Rethinking audience interaction in theater for the YouTube era

George Hunka had an excellent post up today on the staging of Beckett's television and fiction work to the stage at the Lincoln Center. Hunka rightly notes than in an era with as strong media saturation with distinctly non-theatrical media, integrating things like film and prose into theater is inevitable. This is especially true when that production happens to have a lot of money.

I commented that Beckett one-acts are perfectly suited for viral video. But that got me thinking about what happens to the theater and its audience if plays go to YouTube and the web. On the one hand, some of the core distinctions of the theatrical medium—an organic creation, live audience, using a theatrical space—get lost. At the same time, audience interaction in general does not get lost. It may actually even get bigger.

The web has created unprecedented possibilities for media access, whether or not the business side of the media world has caught up yet. YouTube has already been used as a promotional tool to get people to see shows. But what's stopping a taped, live, organic performance from streaming on the web? What if a free broadcast of a staged production gets orders of magnitude more viewers than a $50 per viewer live staging. What if a web broadcast gets audience comments that, in effect, serve the same purpose as audience feedback slips in the program?

These kind of innovations would no doubt be maddening to theater traditionalists, but they may be essential to moving theater into the Web 2.0 (soon to be 3.0) era. Audiences aren't going away, they're just going to nontradional places. Trying to redefine the theatrical audience is certainly a tricky proposition that could easily fail, but it's time someone at least had the guts to try.

Theater Review (NYC): The Strangerer by the Mickie Maher

(This review was originally featured on Blogcritics.org)

The Strangerer is a 90-minute attempt to murder Jim Lehrer that goes nowhere. The premise of a theater-loving, existential hero Bush is absurd, and the format of reinterpreting the first 2004 Presidential Debate only adds to the absurdity. What is the point of committing such a pointless, arbitrary act for the purposes of theater? The point, my fellow Americans, is that the premise of The Strangerer demands it, a fact of which playwright Mickie Maher was only too self-conscious.

This experimental work of meta-theater, which coyly plays with the fundamental conventions of theater and examines the theatricality of life outside the black box, has arrived Off-Broadway in New York on the strength of its almost unilateral raves by Chicago critics. Its fate will be a litmus test for the future of creativity in New York theater. For as enticing a labyrinth of themes as the play presents to theater-minded New Yorkers who know what they’re looking for, it will be an alienating, exhausting bore for just about anyone else.

The same was said, of course, when Waiting for Godot opened. The Strangerer also alludes to a particularly experimental production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that provided the fictional inspiration for this version of the Bush/Kerry debate. It’s a fitting parallel for a play that continues in the grand tradition of a Beckett/Albee baffler, a format that has drawn as much praise for its structural innovations as it has criticism for its obtuseness.

But the play’s got creativity up the wazoo to back up its weighty goals. It takes the presidential debate format, one of the most overtly staged and artificial contemporary theatrical practices, and turns it into a wildly unpredictable and constantly shape-shifting event. It inverts our commonly held beliefs about figures we've known for years. The absurdity of the evening raises the question: how far from The Strangerer does the subtext of an actual debate actually stray?

On the political end, it’s taken two of the most important world figures of the past decade—figures whose mannerisms have caused us to tune them out instead of challenge them—and forces us to listen to them speak as nakedly as possible. It’s the longest 90-minute play I’ve ever attended. No matter how aware you are of the intellectual nuances of the play, The Strangerer’s sheer banality in its first half begs you to tune out to some degree. The twist is that the actual dialogue of the play directly attacks the audience for doing just that. It’s very hard to tune out a mockingly narcoleptic Kerry (played by Maher himself) and a Bush (Guy Massey) who, despite using the same grammatical weaknesses we’ve heard for the past eight years, has explicitly promised to commit a murder before the night is over.

Yet, the play’s early boringness is precisely what will turn some attendees away. The play’s creators, who do not include a director, underestimate just how adept an audience is at zoning out. Some critics in Chicago called the play nearly flawless, but in order for a play to be perfect, I don’t think it can by its very nature induce its audience to engage in exactly the kind of activity (or inactivity) it purports to oppose. If the play fails with a much less intellectual and insular New York audience than it had in Chicago—and the show I attended had multiple empty seats—it will be because of its creators’ hubris.

