Theater Snobs

I have a confession to make: I popped my Facebook "unfriend" cherry today.  Here's why...

Last night we were waiting in the lobby of the Market Arcade in downtown Buffalo to see a show featuring our good friend Kyla.  We spotted a theater acquaintance (someone I had once directed in a show,) waved hello to him, and he put on his game face and sauntered over.  Background info: this guy is a Theater Snob.  As with most Theater Snobs, he is majoring in Theater, fauns over obscure and "meaningful" theater, and thinks he is the best thing onstage since sliced bread.  More on that later (BTW - while many Theater Snobs are Theater majors, I am in NO WAY implying that being a Theater major makes you a Snob.)

So anyway, this Snob asks what we're up to, and we tell him: we are currently in rehearsals for "Annie" with Lake Plains Players.  He immediately screws his face up in mock pain, draws in a sharp breath and says, "Ooh...sorry."  After a painful (and ineffective) attempt  at backpedaling he admits, "I'm more of an 'Oliver' person," whatever that might mean.

Here's the thing: while "Annie" might not be Pulitzer Prize material, it won more than twice as many Tony awards (including Best Musical) than Oliver (which did NOT win Best Musical,) has great characters and songs, and this production is being directed by Lance Anderson, the talented director who last brought us "White Christmas" (Curious?  Check out my blog of December 5, 2010 regarding that production!)

Popular theater is popular for a reason...it must be entertaining, high-quality and accessible, three criteria that Theater Snobs traditionally eschew.  If a play is not obscure, it is not "thought-provoking."  If it is not convoluted and esoteric, it is not worthy of consideration.  Bullshit.

Theater is for everyone, not just the Snobs.  By looking down on theater simply because it is "popular," they betray the very essence of what theater is.  They unveil their own self-doubt, their own plaintive cries to be seen as relevant, their own gasping, narcissistic unimportance.

I find a general trend in Theater Snobs: when asked to perform, they are incapable of creating character, they are unable to bring depth of emotion, they are incomplete as performers.  One can be taught technique, but one must create Art.  Technique is external, Art is internal.  When you decry the Art of others simply to engender your own feelings of self-worth, you have exposed the utter lack of Art within you.  Snobbery creates a barren desert within your soul in which no Art may take root.

Lesson to be learned?  Enjoy the Art created by you and others as if you were a child discovering your first playground.  Approach it with joy, with enthusiasm, with heart.  Play as if there is nothing else to do in the world.  And when a Snob comes onto that playground to bully you, refuse to let him spoil what you have created.  Let him steep in his own juices until he can either foster the Art within himself, or he withers into  insignificance.  Trust me, there are plenty of other people to play with.

I have since "unfriended" him.