Monday, September 22, 1997 Art reflects society as it pulses
through daily life THEATER: Distinct elements of realism and
‘fluff’ curiously converge
I spent two days a week this summer in front of the world’s
oldest computer at the Daily Breeze, the South Bay’s local paper,
compiling the weekly calendar of events for the business page. I
didn’t like that computer (not a PC, not a Mac, but a Coyote), I
didn’t care who was holding a workshop on "How to Network in the
Comfort of Your Own Home" and I didn’t think business pertained to
my life.
So I sat there and sulked, longing for the fun and flamboyance
of Arts & Entertainment at The Bruin, where I spent the
remaining three days of my week. I wanted to interview people who
broke into song in the middle of sentences (at least four Bruin
interviewees have livened things up this way). I wanted to surround
myself with stage and film and book characters, not CEOs.
I admit I’m something of a cultural snob. No, worse yet, I’m a
wannabe cultural snob. I love the arts and I love the fact that I
love the arts. Every time my eyes glazed over as I tried to
decipher a page of stock quotes, I thought somewhat bitterly,
"Yeah, but I bet THEY fell asleep during ‘Evita.’"
So when our editor, Steve, prodded everyone to work harder one
day, it was with more than a little surprise that I heard Alison,
the business writer, joke, "Tote that barge! Lift that bail!"
That little "Showboat" quote was a ray of sunshine in my day of
real estate prices and corporate contracts. But more than that, it
reminded me why I wanted to be A&E editor in the first
place.
The arts are not just for those of us who spend our days in
Melnitz and MacGowan. They reach Anderson and even Boelter. We
congratulate ourselves on doing something "educational" when we
visit an art museum, but movies and music – well, those are just
for fun, right?
And that’s the great thing – that the arts are so ingrained in
our everyday lives that we don’t notice we’re learning something.
There’s really no reason why the slightly loftier arts can’t fall
into the same category. It’s just a matter of discovering what’s
out there and, yep, A&E’s here to help.
I myself fell in love with theater, musical theater in
particular, sometime during my stint at The Bruin. I was fairly
intimidated by the prospect of interviewing people on a subject I
knew so little about until I discovered that ignorance can be a
great tool.
The actors, writers, directors and musicians I talk to love to
talk about their work. I love to listen to them, hoping the
dialogue will unlock the mysteries that are bound up in any
creative work. It’s mind-boggling what the human mind can do.
The other day my friends and I rented "Leaving Las Vegas." We
were discussing the movie and after a lull in the conversation, my
friend Heather said, "Aren’t movies weird? One person says, ‘Okay,
you pretend like you’re a prostitute,’ and another person says,
‘You pretend like you’re a dying alcoholic.’ And we create these
little scenarios – sometimes really depressing scenarios – just to
amuse ourselves."
It is weird. But thank God we do it. The stories musicals tell
have rescued me from many a dull drive down Sepulveda. Even the
pounding of jackhammers on Westwood Boulevard seems to drift away
as I pump up the volume on my car’s little stereo and immerse
myself in the soundtrack to "Ragtime." A poetic phrase, a
historical allusion, the pain in a singer’s voice, make me care
passionately about three families who never even lived and a decade
I never witnessed.
But that’s just me. For other people, it’s a camera catching the
worry in someone’s eyes, the years of work lining their hands, a
knick knack on a table that says everything about a scene. For
others it’s the guitar riffs or the brush strokes or a gran jete
that is truly grand.
I find it a little misleading that the first few pages of the
paper are labeled "News" and the center spread is "Entertainment."
In A&E there will always be the "Fluff Factor." No, we won’t
tell you if your tuition’s going up or if there was a burglary in
Westwood. But don’t tell me entertainment isn’t news. Don’t tell me
that the making of dozens of alien movies in the space of a few
years doesn’t say something about society’s fear of science and the
approaching millennium. Or that students gathering in the sculpture
garden for a midnight theatrical production of "Scooby Doo" isn’t
our generation’s ultimate art for the masses.
All of my writers have seen the note I affectionately posted on
our office wall: "’Classical music is good’ is not an angle!"
Classical music (and art and dance and film and theater) IS good,
of course, but it’s so much more. The arts throw our quirks and
ironies and loves and hates and embarrassments in our faces.
There’s the old cliche that life imitates art.
But the more people I hear break into song (and the more I catch
myself doing it), the more I begin to think that life IS art. So
maybe calling the News section "News" unfairly implies that it
can’t be entertaining. There’s certainly an art to finding just the
right words to describe an event to 30,000 people.
At the Daily Breeze, I reluctantly accepted the fact that
another cliche is true: Yes, everything is business. Finding a
theater venue – that’s all about finance. Approving a script – it’s
got to meet consumer demand.
But I also watched Alison track the various branches of a large
corporation with painstaking precision and describe new products to
our editor in vibrant detail. Steve would lean back in his chair
with a cool philosophical smile as they’d debate trends in the
aerospace industry. There was a corporate choreography here, a
certain music in the jargon. You might even say there was an art to
it.
Klein is a third-year English student. She’s actually worn out
tapes from overuse in her car.
Cheryl Klein