That doesn’t discount the fact that The Strangerer, which takes its name and inspiration from Bush’s brief encounter with Camus two summers ago, remains one of the better existential comedies of recent memory. The debate on the method of murder is undeniably farcical, and features props of switchblades, guns, kerosene, cyanide, a pillow, and a Balinese kris meant for ritualistic murder. But the play is rife with contradictions inherent in theater, not to mention in general human existence. What is the value of excessive, unapologetic performance, and what gets lost under the guise of maintaining an air of mystery? Is it worth living a boring, neutral life? How can an act that is horrifically destructive be considered entertaining?

Questions like these abound in The Strangerer, and the play answers none of them. Its ingenuity is virtually unparalleled in today’s mainstream New York theater. The question is whether Theatre Oobleck’s faith in its audience pays off.

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Through August 2. The Strangerer was written by Micky Maher. It stars Maher (Kerry), Guy Massey (Bush) and rotates Colm O'Reilly and Brian Shaw (Lehrer). Set design by Maher. Lighting Design by Martha Bayne. Sound Design by Chris Schoen. Tickets can be purchased at Telecharge. The play runs 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.

Album Review: The Hold Steady, Stay Positive

I posted this one on Blogcritics, so I can post it here.

It’s understandable why The Hold Steady wanted to release Stay Positive digitally well over a month before its official release date. The album is so overstuffed with summer jams, ballads of rejection, and meditations on Americana, that it has already succeeded in becoming the definitive summer album of 2008 well before it was even released this week. Stay Positive is also one of those albums with enough diversity in song styles and pure rock transcendence to have us keep coming back to it for as long as we love rock.

Forget the Springsteen comparisons. I’ve always advocated that The Hold Steady’s major influences were the godfathers of alternative rock, in Craig Finn’s native Twin Cities, The Replacements, and especially the oft-forgotten Hüsker Dü. Finn even looks like Huskers guitarist Bob Mould. The influence has never been more apparent than on “Constructive Summer,” a 21st-century response to “Celebrated Summer,” arguably Hüsker Dü’s most famous song.

True, Stay Positive never reaches the titanic heights of Boys and Girls of America, just like New Day Rising didn’t reach the heights of Zen Arcade. But like New Day Rising, Stay Positive takes the populist charm and natural songwriting hinted at by the band’s previous album and streamlines it into one, glorious package. It’s the Hold Steady’s most accessible album yet, one that takes the band out of its bar band roots and puts the band at the forefront of all discussions of rock this decade.

With so many current indie bands trying in vain to break new ground, one of Stay Positive’s greatest charms is the dues it pays to the past. There are nods to Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, Joe Strummer directly in the lyrics, as well as in the music. Traces of CCR, the Band, Cream, and even Bob Dylan can be found all over the place. “Constructive Summer” is followed by a tragic tale of romantic desperation in “Sequestered In Memphis,” which leaves the tragedy to subtext.

Though there’s not a bad song on the album, some tracks really do go to levels that rock bands of any breed rarely touch. The devastating “Lord I’m Discouraged” tells the tail of an unattainable women caught in life-destroying circumstances, with the perfect chorus “Excuses and half truths and fortified wine.” “Joke About Jamaica,” the band’s obvious homage to Zeppelin, features some of the finest chops the band has ever displayed that keeps up with the band's heroes.

There hasn’t been a Hold Steady album yet without a mammoth, inspiring ending. On Boys and Girls, the band relied on personal comfort and safety in the face of adversity to carry them out. But here the band truly takes it to another level, with a theatrical, rock operatic final two tracks, "Jamaica" and "Slapped Actress," that take on how the band sees the struggles of making it in a jaded industry. It’s one of the first times the Hold Steady has critically addressed the current state of indie rock, and while this has always been a band quicker to build bridges than burn them, it’s of no small importance that Finn has turned his pen squarely at his peers.

While the Hold Steady has traditionally tended to rely on that pen, this is the first Hold Steady album where Finn is more part of an ensemble than the lead. Stay Positive would be nothing without the foundation provided by Bobby Drake's drums or the tough, disciplined lead guitar of Tad Kubler. The Hold Steady has always been something of anomaly in the indie rock world, but here they become one of a kind. All while still sounding like they’ve been with us forever.

