{"id":83,"date":"2016-04-02T13:54:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T13:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/?page_id=83"},"modified":"2016-04-05T14:55:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T14:55:03","slug":"editorial-comment-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/editorial-comment-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial Comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Randy Gener<\/strong>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Gener\"<\/p>\n

Volatility. If there\u2019s one word to sum up the times we\u2019re living in, that would have to be it. In the interviews posted in this new issue of Critical Stages<\/i>, the featured artists usually aver that stillness is illusory. The most carefully laid-out path can suddenly shift and change overnight. Even when you have very little to begin with, a force can come along\u2014a financial crisis, say, or a missed opportunity or a critical misstep\u2014and take it all away. Every artist, as Beckett famously stated, must come to accept the burden of failure weighing them down.<\/p>\n

It can weigh down an artist\u2019s work, too. The memory of a lived moment may not linger in the mind clearly enough to be re-captured. A particular event that becomes a social or political lightning rod of sorts may be too huge to reproduce or too fast moving to pin down. The world is a mobile object, always changing and transforming while simultaneously being propelled through time and space.<\/p>\n

Reality\u2019s inconstancy makes Robert Wilson\u2019s view of the artist\u2019s function both naive and axiomatic. \u201cArtists are recording our times, and the artists are the diaries of our times,\u201d the American director once said in a public conversation at the Opera Bastille in Paris. \u201cIn the future, this is what society will look back on as a record of our time, what artists are saying.\u201d In this sense, artists engage in creative interplay. Yes, they pay witness to what they see, hear, experience and grasp. Yes, they gather facts, documents, photographs, transcripts, materials and stories after a period of intense research and exploration. Yes, artists hold up a mirror to the world\u2014just as surely as they view it through a lens. Artists re-present the world. Just as surely as they reflect it, they refract it through the lens of their subjectivity. The politics of difference, the nature of identity, the practice of tolerance, the reality of acceptance, the curve of ideologies prevailing in a culture\u2014these are some of the discourses and convictions that artists, especially theatre artists, bring into greater, sharper focus through their work. This is not just a matter of artists being in constant conversation with reality. Seen in this wider context, theatre artists, with their bravura skills, are more constitutionally equipped to become \u201ccitizen theatre-makers\u201d than traditionalists may be willing to admit.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Gener\"<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Randy Gener<\/strong> is a founding board member of Critical Stages<\/i> and editor of the Interviews section. www.randygener.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u00ab Comment obtenir une pi\u00e8ce \u00e0 la fois r\u00e9aliste et stylis\u00e9e, c\u2019est la question que je me pose chaque fois \u00bb \u2014 Interview with Suzie Bastien, Quebec Playwright from Canada<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u00ab Parce que je ne voulais pas ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 une dictature id\u00e9ologique \u00bb \u2014 Entretien avec Shabman Tolouei, com\u00e9dienne, auteure et metteure en sc\u00e8ne iranienne<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

Rooting for Indie Theatre Wherever Indie Theatre Exists \u2014 Interview with Leonard Jacobs, U.S. Journalist, Critic and Founder of Clyde Fitch Report<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u201cA Space That Moves Beyond \u2018Gallery\u2019 or Even \u2018Installation\u2019 \u201d \u2014 Interview with Wingspace Theatrical Design Members Caite Hevner, Dylan McCullough and Lee Savage<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u201cThe Hub for the Next Generation of Morbidly-Gifted Asian American Talent\u201d \u2014 Interview with Victor Maog, U.S. Director<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u201cTheatre Was at the Avant-Garde of Perestroika\u201d \u2014 Interview with Val\u00e9ry Shadrin, General Director of the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Russia<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u201cTo Capture Something Out of the Air\u201d: Original Live Theatre in Los Angeles \u2014 Interview with Alicia Hoge Adams, U.S. Producer, Writer, Designer and Actress<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>\n

\u201cWe Grow Like Rings on a Tree\u2014Outward, But Not Radically Changing Shape\u201d \u2014 Interview with Christine Evans, U.S.-based, U.K.-Australian Playwright<\/a><\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Randy Gener[1] Volatility. If there\u2019s one word to sum up the times we\u2019re living in, that would have to be it. In the interviews posted in this new issue of Critical Stages, the featured artists usually aver that stillness is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-83","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","","tg-column-two"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7qGXm-1l","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}