Political Criticism
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Papers and 'Clay'
The other night I went to an exhilarating hip-hop musical called "Clay" that made me think about the crisis in newspapers. True, that subject has probably been on my mind more than usual lately, given that my job -- and, more important, a significant quantity of substantial, cerebral daily arts coverage -- disappeared when The New York Sun folded two weeks ago. But I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining the parallel I saw.
The American theater has a chronic, cringe-inducing tendency to glom onto young, or youngish, artists who have a handle on art forms that have arisen sometime since the heyday of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Like newspapers, theaters have long found their core audience among those middle-aged and up. While a Los Angeles Times article last week suggested that performing-arts audiences have always been older, it's understandable that the gray-haired faithful might seem to theaters not like salvation but like a portent of imminent doom. So, fearing extinction, theater companies frequently root about for some new way to be cool, to bring young people in the door, to tempt minority audiences and people who don't have a huge disposable income into filling some seats. (On all of these highly desirable scores, I suggest closely studying the Public Theater. Look around the audience at any Public show -- or around its bustling lobby on any given evening -- and you'll see a mix of ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds that no other theater in this country consistently achieves.)
Too often, the result of the theater companies' desperation is abysmal, not necessarily out of any intentional lowering of standards but out of a genuine failure to understand that high quality and cool are not mutually exclusive -- and that smart kids recognize condescension when they see it, and stay away. Meanwhile, the grown-ups running Theater A notice that Theater B has discovered a youngish artist with what looks to them like youth cred, and so they give the artist a platform, as do theaters C and D and E. Soon the artist is awash in commissions and grant money, investments based not so much on his positive impact on the theater as on his perceived rapport with the next generation.
Newspapers have a different dynamic, and yet they're at least this
desperate as they thrash around, grasping at any strategy that they
believe will attract readers, especially young ones, particularly
online, where, mystifyingly, they continue to be unable to turn eyes into ad dollars. But their behavior as they struggle to adapt seems, in some ways, suicidal.
In
an era when public radio is thriving because audiences are ravenous for
intelligent news and analysis, newspaper-industry gospel dictates going
shorter instead of deeper, and ditching original content for wire copy
that can be found anywhere -- thus giving online readers little reason
to prefer one paper over another. People are more design-savvy than
they've ever been, yet newspaper websites are clunky, unattractive, and
frustratingly hard to navigate. Online story prominence tends to change
according to popularity, thus ensuring rule by lowest common
denominator. And the in-your-face placement of often inane reader
comments, not just online but in the printed paper, can make reading
feel a lot like listening to a bad talk-radio call-in show. Am I wrong
in believing that most of us don't turn to the newspaper to read
whatever Joe from Staten Island feels like blurting on his keyboard?
In
the big freak-out that has gripped the industry, editors and publishers
are getting hung up on the medium and forgetting that the desire for
the message is as strong as it's ever been. The audience hasn't gone
away; it's just accessing the message through a different medium.
Paring down and dumbing down are not going to save the day.
Which, in a very roundabout way, brings me back to Matt Sax's one-man musical, "Clay."
Opening Wednesday at The Duke on 42nd Street, it's part of Lincoln
Center Theater's LCT3 new artists, new audiences programming.
I feared, going in, that "Clay" would be ersatz cool in the tradition
of the wildly overrated Danny Hoch ("Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop"),
who has enjoyed the kind of success I outlined above. Instead, "Clay"
is the rarest of beasts: a beautifully constructed piece of theater
that tells its story through a popular musical genre without corrupting
the integrity of that music. The astonishing Mr. Sax, who's 24, wrote,
scored and performs the piece, which premiered in Chicago in 2006
before going to Los Angeles last year and Kansas City, Mo., last month.
This is not watered-down hip-hop; it's the real thing. With sterling
production values, it's not watered-down theater, either, and the
packed house the other night knew it.
The
ticket price, by the way, is $20 -- the theatrical equivalent of the
easy access newspapers ought to be providing with smarter websites and
better online navigability.
Newspapers, too,
need to get their audience through the door. That's the first step.
They also need to make sure they have something real to offer people
when they get there. Readers will recognize that, and they'll come back
for more.
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