Author: The Old Geezer (---.137.59)
Date: 02-02-2005 08:02
Despite having shot off my mouth too many times, I'd like to approach something that occured to me, and do so in a serious way.
Reading this column, I came to the following realizations:
First, the sort of activity Juhanna describes is a vibrant, living art form.
Second, having a serious publisher interested in it is seriously cool.
Third, this sort of art is fairly readily available here in the US. It is very easy to find exactly this sort of experimental art here. It gets major writeups, and gets government money, and everything.
It's called "extemporaneous theater".
I'm totally serious. What is called "Extemp" in the States does exactly the style of art Juhanna is describing. If his book was being done in the US, it would be called "Guidelines and Principles of Extemporaneous Drama" or some other snooze-inducing title.
Why the difference, do you suppose?
Here in the US, there are amateur theater groups everywhere. Living in a college town, I have probably thirty or forty available. Pretty much any town of more than 3000 people or so will have at least one theater group, and in more rural areas people will drive 30 or 40 miles to participate (of course, the American obsession with automobiles comes into play here).
Now, many of these groups will not do anything more challenging than yet another remake of "Oklahoma". But with all the groups available, anybody with a strong drive to experimental extemporaneous drama will be able to find a group to practice her art with.
If I wanted to do this sort of art, I'd start looking for extemp drama organizations. I wouldn't start looking for role playing groups.
So why does the same art form appear under such different names in two different places? Does Finland not have the proliferation of amateur theater groups? Do certain words conjure certain images?
Anybody have any ideas?
-- Old Geezer
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