Dear Readers,
Another school year has arrived, and I still haven’t lost my
unhealthy obsession with my alma mater, Northern Arizona University, and its
practice of indoctrinating students with liberalism. Nearly four years after graduating, I’m still trying to work
through a lot of the psychological and political damage that was done to me in the theatre department and
English department, while hanging on to all the positive experiences I had and
skills and knowledge I acquired. I'm being a little dramatic. I guess being an English and Theater major at NAU didn't damage me, but it was bewildering to be immersed in so much liberalism for so long. In fact I think one of the reasons I've become so conservative is because college was so liberal, so I rebelled against the liberalism college was trying to push on me.
Now that I have the clarity that comes with hindsight, I
see that political liberalism inserts its slimy tentacles into every nook of
Northern Arizona University, and it's not just in the ethnic studies or the gender studies department. It's everywhere, from the recycling program to the campus
entertainment, to the selection of course materials and professors. Yes, NAU, along with pretty much all the
public Universities in America, is very liberal, progressive, and socially
decadent. The liberalism can be
demonstrated by the plays that the theater department performs every year.
Overall I think this year’s selection of plays is better
than last year’s. The thing I was most
troubled about last year was the overtly political nature of Nickel and Dimed
and the night with Luis Valdez.
Mother Hicks by Suzan Zeder
It’s a family friendly play. That’s nice. It’s for
kids. That’s really nice. But alas, it
is fraught with liberalism.
No, I haven’t seen or read the play, but I’ve googled it
enough now to reach the opinion that Mother Hicks promotes feminist,
anti-religious themes. The play
features small-town religious folk who are hunting witches. Mother Hicks is a feminist hero with
supernatural powers who befriends an odd girl and instructs her in the ways of
earthy, womanly power. I’m sure the
play promotes some good values, too, like courage in the face of adversity,
questioning traditions, a connection with the wisdom of the past, but these
positive values are overshadowed, I think, by the liberalism laced throughout
Mother Hicks.
If any theatre students at NAU are reading this, I want to
say that I hope instead of hastily accepting the precepts taught in Mother
Hicks, (for surely it does teach precepts, just as every play does) you will
critically assess them, and perhaps challenge them. Suzan Zeder is not God.
She’s not a prophet, or an angel.
She, along with many popular playwrights these days, has the trappings of wisdom, but I’m afraid she promotes a worldview that leads to the downfall of Western Civilization. What authority does Zeder have, that you
should so readily accept her worldview?
I hope you challenge the ideas in your non-theatre
classes, too. If your professor assigns you
to read “A People’s History of the United States of America” by Howard Zinn, I
hope you read, “A Patriot’s History of the United States of America” by Larry
Schweikart and Michael Allen.
If you watch, “An Inconvenient Truth” in a science class, I
hope you’ll also watch “The Great Global Warming Swindle.”
If your political science class studies Noam Chomsky’s or
Edward Said’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I hope you’ll read “The
Case for Israel” by Alan Dershowitz.
I felt like many of the professors at Northern Arizona
University presented a one-sided view of things. NAU keeps talking about celebrating diversity- diversity of race,
age, ability, sexual orientation, gender, national origin, and so on, but the
only type of diversity they don’t want to celebrate, and in fact the type of diversity they stifle, is the
only diversity that really matters: the diversity of opinions, the diversity of
political and moral persuasions. You
Christian college students know what I’m talking about. You “old-fashioned” students who consider it
moral to suppress sexual activity until marriage know what I’m talking
about. You cowboys and soldiers and
Republicans know what I’m talking about.
Gradually, in the college environment, your voices are being
silenced.
So why do I get so hung up on the subject matter in plays, and on
the morals and the themes? Why can’t I just comment on the costumes or the acting
or the lighting or the sound? Why can’t
I get caught up in the starry-eyed bliss of pyrotechnics and the outpouring of
emotions like most audience members do?
I suppose I feel constrained to talk about the morality of
play selection because I love people, and I want what’s best for people, and I
believe that I’ve found principles that lead toward greater happiness,
prosperity, and social cohesion. These principles include the following:
respect, strength in the face of evil, honesty, capitalism, hard work,
individual responsibility, love, faith, justice, mercy. These principles are best exemplified and elucidated by Jesus Christ. These principles are good. They lead toward the creation of good individuals, good families, and good societies. They ought
to be propagated.
One of the best ways to propagate righteous principles is
through the medium of theatre. And let
us not pretend that there is any such thing as a non-political play, or a play
without an agenda. Even a non-agenda is
an agenda. Every performance of every
play pushes culture in a particular direction, however slightly or
dramatically. No one who performs in a
play or watches a play is exactly the same as he or she was before. Thus, the burden of the playwright and the
producer is to pick plays wisely. When
you select your plays, don’t think about what suits the transient passions of
the moment, but pick a play that affirms eternal principles of righteousness.
Remember the wise words of Konstantin Stanislavsky, reminding us of the playwright's burden:
“Theatre is a pulpit which is the most powerful means of
influence.” “With the same power with which theatre may ennoble the spectators,
it may corrupt them, degrade them, spoil their taste, lower their passions,
offend beauty.” “My task is to elevate the family of artists from the ignorant,
the half-educated, and the profiteers, and to convey to the younger generation
that an actor is the priest of beauty and truth.”
The High Altitude Festival of New Works
It’s a bunch of staged readings of new short plays written
by students and faculty.
This is cool. I
would have liked to have participated in something like this when I was in
college. Heck, I’d like to participate
in something like this now. Hopefully
they’ll get the English department involved. Actors and makeup artists aren't always the best writers.
New new new. Hmmm…
In these modern times, I worry that too much emphasis is being placed on new
works. I’d like to see a return to
ancient myths and legends and a return to “touchstones”, as Matthew Arnold used
the term. Nevertheless, I find myself
wanting to write new, original plays and poems all the time. Ha ha ha.
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Hey, speaking of touchstones, here’s one right here! I love this play. Good choice, theatre department.
Shakespeare is good for the soul.
Let’s keep it alive.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl
From reading the brief play synopsis, this sounds like a new
and exciting dark comedy. It deals with
how social media and other new technologies are changing our culture, which is
a subject I’ve been interested in ever since I read Technopoly: The Surrender
of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman.
But you don’t go to plays for the themes, you go for the laughs, and Dead
Man’s Cell Phone will surely deliver some of those. It does say it has “mature themes and some strong language,” so
once again, doing this play might alienate the wholesome, moral kids in the
theatre department. That’s a shame.
But then again, if the purpose of the theatre department is
to prepare students for the real world of theatre and TV and movies, then NAU
should do more plays like this. If
students want to get careers as actors in the entertainment industry, they need
to practice convincingly reenacting murder, robbery, violence, profanity,
promiscuity, and Sabbath-breaking for the amusement of others.
Another High Altitude New Works Festival
Pride and Prejudice based on the novel by Jane Austen
Great! Fantastic! Hooray! Great selection. It will give the students a chance to use British accents!
Well thanks for letting me voice my opinion, folks. See you later.
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
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