Charles Isherwood needs to get out more

Attending the festival for a few days as an observer, I was quickly swept up in its strange atmosphere. Just before heading to Applebee’s for a burger, I sat on a bench outside the Lied Center organizing some notes. Nearby a pack of students broke into a spontaneous chorus from a song I recognized.

What was it? Sondheim? Don’t think so. Certainly not Rodgers and Hart or Rodgers and Hammerstein. Could it possibly be Andrew Lloyd Webber? Then it hit me — it was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the first time in a while I’d heard anyone of any age sing pop or rock, and it was weirdly disorienting. A few minutes later the kids segued into a chorus of “Mr. Cellophane” from “Chicago,” and the world righted itself.

International Thespian Festival Offers the Smell of Greasepaint for 2,000 High School Students - NYTimes.com

Quick update

Have a party to go to, but I thought I'd give a quick update. First, saw the Bacchae today. Very well done. The R & B theme to the chorus worked, the sets and acting was mostly fantastic, and seeing the play in the Rose Theater space made it really feel like you were in 4th century Athens. And of course, this is the role Alan Cumming was born to play.

Also, Mike Daisey gave me a shout out today, which has me theater geeking out. Equally geeky is learning that Hal Brooks has a blog, where he most recently gave fellow of U of C alum Jason Zinoman props. Cool deal.

Now I'm off to drink in Park Slope, two weeks after taking the magical G train to the same house two weekends ago. For a Manhattanite, this is like entering Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, all the way down to the purple vomit on the subway car floor. I may be taking the G train again tomorrow to see the Breeders at McCarren park. This is a bad omen for the apartment hunt...

The Don Hall/Mike Daisey/Scott Walters/Adam Thurman debate

The breakdown:

• Theaterforte calls on Mike Daisey to define his view on how theater exactly fails America more clearly.
• Daisey responds, calling for a culture where the artist is nurtured and not desperate for income.
• Scott Walters gives his take on Daisey's point, advocating to keep it simple and return regional theater to its core values.
• Don Hall calls Daisey and Walters out, arguing that if restructuring American theater was so simple, it would have happened already. Hall makes a parallel to a professional gambler complaining about lacking health insurance-it's his choice, after all.
• Here's when the shit really starts to hit the fan. First, Daisey lashes back at Hall, claiming Hall misrepresented his argument and shoots down the blackjack parallel:

  This is just dumb. I don't know where to start--do I start with how art isn't much like gambling? Or how what society gains from art is wildly different than what it gets from gamblers? Or do we talk about how one form of activity (gambling) is on the ascendency, while theater has been shrinking...oh, I give up. It's just a really facile analogy, and I'm not going to parse it.
  
  The only part of this that is true is that being a working artist *feels* like being a professional gambler. Otherwise, it's worthless.

• Then, out of nowhere, Adam Thurman swoops in. He takes Hall's comparison one step further, drawing a parallel to the World Series of Poker and how nearly 90% of the players are "Dead Money." This is just like the theater world, Thurman argues. A handful of people who have enough skill and have learned to take advantage of the system, and lots of people who have foolishly jumped into the fold and will never make it.
• Daisey goes apeshit on Thurman, arguing that theater is not a zero sum game where the success of one person depends on the failure of another. Theater is not competitive, and one person's success does not entail another man's failure.
  
• Walters give his two cents on the Hall-Thurman analogy, breaking down their artistic Darwinism and noting that there's an element of luck to it. This post is followed by a particularly nasty comment trolling session between Walters, Hall, and others.
• Thurman strikes back with what he claims to be a hard-line economics stance on how Daisey and Walters are unrealistic, with a post entitled "The Power of Scarcity."
• Walters argues that Hall and Thurman disagree with him and Daisey on whether fixing American theater is a normative or descriptive problem. Despite being the only academic in the group, Walters takes the normative side. Hall leaves a nasty comment calling Walters cracked.
• In his Friday roundup, Hall calls Thurman's article the "Best Fucking Theater Post of the Week"

And then they all called it a week and went out and had tea. Sheesh, I guess if you don't want drama in your blogging life, don't blog about drama.

My Take:
For one, I think Hall is right to point out that fluffy, oversimplistic talk accomplishes nothing. I also think Thurman is right to point out that there is an inherent talent gap in all fields, be it theater, poker, or law. That's a side of the starving artist argument that is often ignored. What I will say, however, is that Daisey is right to point out that there's no need for theater to be competitive. Thurman claims to be taking the realist economic stance, but he makes an egregious error in his view of scarciy.

Yes, resources are scarce in the arts economy, just as they are in the world economy. But the economics of art, just like the economics of the world, is not like a poker tournament. There's not a fixed amount of money involved, and there's no fixed pie for each person to acquire a percentage of. One theater professional's success does not need to mean another one starves. Walters is right that Thurman has taken a descriptive stance, but he's overlooked how flawed his descriptive stance is.

If you're going to talk economics, why not use an example from actual economics, instead of a poker tournament? When India developed a tech industry, did America's tech industry crumble? No. Instead, India provided an extended pool of resources that has helped the U.S. and world economy much more than it has hurt. If it wasn't for India's economic development, there would be no Citigroup today.

Contrary to Thurman's assessment of scarcity, more theater would not mean that there is a shortage of pieces of the pie to be had. It would instead mean that the pie gets bigger. The argument is not that a bad theater artist should make as much as good one, but he should be able to make an income that's sustainable. Healthcare should not be dependent on your success. A bad lawyer can still make six figures, while an exceptional one can make eight figures. Theater artists should be able to make a living the same way.

The economic explanation for why most theater artists do starve is that a theater professional is not as heavily demanded as a laywer, and there is an an abundance of theater people over what is demanded. This creates a surplus of theater workers, which means more unemployment. Demand, however, is elastic, and it can increase. If steps can be taken to shift a demand curve to the right, then there will be more theatrical professionals making more money. The demand could increase by creating more lively, cheaper theater. Lively and cheap theater requires artists who can take risks without worrying about starving because their medical bills are so high.

When a basic standard of living is met, theater jumps back into the world like a spring. Theater artists can take more risks and ticket prices go down. People start coming back to the theater, putting money into the system. A theater artist's expected income increases, meaning more people can live that life, and have more of an incentive to do so. The normative goals are met by descriptive economics. Simple as that, people.

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Movie Review: August

It’s an inauspicious coincidence that August runs 88 minutes long. While the film’s premise is more Wall Street than Dog Day Afternoon, August and 88 Minutes are comrades-in-stupid. Together, they represent a new, indefensible breed of bad movie. These are genre films with marquee actors and modest budgets that have scripts so amateurish, incoherent, and illogical that it poisons everything and everyone associated with the film.

The difference between August and 88 Minutes is that the latter starred Al Pacino, an actor with more than enough of a track record to be given a pass for a lone flop. August, on the other hand, stars Josh Hartnett, a young actor with an inconsistent career in desperate need of an unqualified hit. Hartnett at least tries to go in a new direction by taking on a Gordon Gekko meets Mark Zuckerberg kind of role. Yet, his performance is so painful to watch—and he gets no help by screenwriter Howard Rodman—that you’re reminded that the actor’s breakthrough came with Pearl Harbor.

August focuses on a hotshot tech mogul of Web 1.0 who, after skyrocketing onto the scene in March of 2001, has seen his fortunes erode to 1% of their peak by August. The film’s trailer makes it seem like he spends the month trying to build his fortune back, but don’t be deceived. There’s no attempt to regain fortunes, or even any plot conflict to make you believe its possible. Hartnett’s Tom Sterling, CEO of Landshark, talks a big game, but has no authority to back it up. Sterling’s like an 8 year old who tries to be a bully but just ends up looking even more pathetic.

In fact, everything about Landshark suggests childishness. Tom’s immaturity is matched by his awkward, nebbishy, kid slang-using brother Joshua (a completely lost Adam Scott), his employees whose average age must be about 15, and Robin Tunny and Andre Royo as annoyed fellow executives. It’s one thing for a movie to focus on a poorly-run company. It’s another when a non-farcical movie presents a company so hopelessly incompetent, employed by workers no skills to speak of (and equally ineffective acting skills), and then expects you to believe this company could be worth $100 million.

