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0 pointsmunificent9mo ago0 comments

I'm not trying to split hairs.

I think "theatre" is a fairly well-defined term to refer to live performances of works that are not strictly musical. Gather up all of the professions necessary to put those productions on together.

The number of opportunities for those professions today is much smaller than it was a hundred years ago before film ate the world.

There are only so many audience members and a night they spend watching a film or watching TV or playing videogames is a night they don't spend going to a play. The result is much smaller audiences. And with fewer audiences, there are fewer plays.

Maybe I should have been clearer that I'm not including film and video production here. Yes, there are definitely opportunities there, though acting for a camera is not at all the same experience as acting for a live audience.

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rightbyte9mo ago

> I think "theatre" is a fairly well-defined term to refer to live performances of works

Doesn't it mean cinema too? edit: Even though it was clear from context you meant live theatre.

pvg9mo ago

Right but modern theatre is pretty new itself. The number of people involved in performance for the enjoyment of others has spiked, err, dramatically. My point is that making this type argument seems to invariably involve picking some narrow thing and elevating it to a true and valuable artform deserving special consideration and mourning. Does it have a non-special-pleading variety?

munificentOP9mo ago

Well, I didn't pick theatre and Photoshop as narrow things, the parent comment did.

I'm saying an artform that is meaningful to its participants and allows them to make a living wage while enriching the lives' of others should not be thoughtlessly discarded in slave to the almighty god of economic efficiency. It's not special pleading because I'd apply this to all artforms and all sorts of work that bring people dignity and joy.

I'm not a reactionary luddite saying that we should still be using oil streetlamps so we don't put the lamplighters out of work. But at the same time I don't think we should automatically and carelessly accept the decimation of human meaning and dignity at the altar of shareholder value.

pvg9mo ago

I'm not a reactionary luddite saying that we should still be using oil streetlamps so we don't put the lamplighters out of work.

No doubt. A few years ago there was some HN post with a video of the completely preposterous process of making diagrams for Crafting Interpreters. I didn't particularly need the book nor do I have room for it but I bought it there and then to support the spirit of all-consuming wankery. So I'm not here from Mitch & Murray & Dark Satanic Mills, Inc either. At the same time, I'm not sold on the idea niche art is the source of human dignity that needs societal protection, not because I'm some ogre but because I'm not convinced that's how actual art actually arts or provides meaning or evolves.

Like another Thomas put it

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

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0 pointsmunificent9mo ago0 comments

I'm not trying to split hairs.

I think "theatre" is a fairly well-defined term to refer to live performances of works that are not strictly musical. Gather up all of the professions necessary to put those productions on together.

The number of opportunities for those professions today is much smaller than it was a hundred years ago before film ate the world.

0 comments

rightbyte9mo ago

> I think "theatre" is a fairly well-defined term to refer to live performances of works

Doesn't it mean cinema too? edit: Even though it was clear from context you meant live theatre.

pvg9mo ago

munificentOP9mo ago

Well, I didn't pick theatre and Photoshop as narrow things, the parent comment did.

pvg9mo ago

I'm not a reactionary luddite saying that we should still be using oil streetlamps so we don't put the lamplighters out of work.

Like another Thomas put it

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse