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Show Who is sucking out the blood of involvement? 0 Q 0 IrA 4- IcX 3yc'1 energy is going. Who is sucking out the blood of involvement? I am wondering exactly where all those hours that America has saved up from the machine-age are going. I am interested, in other rash forms of theatre theatricality that nods its head, dispenses with the importance im-portance of honest theatre and bastardizes bas-tardizes theatre to death. Literally death. I am concerned about the right wing threaters of television, sports, and commercial theatre that have liked off the remains of the early 50's McCarthy era for two decades with few changes. In my next articles I will discuss television; both through the eyes of America, the media, the government govern-ment National Educational Television Televi-sion that has come to some gripping grip-ping odds. I will discuss theatre ""I 'I UMIIIMIII I I.. . in Utah and America and even sports. My concern is simple. America has lost its ear. She responds to odd, bewildering sounds that have nothing to do with her growing pains. Theater has, or should have the responsibility to reflect and illuminate il-luminate those pains and it has and is bitterly failing. "I will be back." splashed to the surfaces. Many of the true pains and frustrations of those people will arrive many years from now from manuscripts that survived in golden boxes in a hay loft. But American (and all other countries of various political spheres) has created its own ca-coons. ca-coons. I think many of them are being weaved throughout the land but in our history it is evident that much of the art has come from areas of overburdening morays (suppressions) and cultural oppressions. oppres-sions. From the south has come numerous writers and musicians. From big cities, like New York, the energy that has been created is explosive. Enough of definitions of terms. I have no real desire to single out Utah, but I believe that there is an amazing burst of energy that has been bred in the cacoon in this state. Some of that energy, has, at times, been released by different dif-ferent programs as dance, music and even theater to an extent. But my basic question is: how much of the energy has been released . as in appeased and how much has been fostered and allowed to grow? In thft riflst much nf thp friiRtratpri by GAYLAN NIELSON Chronicle Staff There is an evident cry going ut. It has always been there; sel-fom sel-fom been answered. "I am an act-ir; act-ir; I am a playwright; I am a per-;on per-;on and I want to give something a the world." That is pretty general gen-eral but is sort of the center of a eries of subsequent columns that rill follow this one in which I shall ry to analyze the theater situation n Utah and the different theater roups that have come, gone, and stablished themselves round-and-bout our state in relation with neater around the rest of the coun-7- There is a metamorphosis taking lace. It is no different, perhaps, lan at many other stages in the istory of man. Oppression and uppression is like the cacoon that i the heated womb of a beautiful irth. It could be said that there ; a kind of evolutionary reincarna-on reincarna-on of ideas and virtues that some-aw some-aw are always able to escape and untinue to survive long after the 3ath of political systems, laws and npires. A few words may be in order to 3fine the "cacoon" according to y concepts. Toynbee says, "Op-ession "Op-ession breeds violence." That is talent simply left the city and or state. Now I believe many realize that the battle is all the same. No matter where one goes the percentages per-centages remain the same. If you go to New York there are a lot more opportunities for serious theater thea-ter but there are a lot more people, the grasp. The second discussion is what is serious theater? It is not an easy answer. I have certain feelings about it; most of them very confining. confin-ing. Most of the questions and answers about serious theater are subjective. Is the theater system dealing with social responsibility? Who is it for? I have a series of feelings about requirements. They include how comfortable the seats are, how much you have to pay to see a performance and what kind of broad appeal it tries to concern itself with. Others include how important im-portant sets and costumes are to the production, how the audience dresses and or course what the plays talk about. I am interested in where all that :ry simplified, but in affect ex-ains ex-ains the backbone of what I feel creative energy. Out of some of e most oppressive socities of ankind has come some of our eatest works of art. What has that it to do with violence? The way see it, art has always been a kind expression of pain, urgency, itred, or slashing back without e of mechanical weapons. These e, of course, many exceptions, it I'm not alone when I speak of eative bursts as being like coned con-ed cannon fire. From Beethoven Woody Guthrie, from Michael-gelo Michael-gelo to Dali, from Eurpides to lesco the agony of inner and ter tensions prodded birth of arts, a society such as in Russia in the t two or three decades there has en a tremendous thrust of energy lifting the seems of governmen-bonds. governmen-bonds. Numerous poets and iters like Pasternak, Mayakovski d even Solzhenitsyn, not to speak hundreds of other writers who i prisoners in Siberia, have |