The workings of Landshark are much closer to a bunch of grade schoolers playing business. In perhaps the most telling scenes of the childishness of the characters, a scene which is obnoxiously intentional, Tom and Josh meet at a strip club, but rather than stare at breasts, they’d rather play pinball. The closing scene of the film has the two actors returning to the pinball machine, fighting over who gets the next game.

The premise of August is marginally interesting, if for nothing else than it occurs with the shadow of 9/11 hanging over it and could make some interesting points about overeager tech investors. The problem occurs within the fundamental execution of this premise. August would have been much better, or at least competant, if it was called March-August, focusing on the rise and fall of a tech company with a little too much hubris. In its actual form, Landshark is doomed from the start, and you spend the entire film knowing its going to crumble, if not before 9/11, then after.

If the film wins any Razzies, which it certainly could, I’d like to propose a new category for which it would be a lock: Most Gratuitous Use of David Bowie. Bowie plays Cyrus Ogilvie, something of a gender-bending Mr. Burns, who eventually takes over Landshark and buys Tom out. Bowie, along with Rip Torn as Tom’s Yosemite Sam-resembling father, is at least in touch enough to play the role with a level of camp silliness reflective of the silliness of the film. There may be some intended significance to Tom being the only one to cash out before 9/11, considering that Ogilvie’s office is located in the World Trade Center. Yet the film is too incoherent to make that point, and considering that Tom is bought out at 15% of market value of a stock that’s already under a dollar per share, morality is insignificant anyway.

The film's allusions to Marshall McLuhan and Un Chien Andalou seems like its filmmakers were going, “Look at us! Were cultured!” Rodman, a professor at USC, should know better than to tell rather than show. His previous screenplay was the recently released Savage Grace, which received mediocre reviews, but was based on a much better book with a lot of quality source material to work with. He seems lost on his own. Equally lost are director Austin Chick and especially editor Pete Beaudreau, who have included multiple scenes that agonizingly extend for minutes too long and ultimately go nowhere. The filmmakers are just as childish and amateur as Tom and Josh themselves.

When I was walking out of theater, wondering how a film like this could ever make it to the screen, I immediately got my answer. Two females in their early twenties were walking behind me, and one of them stated "it was pretty bad, but he [Harnett]’s just so cute though.” Not only are Josh Hartnett’s looks the only reason anyone could justify seeing August, but they’re also the only thing that can salvage Hartnett’s career at this point. There’s been some debate as to whether or not Hartness is, or can be, a skilled actor. August answers the question with a commanding “no.” He just better pray that he ages well.

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In theaters July 11. Starring Josh Hartnett (Tom Sterling), Adam Scott (Joshua Sterling), Robin Tunney (Melanie Hanson), Andre Royo (Dylan Gottschalk), Rip Torn (David Sterling), and David Bowie (Cyrus Ogilvie). Directed by Austin Chick. Written by Howard A. Rodman. Still photography by Jessica Miglio Distributed by First Look Pictures. The film is Rated R. This review was originally featured on blogcritics.org.

Theater Review (NYC): Life in A Marital Institution by James Braly

As a native of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I see playwright-performer James Braly as a mirror image of the cool dads half my friends had growing up. Those were the dads who disproportionately ended up divorcing the moms, often for a younger woman. But Braly, who gave up his Central Park West apartment to improve his family life, has not divorced his wife Susan, despite having ample reason and opportunities to do so over the past twenty years. Having inherited an unstable family life from his childhood, Braly is a man who can’t thrive unless there’s a minimum baseline of chaos in his life. To use a phrase my mom used for my dad, Braly has two speeds: fast and off.

Braly got his expensive apartment as a speechwriter, and his skills as a writer are apparent throughout Life in A Marital Institution. The script never misses an opportunity for a punch line; one can easily see a politician using Braly's seemingly endless reservoir of verbal jabs. But more important than his natural sense of humor is Braly’s ability to distribute the blows equally among family, friends, and himself. Life in A Marital Institution achieves a balance between Braly’s self-righteousness and self-loathing that is rare in a one-man show. After years of writing speeches where the focus is on artifice, Braley has two decades' worth of truth-telling in store that the monologue format allows him to blurt out for an hour.

