prejudice or is the play really the
thing I want to thank you all for coming
and I’m excited to impart to you some of
these ideas which I find interesting and
actually relevant but first I want to
ask you all a question what do you think
of when you hear someone say oh that
person would make a great writer or
there’s something of the artist in you
or maybe you’ve heard someone say
someday they’re going to be a scientist
who you’ve heard things like that what
about when someone says oh you’re such
an actor yeah they’re so dramatic it’s
different isn’t it it has a different
connotation it’s not so neat there’s
such an actor but it’s true this is a
thing people like theater people like
actors I mean the plays the thing is
Hamlet says yes or is it is the play
really the thing well actually I am
today going to talk about this
phenomenon known as the anti theatrical
prejudice because actually it really is
a thing it really is and it permeates
our culture in varying degrees but I
guess the first thing you want to know
is what is this term the anti-v at Racal
prejudice where does that come from
as a matter of fact it was coined by the
scholar Jonas barish in his book
appropriately titled
the ante theatrical prejudice came out
in 1981 and in this book
Jonas barish is introducing this I
this phenomenon known as what he calls
the ante theatrical prejudice and he
traces this thing this weird bias all
the way back to ancient Greece as a
matter of fact he starts with Plato in
Plato’s Republic he decried actors he
disparages the actors art and theater in
general and he offers up two points two
main points one is kind of trippy and
it’s related to that thing known as the
Platonic forms you’ve probably heard of
that the Platonic ideal so everybody
right now close your eyes close your
eyes and imagine if you can a chair
there’s any old chair don’t care what it
is
all right you have a chair good well
Plato would say that the chair you’re
imagining is a particular instance of
chair it is just a kind of chair you
probably have all sorts of different
kinds of chairs and they are
instantiation of the larger more oh you
couldn’t open your eyes up the larger
Universal composite that she calls the
ideal form chair anis if you I don’t
like I’m sure like you you’re like oh my
god the ELMO that’s exactly the chair I
was thinking of I know you too well yeah
so this chair this is the ideal and our
particular versions of chair are copies
of the thing and that goes for anything
in the world in the real world chairs or
or jackets or scarves or or shoes or or
water anything that even halves
tractions justice courage love these are
all ideals and our experiences of them
are imperfect copy things now if you’re
an artist and say you painted a picture
of a chair then that painting would self
be a copy of this copy of chair nuts so
it’s a copy of a copy of the thing not
as good and so with actors we are
copying people which are imperfect
flawed copies
the universal ideal human out there so
actors are copies of copies of the thing
for Plato not cool but then there’s a
more obvious reason
Plato hates actors and it’s probably
something that you’ve all felt yourself
and that is actors are liars they
pretend they make a livelihood of
wearing masks they make a career of
pretending to say what they don’t mean
now pretending to be and do what they
aren’t well how can you trust actors
than with anything it’s kind of weird
and as influential as Plato was a deeper
more powerful long-lasting influence
came around the corner a few centuries
later with Christianity Christianity was
no fan of the theater as a matter of
fact you probably understand why in the
early centuries of Christianity
Christians were tortured they were
murdered they were executed they were
thrown to the beasts they were thrown to
the Lions in those early years of
persecution and where did all of this
happen it happened in theaters so
thousands of people came to Pompeii or
to the Colosseum in Rome and they saw
Christians being tortured and killed it
left kind of a bad taste in the mouth
for many Christians one Christian in
particular the Christian father to
Tholian he wrote a whole book on it he
called it on the spectacles and he said
Christians please whatever you do don’t
go to the theatre
why well you go to the theatre you
wanted to see Christians murdered that’s
no good
you’re gonna go to the theatre you’re
going to see pagan story stories of
Greek and Roman gods and heroes not our
stories at all you go to the theatre and
you will see stories of
bad people doing bad things I’m gonna
return to this one in a bit
finally you go to the theater and
theaters themselves were places of
danger
you could get beat up violence could
happen to you generally there were
cutthroats there so his his request to
all Christians in the world was please
avoid theater at all costs whatever you
do and you know the story here the
Christian Church grew in power it became
the Roman Catholic Church and as it grew
in power and authority so theater was
diminished in the West it was less
officially theaters still straggled but
officially there was no theater for
approximately a thousand years but the
good news as you also know is theater
did okay we survived in fact we
flourished
how many of you know this guy yeah mr.
