The Theater of Collapse, the Garden Too

I always like to begin with the garden, which has been enjoying a long spate of temperate wet weather. Even now in late July, much of our lettuce is still sweet and tender, and for sure this year there’ll be a bumper crop of beans, and beans of all kinds: string beans, pole beans, Hutterites, Canellinis, chickpeas, and so on. The potato vines are going gangbusters as well, though honestly, with potatoes you never can tell. Often enough, potato vines look as though they MUST be hiding plenty of treasure below-decks but then as soon as you start to dig--“ha ha fooled you,” they say, “I’m nothing useful to you, just a vine, with hardly any potatoes at all.” Potato vines like that are like jazz without swing. Or a Bible without Job. Or a conversation without two sides. Or a civilization without soul. Truth is, I consider every potato vine a potential imposter. Never trust a potato vine. 

The work of performing my newest play, Myles to Go, continues on, like a sweetly extended dream. We’ve premiered it under modest lights. We’ve let it rest a few months. And now our next two performance venues are private homes. We’ll just show up with our props, including two vintage gas cans, a kitchen broom, a fish tank, a world globe, coffee cup, and rags. We’ll place these in the performing space as though we’re minor gods planting trees of some importance to the future. Then at the appointed time the audience will be seated, and a hush will fall over them, indicating their wish to be enchanted, and our story will begin. Sometime during the performance I’ll take a moment to reflect on what I’m doing. And I’ll probably say (just to myself) something like this: 

“Here’s an authentic nine-volt nomadic activity: an event that requires very few material and energy inputs, but that nevertheless provides the essence of pilgrimage and travel, which is personal change and revelation by means of interaction with the Other. In this case travel occurs by means of artistically-induced sympathy, and involves a journey for the audience into other people’s lived experience. Yet note that what we’re doing needs no crude oil. No philanthropic grants. No Federal Reserve. No electrical budget. No parking lot. In the face of economic collapse it would prove resilient. Hard times would only increase the relevance of our performance style.”

There’s a good deal of hope to be found in all these thoughts, really there is. Civilization can founder in a host of difficult ways, and yet sturdy art can still be made and performed. Though I am also aware that some people who have seen Myles to Go, would say that my philosophy of performance--imposed upon the play today, as if collapse were already somehow a fact--logically entails obscurity for my work. No floodlights? No green room? No big-name stars? Is this really what I want?

Questions, questions.  

To be honest, I don’t yet know how most effectively to give the play a life beyond my hands. But, in engineering a suitable strategy, it’s instructive to ask what the final goal of such an effort might be. Take the case of wildest modern public success; take the case of a run on Broadway. Would I want to see Myles to Go on Broadway? Oddly enough, I suppose my answer is no. Broadway uses too much carbon, and my play argues for a different world; it was born for a purpose different than any that such a venue would render service to. Of this I'm sure. 

All this may seem silly to others, but it doesn’t seem silly to me. In making and producing this play, I feel as though I’ve experienced the arrival of something genuine and beautiful and whole, and I’m wary of betraying the mysteries and intentions that made that arrival possible. Every muse is a jealous muse.

But enough about doubt and gingerness! The play is good, and eventually will have a life beyond my hands, of that I’m also sure. Right now, while it’s still my own and no one else’s to produce, I’ll enjoy it as much as I can, and let its future come without any worries and hyperactive cares from me. Heck, I’ve got canning to do.

Speaking of, here at Sunnyside, we’ve been canning like crazy. So far this summer we’ve put up a slew of beets, a good deal of blueberry syrup and jam, as well as bread-and-butter pickles, chutney, and dills. Come August, we’ll be elbow-deep in tomatoes, which we’ll dice and sauce till we pretty much collapse ourselves! Then it’s on to conquer the peaches, apple sauce, sauerkraut, and plums. And the dry stuff too; we’re going to dehydrate fruit this year. And the freezer too, because we’ll be freezing plenty of soups and corn as well. And I’d better stop there, or I’ll get too far ahead of myself, and make myself exhausted ahead of the fact, I mean, just thinking about all the work.

Until next week then!

HB