When Art is Cooler--and more Conservative--than Politics (by James Pinkerton at HuffPost)

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James Pinkerton
When Art is Cooler--and more Conservative--than Politics
Posted May 29, 2007 | 04:50 PM (EST)

If art and politics run counter to each other, it's little wonder that a hip new production at the Spoleto Festival USA is so anti-utopian. Why? Because the leading utopian in the world today is our own 43rd president, who preaches, and practices, a kind of coercive do-gooderism that has caused a far-reaching backlash, from the streets of Baghdad to the capitals of Eurasia--and now even to the theatrical stages of Charleston, SC. And while George W. Bush might be totally oblivious to trends in art, it's fair to predict that the artists of the future will not be oblivious to Bush.

The production at the Spoleto festival--founded by the legendary Gian-Carlo Menotti in 1977--is a memorable reworking of an otherwise unmemorable opera, Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1758 L'ile de Merlin ou Le monde renversé ("The Isle of Merlin, or, the World Turned Upside Down"). While much of Gluck's work is well known, this presentation is, in fact, the American premiere of Merlin--249 years after it debuted in Vienna.

Perhaps the delay indicates that this isn't the composer's finest piece, but it's a bravura effort by New York-based director Christopher Alden. Alden has updated the work, using modern sets and costumes--and, more to the point, referencing modern politics.

...(snip)...

In Gluck's tale, two light-hearted vagabonds, Pierrot and Scapin, are shipwrecked on Merlin's island, where they find phantasmagorical happiness. But under Alden's direction, coercion creeps into the story. The two characters are seduced and forced--and, ultimately, mostly forced--to accept the utopian decrees of their new home. Yes, they seem to be better off for the time being, but for how long? The words "We Are In Paradise" appear on a drop-down screen, blaring irony. And through effective lighting, the stage set, which once looked comfortable and inviting, ends up appearing stark and harsh--like, perhaps, the inside of a psychiatric hospital.

Alden commented, "It's hard to accept a utopia today"--because now we know too much about the Kafkaesque construction of alleged utopias. He cited the Jonestown suicide commune and also Scientology as recent examples of coercive and cultish behavior. And that leads back to the point of his updating the opera: Art doesn't just imitate life; it reacts to life, it comments on life.

Artists, flashing their fancies and passions, might not commonly be seen as anchors of common sense and prudence. Yet when politicians lose themselves in the pyrotechnics of their own romantic ecstasies, even artists will feel compelled to step in and provide the needed dousing. And that counter-active cooling will likely continue as long as George W. Bush and his white-hot ideology burn in the White House. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-pinkerton/when-art-is-coolerand-m_b_49870.html