it occurred to me that I'd been seeing something for quite awhile, maybe for years, without previously noticing it, that is a note about this priorities effect. It has become important for those who typically conduct much of their socializing online to, in the event of a death, go online to tell everyone they'll be offline for awhile. In the first waves of loss, technologically based communication is one of the first things to go. Cutting back to the most important things, they unplug. Social media aren't top priority for their most critical human needs during those times. 
 

As I said, death will have that sort of effect, wiping out all but the most necessary functions or even thinking, but that unplugging behavior says something about our relationship with media. Mind you, the near parade of celebrity deaths in recent months -- weeks, even -- was populated primarily by relatively elderly people, and their unplugging families have been far beyond the demographic of those grew up online, so that's likely to figure quite a bit in prioritizing daily postings to cold shut down. I think. Maybe. Maybe...not entirely. Now that I'm conscious of this, I'll be keeping my eye out. The problem with that idea is someone younger would have to die. Well, that's no good, and it brings in a whole different set of variables, but would I likewise see their surviving relations post up "Please respect our privacy in this difficult time. We'll be offline for awhile" in all of their feeds? (I know, that's what "interns" are for...) What is it about unplugging that is, in a traumatic time, more important than staying in touch online? What does that do or prevent that it can't by keeping the screen lit?

Solo theatre writer/performer Dan Hoyle -- journalistic theatre, he calls it -- isn't nearly as old as Lemmy, Bowie, Maurice White, Meadowlark, Haskel Wexler, Wes Craven, Christopher Lee, B. B. King, Pratchett, Nimoy, Bob Elliott, Alan Rickman, Vilmos Zsigmond or... (sigh).. but in his current stage show "Each And Every Thing", he addresses our relationships with media past and present, posing some questions via an array of characters as well as himself. There's even a segment on a retreat in -- where else? -- Northern California called the Digital Detox. There's acknowledgement of the awkwardness of human interaction being offset by the handy distractions of mobile, as well as an admittedly romantic analysis of that forum of democratic discourse, the newspaper. Scenes in the Indian social institution of coffeehouse present different shapes of engagement and idleness in the noise. Is a binary on/off, plug/unplug radical switch from one mode to the other necessary or is integration possible? Just how should we prioritize our engagement normally? 

 

Portland Center Stage

Surely trauma isn't the only method by which we pose such questions. The notebook freezes, the phone bricks, the subway computer system borks, somebody dies after a long struggle with cancer... Seems like, just in our peripheral view, we already have some sense of what we genuinely care about, what we seriously think is just more clickbait. We may be our own worst trolls. Who's gotta die next before we'll starve the troll?

Bowie

photo: Jimmy King

Drive to the Curtain: Relationships

IN REAL LIFE, THEATRE PRODUCTION isn’t as difficult as some people insist on  making it. No, really. This shit isn’t that hard. I understand, however, that,  in any and all kinds of life, there are those who don’t feel real unless they create drama. It follows that a field of work devoted to making drama would be  conducive to making more drama than is needed to, uh… make drama. I prefer my drama scripted. I like calendars. I plan things. I make art. I work with people who make art. I also work with technicians and managers. Most of them want to get the job done, and done well, without more stress than necessary. I’m there. That’s what I want, too, and I work toward that, beginning with my first contact with everyone I’m going to work with on an upcoming project. I let them know from the get-go that I really want things to go smoothly.

It can’t be that tough. Really.

It seems that at least ninety percent of the professional work I’ve done in my life has involved some form of customer service. That’s not special, but I think calling it that is a bit of a broader view than most people take on what they do.  Basically, you and someone else are engaging in a transaction in which they’re  trying to get what they want — usually by paying you or your company — and  you’re trying to give them what they want because you’re getting paid to do so.  You got the goods, they got the dough. It’s up to you to provide everything,  including what the other person doesn’t know about but should. That’s basically customer service. (By the way, no, sales is not customer service, although it’s  been called that for decades, at least. Pitching somebody something they don’t actually need, or even want, until they cough up money isn’t “service” by any stretch of the  imagination. It’s domination.) You’re paying attention to what the other person wants or needs and trying to get it for them. If you’re both doing that, you’ve  got a relationship developing. That can go a long way to the both of you getting things done now and later. Compassion is involved here, empathy, that sort of  thing. It can be very productive. It’s mostly a matter of paying attention and, frankly, giving a shit.

Like I said, it doesn’t have to be that hard.

IN RENTAL VENUES, ESPECIALLY, I find production personnel to be the happiest when  they’re working a show that is well organized, appropriately scaled to the facility and staff, prompt but easygoing — in short, professional. The relationship is developed here, in those planning emails and phone calls, during  the load-in and rehearsal. By the time we all get to the first performance call-time, venue personnel should be both prepared and relaxed. Who doesn’t do well  when they’re enjoying the work? If your show is the least stressful thing they have to do this month, the venue staff will want you back. Next time, it’ll  be even easier for everybody.

Oh, sure, there might be some tech or manager or admin who just can’t be bothered to do their job, thus making others’ work harder than it needs to be. Ideally, that person doesn’t last with the organization long, or, at least, gets cut out of some of the jobs. Commonly, trouble like this can start at the top. If so, unfortunately, a good, professional tech staff can’t very well tell the artistic director to stay the hell out of the way. That’s an internal problem, and I’m coming in from outside that troubled world to work my own relationships. As a client, I expect  professional treatment. As a collegue, I give just that. The negligent, the  abusive, the unprofessional I do my best to avoid. No good relationships are available there, nope. Waste of my time.

Live performance productions can be very, very complex, yet big groups of people with disparate skills and motivations get ‘em up and running all the time. I’ve worked on teeny tiny productions that were painfully difficult to put together  because there was at least one key person who refused to develop civil  relationships with anybody else. Any size production gets done because people pay attention to one another and cooperate. Kinda like… Real Life.

photo: Sandy Carson