George's Take

George Hunka wrote about Outrageous Fortune about a month ago. I didn't link to it then. I am now.

"One weakness of the book is its lack of reference to self-production, an avenue which many experimental and non-traditional playwrights have taken: if the system is as sick as it is painted here, then perhaps the system should be abandoned in its entirety. Of all the playwrights surveyed, two outstanding absences from the list of participants in the back of the book are Young Jean Lee and Richard Maxwell, both of whom formed their own companies; lacking bricks-and-mortar theatres, they produce their work where they can, without the overhead that an institutional theatre requires. It's true that many self-producers may work out of a sense of their own vanity. It's also true that many believe that self-production, in the face of the challenges that working within institutional theatres represent, is the best way of developing their work: where they're least likely to give in to the temptation of compromise, and most likely to see it bodied on stage, where it belongs. It may cost more, in the end: but given the thin scraps offered to playwrights now, as this study attests, the reward is not in dollars but in seeing one's work performed as first envisioned: and this is most likely where the theatrical advances in America will be made."