As easily as writing comes to Braly, he is not a natural performer. This is a double-edged sword for the play's overall impact. On the one hand, his plain old regular-guy storytelling performance style is a welcome relief, keeping things fresh throughout the evening. On the other hand, Braly’s performance will often betray his writing, as some lines don’t hit as hard as they should. In part to overcome his lack of an actor’s instincts, Braly has a tendency to mug with an annoying smirk when he delivers a particularly smart line. Once things turn serious, however, that smirk vanishes. As a performer, Braly is at his best when he is most vulnerable.

The tribulations of married life aren't exactly a new concept for drama, but Braly’s marital circumstances are legitimately exceptional. No primetime sitcom would touch James and Susan’s marriage, which includes planning on breastfeeding their two sons until the age of seven, having the entire family sleep in the same bed, and holding dinner parties where parents discuss eating their wives' placentas.

Susan’s Eastern spiritual leanings are a constant source of frustration for James (in what may be the best one-liner you’ll hear in New York this summer, James comments that "[he’s] never put 'exorcism' in the memo box of a check before"). In the play’s most emotionally taxing scene, that frustration becomes a matter of life and death. Yet Susan is as much a source of comfort to James as she is a source of rage. In James' family, a long-lasting marriage is an exception rather than the rule. Consider his dying sister who's marrying a violent Australian, a father who can’t hold down a marriage, or his more clueless sister, who owns a salon un-ironically named “Façade.”

While a one-man show usually makes its director invisible, here Hal Brooks establishes himself as this generation’s premier director of the format. Between Thom Pain, No Child, and now Life in A Marital Institution, he’s built a signature style of quick shifts, segmenting a play by lighting changes, and brief, abrupt audience engagement. The guidance he has provided Braly’s performance has proven to be invaluable.

After a few years of an identity crisis after Spalding Gray’s death, the monologue has made a triumphant return with a bevy of new, creative plays. Life in A Marital Institution opens as Mike Daisey’s How Theater Failed America, a similarly, frank, honest one-man show, just finished a heralded run a few blocks away. In today’s culture of theatrical excess, there’s a premium on unassuming, direct plays that cost a lot less but resonate a lot more. Life in A Marital Institution succeeds precisely because of its small goals. Who would have thought selling an apartment on Central Park West would be worth it after all?

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Through August 31 at the Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam St. Written and performed By James Braly. Directed by Hal Brooks. Tickets can be purchased here. The show runs 1 hour, 5 minutes. This article was originally posted on blogcritics.com. Photo by Jaisen Crockett.

It's Obama's election to lose

Zogby has posted an electoral college map using their state-by-state poll predictions, and even with 105 electoral college votes too close to call, Obama has over 270 electoral college votes. The more conservative map at 270towin.com has Obama up 185-174, but this is still a clear indication that Obama is the prohibitive favorite at this point. He'd have to try really hard to fuck this up, or have Michelle say "whitey" sans rickroll.

Connecting New York and Chicago: A Four Year Theatrical Odyssey

(This article was originally posted on blogcritics.org)

On Monday, below the fold on the front page of the New York Times Arts section was a review of Superior Doughnuts at the Steppenwolf Theatre. It would make sense that the review was featured this prominently; it was Tracy Letts' first play since August: Osage County won just about every theatrical award known to man.

Charles Isherwood's review of the new play was decidedly mixed, cautiously recommending the play despite considering it "insubstantial and sweet, with virtually no nutritional value" (for what it's worth, Isherwood was not a fan of Letts' more risqué pre-August work such as Killer Joe and Bug). But what the review actually said was insubstantial. What was more important was that the New York Times, the paper of record, particularly for the theater press, was strongly emphasizing a play from Chicago in the same position it normally places Broadway or prominent off-Broadway plays. That would have been virtually impossible four years ago.

