The usual suspects, or "No Room for Honesty"

Perhaps you can't evict it, but some Boston theatre people would like to co-op it.

You may have heard this already, but I felt I should announce it on the blog: actor Danny Bryck has refused the financial support I offered him to develop No Room for Wishing, the solo piece on the Occupy Boston movement that he is currently developing. This is too bad, of course, in and of itself - I'm sure Danny could have used the cash; but what's most troubling about it is the fact that he was pressured into returning the money by his collaborators in the theatre community.

Yes, you read that right - although I wasn't that surprised to hear the news.  Before I made the announcement of the award, in fact, I mused to Danny that I wondered if it was best to make my support public at all; I sensed that it could unleash a toxic mix of envy, frustrated malice, and phony political rectitude in quite a few of the dimmer players around town.  BUT, I basically believe in transparency - and while I was sure many of my enemies on the scene would be quite discomfited by the news, I didn't really think they would victimize another actor in a misguided attempt to get back at me.

But, guess what - that is what they did.  Danny won't name names regarding those who pressured him - although when you discover the identity of his current director, and at which theatre companies she has worked, you can probably come up with a short list of the usual suspects yourself.

Well, so Danny is out a thousand bucks - and I'm a thousand dollars richer!  Which is kind of nice, I must admit.  Danny, who twisted back and forth on this decision until frankly I got tired of hearing about it, suggested that an "elegant solution" to this "dilemma" would be to donate the money to Occupy Boston.  Only I don't really see it that way - I don't see any dilemma, and at any rate I've already given a good deal of money to Occupy; and wouldn't such a donation send the wrong message by only compounding the irony of his situation?  I mean, how could his collaborators be okay with Danny giving up the donation, but the movement keeping it?   (It would seem that if you're actually against me, then you're against everything I stand for - right?)

Ah, but there's the rub.  Many of the people on my personal short list of perps have long told themselves that I opposed their work because of my supposedly reactionary political views, or because I'm racist, or sexist or whatever.  Yawn.  This is a handy psychological dodge - an elegant way to avoid awareness that you're just not that good at theatre, while congratulating yourself on your politics, and I've seen it practiced often. No one who actually knows me imagines I'm racist or sexist, of course, and my support for Occupy Boston places me quite a bit further to the left of many in the theatre community.  Indeed, my frequent presence at Dewey Square last fall sets me apart, I 'd bet, from Danny's testy collaborators (I rarely saw any theatre people other than Danny down at Occupy).  So in this situation you can clearly limn the outlines of a very embarrassing spectacle in which theatre people who weren't actually at the protest try to lay claim to its goals, while shunning someone who was really there.  In short, Danny's collaborators are violating every principle Occupy ever stood for, all while attempting to wrap themselves in its mantle.

This, of course, is disgusting, but again - hardly unexpected, given whom we're probably talking about.  It's also somewhat pathetic in its incoherence and lack of impact.  Danny's show will go on, of course (he'll just be a little poorer), and in the meantime I'll be looking for other theatres in town to donate the money to.

Only this time I've learned my lesson - no more transparency.  The theatre community obviously can't handle the truth.  The IRNE critics will know of my donations, of course, but to all you "idealists" out there, who imagine you are so courageously battling the forces of evil, I'm keeping them completely confidential.