Baron Jean Raol (Charles Boyer): “When I look back on that time, it is as if everyone was wearing a mask.” (Jorge Semprún, “Stavisky” 1974)
For their next big foray onto the internet, the Santa Barbara City College Theatre Arts Department has gathered all their material in-house, as it were. They have created a three-part presentation called “SBCC Stories,” of which all the stories were written by the students, staff and faculty of the college.
The stories — some performed by the authors, some by actors — were directed by Maggie Mixsell, and will be available for online streaming March 31-April 17.
The anthology is divided into three sections, called “Chapters,” which will be available separately.
Chapter 1, “Friends and Family,” includes stories written by John Behring, Paloma Espino, Kyndra Gedney, Laura Kenig, Stuart Orenstein, Sara Ostrowski, Lois Phillips, Becky Saffold, Sue Smiley and Scout Wilkins.
Chapter 2, “The Unexpected,” contains stories by Seema Chopra, Sarah Fenstermaker, Claire Hofer, Tanya Jefferson, Mason Levy, Lisa Marciano, Brian Silsbury, Seth Streich, Helen Sun Wong and Raven Wylde.
Chapter 3, “Discoveries,” features stories by Kiran Dhillon, Ann Dusenberry, Martha Garcia, Jack Johnston, Colby Noakes, Christina Pages, Maggie Powell, Sally Saenger, Joseph Simmons and Ida Wadman.
I know no more of the subject matter of these stories than is given above — that is to say, nothing — but it seems fair to speculate, given the conditions under which they were produced, that some, if not all, of them will deal with life during the pandemic.
It remains to be seen how many of the social changes wrought by COVID-19 will be permanent, but the unanimous rush to the internet by performing arts organizations is obviously a stopgap measure that will have to be rolled back after the all-clear, or the entire financial structure of the performing arts will need to be reinvented, as will the relationship of the performers to their audiences.
It might well be a simple matter to get performers and audiences back into a space where they are breathing the same air and can respond to each other in real time. Then again, it might not. The internet was not born of the pandemic, developed by performers.
The artists who now have recourse to the web are coming late to the table, which has already been set for a very different type of meal. The social media were developed and are maintained by people who are generally content to stay at home, alone, in front of their terminals, and do their thing anonymously.
It’s possible the influx of the practitioners of live theater will transform internet culture to their own model; it is more likely the existing culture of the web will change the nature of live performance. As McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.”
In 1973, when the personal computer was in its infancy, and a commercially viable pc was two or three years in the future, the brilliant British architectural critic, Martin Pawley, published “The Private Future,” which represents a considerable expansion of his professional purview to include European and American society.
One of the conclusions Pawley draws from his study of the interaction of technology and contemporary society is that:
“Western society is on the brink of collapse — not into crime, violence, madness or redeeming revolution as many would believe— but into withdrawal. Withdrawal from the whole system of values and obligations that has historically been the basis of public, community life.
“Western societies are collapsing not from an assault on their most cherished values, but from a voluntary, almost enthusiastic abandonment of them by people who are learning to lead private lives of an unprecedented completeness with the aid of the momentum of a technology which is evolving more and more into a pattern of socially atomizing appliances.”
The concept of the socially atomizing appliance, which relieves us of the inevitable complications attendant upon direct interaction with people, is a powerful one, which almost anybody can illustrate from their own experience: vacuum cleaner, television, telephone, etc.
Equally powerful is the yang of Pawley’s vision, to which he assigns the unfortunate and misleading term, “environmental terrorism.” He does not mean the activities of radical environmentalists, who allegedly spike trees to disrupt logging operations. He defines it thusly:
“Environmental terrorism is an all-embracing phenomenon; it informs the meaning of all that is perceived. It is an integral part of the behavioural structure of any consumer society. Just as the development and proliferation of consumer goods draws the individual deeper and deeper into a technologically reinforced nirvana of private satisfactions, so does environmental terrorism — or ‘news’ of the disasters that befall other people — push him determinedly in the same direction.”
The aim of environmental terrorism, conscious or not, is to paint the public sphere as a dangerous place, beset with mechanical breakdowns and homicidal maniacs; better to stay home with your twitter account and your exercise machines and your iTunes.
Despite our newfound ability to contact other people and respond to them via the internet, this has not interrupted the atomization of society that Pawley warned us about.
The “connections’ offered by the social media, despite the use of such huggy-bear terms as “friend” and “like,” are mainly connections to commercial enterprises that mine your personal data the better to market their wares.
I am of the opinion that it would be a bad thing for humanity if, having made our escape by plunging through virtual reality, we never come out the other side, but I am not Gandhi; I cannot say: “I know a way out of hell.”
I do know that if we lose the ability, through atrophy, to stop and look at what we are doing and figure out where to go from here, we will not get it back. We need to deal directly with real people and witness living works of art. Otherwise, we will wind up like Shakespeare’s Richard II:
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world
And, for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it …”
Each chapter of “SBCC Stories” costs $10 general admission, $5 for students, seniors, and City College staff. To purchase a ticket for one or more chapters, or for more information, call 805-965-5935, or visit www.theatregroupsbcc.com.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.