America the Theatrical

"There is no literary enjoyment more within the reach of the crowd than those one experiences in sight of the stage. Neither preparation nor study is necessary to feel them. They seize you in the midst of your preoccupations and your ignorance. When love of the pleasures of the mind, still half coarse, begins to penetrate a class of citizens, it immediately drives them toward the theater."
-Alexis de Tocqueville

In his defining work Democracy in America, there hardly appears to be any subject of American life that Alexis de Tocqueville does not address. After spending ample time on the subjects of government, the separation of powers, the capitalist economy, and American freedom and equality, Tocqueville addresses the arts in America. While he finds pleasure in all the forms of art- visual, musical, and theatrical- it is the realm of theatre that he finds most fitting for democratic peoples.

The quote to open this entry helps to explain this. Theatre in democratic nations is not so much an intellectual as an emotional endeavor. Because of this, it speaks more universally, from the most educated noble to the poor peasant. It is also the most democratic art form in that the playwright, actor, and directors cannot produce a play simply for one person, as can be done with particular musical and visual arts expressions. Plays must satisfy a large audience; theatre necessitates that audience or else it cannot exist. In this way, the people dictate what is performed for them.

Tocqueville later ponders, however, that despite an increase in the theatrical spectacles of American culture over the forty or so years since the ratification of the Constitution (Tocqueville was writing in 1830), "the population still indulges in this genre of amusement only with extreme restraint." He goes on to offer possible reasons for this including the Puritan heritage of early America, the lack of political catastrophes that inspire great theatrical rebellion, the working spirit of Americans whose only rest is on a day they spend worshiping God.

Let me jump to the present. I am a student at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and part of a program called the Center for Outreach in Development of the Arts. As a senior this year, I have been charged with creating a new program for the college or community that fits into the mission of CODA - to prepare undergraduate students in the principles of aesthetics, cultural policy and professional practice with which the arts invigorate culture and enlighten lives. CODA works creatively with Rhodes College faculty, staff, and its network of arts leaders throughout the region and beyond to translate the ideals embodied in the fine arts into an integral part of student learning and living.

Having read Tocqueville in the last five months, I felt as though his words on the theatre still resonate, at least on my small liberal arts campus, a place that prides itself on cultivating the "pleasures of the mind." We, of all places, should have a student body that is theatrically literate and supportive of our plays. It is my mission this year, therefore, to discover how we can broaden the theatrical perspective of our student body and create a campus climate where we seek "mind pleasures" as well as the "heart emotions." As this blog continues, I will chart my path through this journey, along with several detours about particular arts events and seminars in which I participate.

Join me, and together we'll seek those pleasures of the mind together.