When I was considering colleges, I knew I needed to have theater in my life. My trust in Chicago theater was built not by front page reviews of individual shows, but by annual features about Chicago's lively theater scene that usually crammed 20 plays into 1000 words. When I got to Chicago, I finally saw some of those plays that had previously been nothing more than paragraphs in my mind. My first plays in Chicago were the Second City revue Red Scare, the Neo-Futurists' legendary Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, a production of Equus by the Hypocrites Theatre Company, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Court Theatre. I would later build connections at all four of those theater companies.

I quickly realized that compared to New York, the production values were laughable, especially in some of the smaller theaters. Yet, I also learned that theater need not follow the Broadway, Off-Broadway, and all-the-rest model. In Chicago, anyone can put on a play at virtually any time, be it in a squatters residence in Pilsen that's lucky to get six people a night, a converted art gallery where opening night is canceled because of paint fumes, or in an early 20th century lakeside parlor with the worst acoustics imaginable.

None of this should sound unfamiliar to anyone conversant with either or both cities' theater cultures. Yet, as those who have followed American theater over the past year or so know, the disparity between the two is shrinking. Chicago paradoxically used to be the most segregated major segment of American theater. While its grassroots model of theater was an inspiration, there was also virtually no interaction between Chicago theater and the rest of America. Today, all you need to do is look at some of the more heralded productions in New York of late (August, Orson's Shadow, The Adding Machine, the plays of Chicago native Sarah Ruhl), to see that Chicago's role in American theater is as prominent as it has been since the late 70s and early 80s, when Goodman Theatre product David Mamet and the Steppenwolf both first emerged.

It's not just a one-way relationship either. Most successful New York productions are now invariably given major treatment in Chicago. True, most transfers have been immense disappointments (the worst possibly being the Steppenwolf's version of The Pillowman, which featured none other than Tracy Letts and Jim True-Frost in its cast). In other cases, however, the Chicago productions did more with less than would ever be possible in New York theater. My frustration at missing the Broadway revival of Brian Friel's Faith Healer was alleviated by a superb production of the play by Uma Productions. Not only did that production feature a nearly flawless if less-heralded cast, it also made the experience more real by directing you to the patched-together basement space—like the space where a "real" faith healer would perform.

In some cases, Chicago performed what equates to a miracle in the theatrical world: reviving the fortunes of a play that failed on its first run in New York City. InFusion Theatre Company's production of Kate Robin's Intrigue with Faye featured a sparser set and a markedly less famous cast, but its actors had something that Benjamin Bratt and Julianna Margulies lacked: chemistry.

In the summer of 2006, Wicked's run on Broadway in Chicago had reached what was supposed to be its closing point. Its producers then decided to forgo the bigger media market in Los Angeles and stay in Chicago because of the show's overwhelming popularity. Broadway in Chicago was finally a success. This fact had many Chicago theater enthusiasts, myself included, in a frenzy. The fear was that this would create a top-down theater model like New York and kill the grassroots spirit of Chicago. That fear ignored the fact that when you can rent a theater space for under $1000 a month, anything can happen with the right people. It's that kind of open-mindedness that has blasted Chicago into New York's staler theater scene, and has seen both cities reap the rewards.

There's still no place like New York for American theater. Less than 48 hours after graduating from the University of Chicago, I found myself attending Ensemble Studio Theater's one-act Marathon, with work by playwrights no less prominent than Neil LaBute and actors whose credentials topped those found in most elite Chicago theater companies. And this was in a theater on the second floor across from the Police Athletic League and hidden behind a virtually abandoned car repair shop in Hell's Kitchen.

From whichever perspective you take, however, the creation of even the slightest cultural diffusion between the two scenes has dramatically improved both cities—and American theater in general. Some New York theatergoers seem impressed by how many good plays are coming from Chicago. I'm more impressed by how good American theater has gotten overall, whichever world I was considering at the time.

Dark Knight reviews start piling in

No sooner do I get home from Vermont than do I see the trade papers' reviews of The Dark Knight, which I had completely forgotten came out this week. Both reviews are quite positive, with THR's Kirk Honeycutt seeing slightly more flaws in casting and plot development than Variety's Justin Chang gave it almost unqualified praise. I will now spend the entire week waiting to get a chance to see it. Hopefully I can make arrangements for Friday