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January 27, 2005
TT: The momentary miracle
Most of my e-mail regarding what I wrote about Johnny Carson's death has turned out to be unexpectedly favorable, but I won't burden you with it. Instead, I want to pass on a thoughtful letter from a reader who disagreed.* * *
I've been a daily visitor to your delightful blog for several months now. I've never written to you before and I am pained to find myself one of the people commenting about your Johnny Carson post....
I am truly sorry that you got some rude e-mails in response to your thoughts on Mr. Carson's death. I agree that it is quite unreasonable of anyone to be offended by what you wrote. However, I do think that sort of personalized outrage is a common, if illogical, response when the worth of someone or something you love is being questioned. And I think a great many people loved Johnny Carson. Or rather, they loved what they saw him do.
You wrote: "Perhaps he knew how little it means to have once been famous....If he did, then he died a wise man." I could not agree with you more. Almost all fame is ultimately meaningless. However, I don't think it necessarily follows that what he did to achieve his fame is equally without meaning.
I must tell you where I am coming from, so you can understand why I would care enough to write to you about this. I grew up "in the theatre." (Hope that doesn't sound too pretentious). My father is the artistic director of a professional theatre. My mother and sister are both working actresses. As a child I spent my summer days watching rehearsals. As a teenager and young adult I worked backstage, on stage, and finally did some directing myself....
This theatre has been in continual operation for more than 35 years. Because we take no grants and are entirely self-supporting, most of our shows are of the "crowd-pleasing," light comic variety (though occasionally we are able to do something "daring," just for the fun of it). We have staged more than a hundred productions. Some of them have been truly great; most of them have been entertaining. Yet there is no lasting record of any of them. As a girl, I found closing nights wonderfully, horribly poignant because I knew that I would never see that particular show again. Even if Dad did the same play a few years later, it would never be exactly the same. And each of these productions, even the finest of them, is remembered by no more than a couple of thousand people. And my parents have given their lives to this. You said that Johnny Carson was engaged in "that most ephemeral of endeavors." With respect, I think my family has Mr. Carson beat.
It is a cliché that comedy is difficult, but like so many clichés it is true. Johnny Carson's comedy may not have been groundbreaking or revelatory; it may not be for the ages. But he was funny, consistently funny, day in and day out for thirty years. That is quite an achievement.
Escapism may not be high art, but I think that its value is often underrated. In fact, I think "escapism" is a misnomer. We are never truly able to escape from the problems of our lives. But we are able to put them aside, rest for a while, and then, refreshed, get on with things. And that, I think, is what Carson provided: some rest, amusement, and comfort to people who were dealing with stress, worry or grief. And surely that is a good deed. And from a religious perspective, of course, good deeds do leave a lasting record. Even those quickly forgotten by men are remembered by God.
Anyway, enough. Sorry to trouble you with such a long email. And again, thanks for the blog. My upbringing left me with an inherent dislike for the profession of critic, but I have found myself thoroughly enjoying your writing. Please don't tell my parents!
* * *
While I don't agree with my correspondent's appraisal of Carson's gifts as a comedian, that's strictly a matter of opinion. What strikes me about her letter is the way in which she puts her finger on one of the most distinctive aspects of live theater, which is its radical evanescence.
A theatrical production comes together in the moment, exists there for a finite period, then vanishes, never to be seen again. Certain aspects of it may be retrievable (like, say, Jerome Robbins' dances for the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, which have been reproduced for the current Broadway revival), but for the most part it's gone for good. A skillfully made film or telecast may preserve some of its quality (once again, Robbins is the model--the TV version of Peter Pan conveys a remarkably clear sense of what the stage version must have looked and felt like), but never all of it, and in any case such documents are rare indeed.
In a way this is tragic, but it also explains the irresistible romance of theater, which is embodied in the phrase You had to be there. When it comes to a great production of a play, you do have to be there, and if you are, you become a witness to the ineffable. For the rest of your life you can say, "I saw Jefferson Mays in I Am My Own Wife, and it was soooo great...but you know what? You had to be there." And that's part of the magic--part of what makes theater so enduringly indispensable a part of the world of art, even though film and TV long ago pushed it to the cultural sidelines.
I hope what I wrote about Carson, by the way, doesn't leave anyone with the idea that I don't appreciate the not-so-simple joys of being entertained. Like Ed Wynn in Mary Poppins, I love to laugh, and though Johnny Carson didn't make me laugh all that much, especially in his latter days, I owe an incalculable debt to the countless men and women who have, from Shakespearean buffoons to stand-up wizards. Nobody has to tell me that comedy is hard, or that it is a blessing. In fact, I think it's wiser and more profound than tragedy. As I recently observed in an essay on the music of Haydn:
Just as Haydn the man was deeply religious, so was Haydn the artist a classicist of the highest seriousness--but one who did not assume his seriousness to be incompatible with humor. Like most (but not all!) of the greatest artists, he seems to have understood by instinct that "life is such an indissoluble mixture of heartbreak and absurdity that it might be more truly portrayed through the refracting lens of comedy."
I originally wrote those words a few weeks after 9/11, at a moment when artists in New York City and elsewhere were turning their backs on comedy and succumbing to the temptation of portentousness. At such times we are at the mercy of those who confuse seriousness with solemnity--a mistake Haydn never made.
I hope I never make it, either.
(P.S. Most critics are halfwits.)
UPDATE: Another reader writes:
When I was in college I had the privilege of hearing Brendan Gill speak. One thing he said has always stuck with me: we go to the movies by ourselves because it's static, but we go to the theater because each performance holds the possibility that there will be a disaster and we don't want to be alone for that.
Posted January 27, 2005 1:12 AM
