And of course as we keep exploring the conversation we want to have, we constantly have to decide what our focus is…what we host, that determines where the conversation is when we turn it over (in a way) to audience members in act 3…And I think I realized something-
Friday night in Molalla, the dramatist in me got sucked into a narrative that is not necessarily the way for us to go… I’ll tell you what I mean.
In several interviews Friday night, the conflicts in our state relating to progressive environmental policy advocacy and timber interests kept coming up…mainly in the form of Molallans relating to us how the town was negatively impacted by the environmental movement, by the spotted owl controversy- mills closed, logging jobs went away…a way of life was systematically dismantled- so, keep that phrase in mind…way of life.
So I got excited about the possibility of that event, that time, being foreshadowed in act 1…that the changes were coming…that that decline/tension was on the horizon, and that would make for good act 1 storytelling…and as a result, a batch of questions we asked in the rehearsal room, and some of our story development…it began to follow this premise.
But
When we interviewed sadie and ethan yesterday, what started to nag at the back of my mind, and what ethan spoke about, was the danger of framing the conversation we are inviting people to have, by using the same old narrative that frames the broad stroke understanding of or state’s recent history…that conflict, that battle between timber and policy, between jobs and wildlife, between rural needs and urban values, between way of lifes…it’s a misdirection.
Its real. But it’s part of the way we understand what has changed and what the challenges are-
its not actually the whole change, and its also not the whole set of ‘whys’…
What is a way of life?
How long can it last?
Are we bound to each other as members of a state by some contract of social responsibility?
The spotted owl controversy began in the mid 80s.
Jobs began to truly be affected by it in 86, 87…
If we move Act 1 to include that in our Act 1 storytelling, we move away from a truly epic almost poetic event of statewide connection (Mt St Helen’s erupting) in favor of a quite human and understood economic and policy based division…
And I think that weakens our event.
Act 1 is our chance to get at what Molalla and Portland have been like up to 1980…not to be about major community challenges, but about ‘way of life’, and history, and a bit of story…I think we are working too hard perhaps to paint family strife…I think the families need to be compelling complicated taes, but I also think Act 1 is an introduction- to place, and to some people….
And I think Act 2 is about change- change from a variety of points- political, economic, personal…and I think act 2 moves through the frames we know we usually look at our state dilemmas from…and helps us prepare to be somewhere else in Act 3…
Shannon, this has helped me think about Act 2 a lot- its about change, hosting the antagonisms, as you have said, and about a journey through frames we expect and know, ad landing us in a particular and less expected frame…
If you ant some more context for the particular events of timber/environment, click on these, and you will really know a bunch more-
A brief conservative perspective:
a brief description from a more liberal perspective
go here, and skim the preface and introduction…real helpful.
Really helpful. To use the "way of life" thing to illuminate how individuals (real or character) tether themselves to an idea about something at least as much as the actual thing. Such that if the THING changes, they might not even realize in some ways. It's also really connected to the "authenticity" of small town Jono brought up yesterday, which I think is definitely connected to conservatism... and I use conservatism in the sense of conserving/preserving something, not as a political term.
ReplyDeleteA couple of people who we talked to on Friday shrugged when I asked what has changed. I think that's really interesting too... one of them in particular identified as "not living [here in Molalla]." then elaborated on that to mean "4 miles away." In LA, I would consider you in popping distance if you only lived four miles away. In Manhattan, you could walk (width wise) across the island and back and pass millions and millions of people on streets and buildings. Further east in this state, you'd have to go four times that distance or more to see another home... What compels someone to identify as from Molalla or not from Molalla when they are adjacent or logically West/Freedom question Ethan brought up.