Meredith Forlenza as the daughter of a former pro quarterback who follows in the footsteps of her father, portrayed by C. J. Wilson, in “All-American.”
I write this post as I watch the Bears/Eagles Sunday night face off. Neither of these teams are MY team, but my roommate Jackie has a fantasy team and so it seems that football is always on here these days. I’ve always been a huge football fan, or rather, a massively crazy New England Patriots fan. I am loyal to all my Boston sports teams through and through. But last night, as I watched the New York Giants?!?! beat my beloved Pats, I experienced a catharsis similar to any experience I’ve had in the theatre. Live sports games are unpredictable, exciting, and incredibly moving. I don’t feel like this is a surprise to anyone, the comparison is made quite often. Paolo throws around hundreds of “theatre is like baseball/football/basketball” references by the week. But last night, as Tom Brady threw his third interception of the night and the ball was tipped up and into the crowd, I found myself shouting “Really!? Right into the audience?! I mean the crowd, not the audience, the crowd.” But there was a reason for the slip up.
As three of us (including the fabulous David Keohane) watched this game we were losing in horror, Brady made an end zone pass to Rob Gronkowski and pulled us ahead by four points with a minute and fifteen seconds to spare. The three of us jumped high into the air, screamed, and took steps in different directions. We let ourselves feel exactly what was moving through us on both voice and movement. We don’t give ourselves this freedom when watching theatre. But why not? It’s not what is practiced in our culture, but how great would it be if the actor’s on stage knew exactly what they were doing to their audiences in the moment? Football teams are motivated by the vigor of their crowds. Shouldn’t performers be too? Or rather, why do we put these social restrictions on our audiences when there is no other activity on this earth that requires a large group of people to sit and be silent for 2 plus hours?
Going through the NY Times today, I came across this review of a new workshop play at LCT3 (this is the third time I’ve posted about shows at the Lincoln Center lab and I cannot advocate for this new initiative enough!) about a girl who plays quarterback for her high school football team. The play, “All-American” by Julia Brownell, focuses on Katie Slattery and her family (including a former pro-football quarterback of a father) as they struggle to make Katie fit in to this peculiar position and as they struggle against each other. I was happy to read about this play given my current enamor with football, and happy to see the bridge between sports and art being bridged in any capacity. There is not such a difference between sports fans and theatre goers, and honestly, I think there is a lot to be learned from one another.