William Shakespeare some say the
greatest writer in the English language
some say the greatest writer ever of any
language William Shakespeare who was an
actor who was a playwright and he did he
had his own detractors it was not easy
being an actor in the Elizabethan world
one of his detractors was a mr. William
Prynne he was a Puritan who stood on the
street corners and he he derided actors
and anything having to do with the
theatre don’t go to the theatre he was
actually too good at it because he said
anyone associated with anything
theatrical was evil well at the time a
lot of royalty occasionally appeared in
theatrics
will entertainments so he fell on the
wrong side of the King eventually he was
imprisoned he was fined and he had his
ears cut off hence the fashionable
haircut
what william prynne was eventually
drowned out by the success of the
theatre thankfully the theatre has in
the words of Jonas bearish won the long
war against it and aren’t we glad thank
goodness can you imagine the world
without William Shakespeare without the
theater all the plays and the theatrical
events all over the world and if any of
you have been to Times Square Times
Square the hub of Broadway and Ground
Zero for theater in this country its
yeah
it’s it’s doing quite well thank you
very much mr. Prynne and yet the 21st
century we still have vocal detractors
there is still a very present ante
theatrical prejudice right now people
who would like to dismantle the theatre
see it eradicated entirely isn’t that
amazing isn’t that bizarre what are the
reasons for this this bias against
theatre where there are a couple the
usual suspects it shows evil things it
models bad behavior well shoot we we’ve
heard this for eighteen hundred years
since Tertullian yeah and as a matter of
fact there are some problems with this
argument the reasoning goes if I go to
see bad people on stage doing bad things
I will then be influenced to go out in
the world and do bad things but but I’m
like a big boy and I can know when when
I should and shouldn’t do the bad things
that I see on this things moreover have
you heard of an object lesson yeah you
can see things that you shouldn’t do for
instance I can go to see Titus and draw
and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to
leave thinking yeah maybe it’s a good
idea to kill my enemies children and
bake them into pies yeah that’s what I’m
gonna do no but there’s also to follow
the logic of this argument right bad
people doing bad things can influence me
what about good people doing good things
I could go see the theater and watch
good things and be influenced that way
so so to eradicate the theater entirely
for these reasons just doesn’t follow
it’s a pretty shoddy argument there’s
another more insidious reason I told you
I was going to return to this idea the
theater is a dangerous place full of
dangerous people well you’re kind of
dangerous but all the rest of us we go
to the theater were worried that this is
a dangerous place and very often people
are thinking that what they really mean
has to do with sexual licentiousness the
theater is a place of sexual liberality
and license it’s associated with
prostitution and I admit in its early
years there was a deep Association here
heck it was really hard being an actor
was hard to make a living
it was hard just to survive and
sometimes you were forced into
prostitution sometimes you were forced
into what by people who came to see you
in the theater
for instance here we have on the right
here nell gwyn one of the first female
actors of the English stage she was
literally a prostitute serving King
Charles the second you might recognize
her that’s Sarah Bernhardt one of the
greatest actors of her generation her
mother was a prostitute so there is an
association here but I think what we’re
really looking at is something that’s
more ideological there’s the problem
that you go to the theatre you’re gonna
go be with all those theatre people how
many of you heard that ah theatre people
yeah
and I’m talking about theatre people are
also liberal and they have different
sexualities than the mainstream and
gender
and they’re open to other ideas well
there are problems here too
no actually that’s that’s probably a
good thing but it has the same flaws as
the previous argument I’m gonna go
around be people with theater people I’m
probably not going to be influenced I’m
not gonna become gay because I’m around
gay people if that were the case how
come there are gay people who are around
heterosexuals see it just doesn’t work
yeah moreover there’s the problem of
playing these roles and worrying that
that will influence your behavior
outside of the theater and that’s also
problematic I remember there’s a
character from the play The Laramie
Project in which that this young man is
arguing with his family his parents
don’t want him to be in this play it’s
angels in America they don’t want him to
be in a play that has homosexual
characters and and he says his argument
goes something like mom dad this is
ridiculous you saw me in Macbeth last
year you don’t have any problems with
