Hostile Environment

Don't you just love it when someone lectures you on how you spend your leisure time? And don't you enjoy it even more when that someone does it with a smug, self-congratulatory attitude with a bit of name-calling on the side?

Neither do I.

And yet, that's exactly what a local actor did on a couple of the local theatre email lists this week. It seems that she attended a performance of Kathryn Blume's one-woman show The Boycott - which deals with issue of gobal warming, among other things - and was disappointed that the turnout wasn't higher.

She could have just let everyone know that it was a great show and that she wished more people had gotten to see it and let it go at that. Instead, she posted a long screed about how terrible it was that none of the local "tree-huggers" (calling us environmentalists wouldn't have been snotty enough, presumably) had attended this performance (how she knew that none of us had attended is unstated; perhaps a scrying devince was involved) and that she was ashamed of the entire local theatre community. She also managed to get in a wholly unrelated plug for her next show and stongly imply that her attendance was an indication of her own higher moral status.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, you can see the entire post here.

My reaction to alll this? Maybe it was because I had just spent the last two hours entering theatrical events into the KDHX arts calendar database, but it seems to me that nobody owes anybody else any apologies or explanations for attending or not attending any particular theatrical event. There is a huge amount of theatre going on in town most weekends. It's physically impossible to see all of it.

Besides, going to the theatre is not a particularly moral or courageous act (at least not yet), so nobody gets any brownie (or is that greenie?) points for doing it in my book.

It also does nothing to address the very real and very pressing problems raised by The Boycott.

Concerned about pollution, pesticides, global warming, species extinction, and our national addition to rapidly dwindling stocks of fossil fuels, nearly all of which are under the control of tottering dictatorships? Fine. Then do something to make yourself more a part of the solution and less a part of the problem. Drive less and use a car that gets the best possible mileage and has the lowest possible emissions. Live close to where you work. Recycle. Do everything you can to make your house more energy-efficient (you'll even get a tax break for doing so). Buy organic food (Local Harvest Grocery here in St. Louis has a nice selection, and they're not alone). Vote for politicians whose fortunes aren't dependent on making the situation worse.

All of those things are more meaningful than attending The Boycott, no matter how good the show is.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm glad she liked the show. If she was persuaded by the message, so much the better. But, really, the chief value of a show like this is in changing minds and hearts. Attendance by those already committed to keeping the human race around for a while would be nice, but it doesn't really advance the cause. It's just be preaching to the choir. And there's surely more than enough preaching to go around these days.