We would like to be able to extract from Molière some small advice on the state of theater here and today. Without turntables, not possible! Only our little murky glimmers register the ultra-rapid mutations of the performing arts and their audiences. This way, new needs to be met, legacies to be preserved, dizzying creations to be brought into the world. No time to apply balm to the wounds of our modernity; the wind has already turned. How to attract spectators to the stage? Only humor and emotion are unifying. It takes the departure of a singer adored by the crowds to grab an assembly by the throat. Or gags machine-gunned by a comedian to cheer her up. The discreet flowers of art seek their place in the sun.
However, in Montreal at least, the offer is abundant. Almost too rich, in fact. It’s dizzying. There are numerous performance halls. Here and there, vibrant, lit new scenes sprout up in the shadow of established institutions. Young people invent new movements or re-enchant the poetry of lost times. The metropolis has a blast with drag queen shows, revisited classics and enchantments bringing together all genres.
Since the middle of the 20th centurye century attendance at the arts ceased to rhyme with the word “sin”, the creative scene exploded among us between the quest for identity and technological prowess. The performing arts world has produced so many giants of theater, music, dance and tutti quanti. What is he complaining about?
Cliffs that are eroding. From the era that transformed us, without us having time to see it coming. Commenting this week on a recent CINARS survey, a text from Duty demonstrated this: the performing arts are still paying the price of the pandemic, on a Canadian scale moreover. In our very creative French-speaking cities, the environment has not repaired the divide between before and after COVID. It can be seen with the naked eye. Fewer full houses, fewer foreign tours. A host of factors line up behind public disaffection. Consumers are already tightening their belts at the grocery store. So, buy tickets for the theater, dance, concert… Weakened artists need increased income. But the welfare state is crumbling, while individuals’ wallets are emptying. Ouch!
Since the time that the quest for general knowledge is no longer popular. Social networks surf on parallel realities by eroding the power of concentration of minds. Hollywood offers cultural fodder for hackneyed formulas more often than not. Aside from the big machines that make a profit, many shows are little covered by the media, which are struggling. Populism is everywhere on the front pages of newspapers and on TV screens, to better court the large audience. Nothing to form a tightly knit succession of cultural amateurs.
In the absence of common references, fragile shows struggle to make it onto the stage. Works anchored in collective heritage now target a niche audience, often with gray hair. Rising generations are exploring their own cultural veins, like the baby boomers of old. But the planet has fallen apart and new technologies send everyone to explore mental galaxies that uproot us.
Outing habits were lost during confinement, exalting the joys of cocooning in front of the home screen. Of course, diehard culture enthusiasts roam the city with their pilgrim’s staff. The fact remains that, if the artistic consumption of an increased number of citizens is reduced year after year to the reading of three bestsellers, the viewing of 50 American series at home and ten blockbusters in the cinema, the cultural community has reason to raise worried cries.
In an ideal world, every pipehead would have learned from childhood to be familiar with the muses. School outings are organized for this purpose. Very good ! Alas, only the best schools in the public network offer true artistic enlightenment to their students. It would help them face the future by breathing through their noses. But who can count on an education system in existential crisis? Functionally illiterate people collect diplomas by the shovel. Overworked teachers are breaking down: too many problem children, large classes, a lack of replacements in the profession. The learning of art remains caught in the collective gorgoton. “And that’s why your daughter is mute,” the resurrected Molière would respond with a pirouette, before speeding away towards other landscapes less steep than this one.