that so I played a crazed murderer and
you had no objections but now I’m going
to play actually a good man but a
homosexual you object to that it’s kind
of crazy isn’t it but that’s part of
this prejudice we’re talking about and
there is this weirdness associated with
the theater where you actually connect
the character with the actor playing
that character and you associate them
with the roles they play I remember my
dad all those years ago he saw Angela
Lansbury play this evil woman in
Manchurian Candidate and he said I’m
never gonna watch her in anything ever
again because she is so evil
now she played very well an evil
character but she is not herself an evil
person but he failed to make that
distinction and he associated the role
she played with the character her own
behavior her own her own personality and
he knew it was irrational but he still
changed the channel whenever murder she
wrote
it’s a weird phenomenon and and I would
like to to introduce you to more maybe a
philosophical problem
here that that also is at work it’s very
interesting this phenomenon and it has
to do with the frame itself I remind you
that theatre comes from the ancient
Greek term Theatron meaning seeing place
it is a place where we go to look at
other people we like to watch so we go
to the theater and we watch these people
and they’re fascinating they’re really
interesting people that charismatic they
do stuff sometimes they dance sometimes
they sing they’re really interesting
sometimes they’re attractive and
something happens while we’re watching
these people we develop a desire for
them we want to be them or we want to
have them and that creates conflict
it creates dissonance because of course
we can’t be then we can’t have them well
we like them we’ve fallen in love with
them for over the last two hours we’ve
been staring at them creates dissonance
creates resentment
it creates prejudice very interesting
and I remind you yes that the theater is
actually a dangerous place a lot can
happen in the theatre you can change
your mind about stuff you can feel
things that you’ve never felt before
if theatre is good it can change you and
that’s dangerous as a matter of fact
authoritarian governments understand
that only too well as soon as they smell
the whiff of political or economic
upheaval the first thing they do is they
shut the theatres down keep that in mind
and for 2,000 years we have developed a
a 2000 year old put down you’re so
dramatic
but it has overreaching concerns outside
the theater it can permeate political
and cultural activities for instance I
just saw recently on a Facebook posting
there was a political figure posing with
her daughter and there were all these
detractions underneath and there were
the people speaking against her but but
one in particular caught my eye and and
I’m serious it said it will serve her
right if her daughter grows up to be a
prostitute or worse yet an actor
20:18 they actually said this yeah now
my desire is not to move into the realm
of politics here except to show you that
this is actually a thing the anti
theatrical prejudice is at work and it
can exert powerful influence unconscious
influence on what we do so so I would
ask you now to think about going out
into the world how can you recognize
this prejudice can you recognize it in
yourselves do you ever associate people
with the characters they play yeah do
you see the NEA being cut is that an
activity that that has somewhere in it
the germ of anti theatrical prejudice
maybe what else can you do out in the
world will support the theater support
it in our schools support it with with
your neighbors with the community watch
rise on TV yeah go see a play or better
yet be in one because as a matter of
fact the theater is one of the greatest
cultural phenomena of our species we we
have Shakespeare we have Lorraine
Hansberry Henrik Ibsen check off we have
other writers like Paula Vogel Caryl
Churchill Lynn Nottage and actors like
Meryl Streep Sarah Jones VY
davus James Earl Jones Fiona Shaw and on
and on and on the list is endless and
you all have your own list of these
great things that are produced by and
through the theater value it love it
because actually theater is unnecessary
good yes the plays the thing where else
then the theater can you go to learn
this supremely human behavior compassion
where else but the theater can you go
and learn the story of yourselves learn
about us what it means to be human
where can you cultivate empathy where
can you walk around in someone else’s
shoes it’s pretty cool you know there
are some cultures who actually believe
that actors are the shaman of their
community that actors act as mediators
between this world and the spiritual put
that in your your pipe Plato yeah they
are actually channeling the world out
there I like that I think that’s pretty
cool so I guess the next time anyone
comes up to me and says Derek you’re
such an actor I’ll think about the
amazing things theatre has done for our
species and the actor as shaman and I
will be forced to say yeah well thank
you and thank you [Applause]