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为什么剧院对民主很重要

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Theater matters because democracy matters.

剧院很重要是因为民主很重要。
Theater is the essential art form of democracy, and we know this because they were born in the same city.
剧院是民主的根本艺术形式,我们知道这一点,是因为它们在同一个城市诞生。
In the late 6th century BC, the idea of Western democracy was born.
在公元六世纪末期,西方民主的想法诞生了。
It was, of course, a very partial and flawed democracy, but the idea that power should stem from the consent of the governed,
当然,在那时,它只是个很不完全、有瑕疵的民主,但权力应该来自于被治理者的同意,
that power should flow from below to above, not the other way around, was born in that decade.
权力的流动方向应该是由下而上,而非由上而下,此想法在那十年中诞生。
And in that same decade, somebody -- legend has it, somebody named Thespis -- invented the idea of dialogue.
在同样那十年,某个人--据传说,他叫做狄斯比斯--发明了关于对话的想法。
What does that mean, to invent dialogue?
发明对话,那是什么意思?
Well, we know that the Festival of Dionysus gathered the entire citizenry of Athens on the side of the Acropolis,
嗯,我们知道,在戴欧尼修斯节,雅典所有的市民会聚集在雅典卫城旁,
and they would listen to music, they would watch dancing, and they would have stories told as part of the Festival of Dionysus.
他们会听音乐,他们会看舞蹈,他们会说故事,这都是戴欧尼修斯节的一部分。
And storytelling is much like what's happening right now:
说故事就很像现在的情境:
I'm standing up here, the unitary authority, and I am talking to you.
我站在台上这里,我是单一的权威,我在对你们说话。
And you are sitting back, and you are receiving what I have to say.
你们只是坐着,接收我要说的内容。
And you may disagree with it, you may think I'm an insufferable fool,
你们可能会不同意我说的,可能会认为我是个恼人的傻子,
you may be bored to death, but that dialogue is mostly taking place inside your own head.
你们可能无聊到极点,但那对话大部分都是发生在你们自己的脑袋里。
But what happens if, instead of me talking to you -- and Thespis thought of this
但如果改一下,不再是由我对你们说话--这是狄斯比斯想出来的,
I just shift 90 degrees to the left, and I talk to another person onstage with me?
我只要向左转九十度,我对台上的另一个人说话,会如何?
Everything changes, because at that moment, I'm not the possessor of truth; I'm a guy with an opinion.
一切都改变了,因为在那时刻,我就不是“真相拥有者”;我只是个有意见的人。
And I'm talking to somebody else. And you know what?
我是在跟别人说话。你们知道吗?
That other person has an opinion too, and it's drama, remember, conflict -- they disagree with me.
那个“别人”也有他自己的意见,这是戏剧,记得要有冲突--他们不认同我说的。
There's a conflict between two points of view.
在两种观点之间有冲突存在。
And the thesis of that is that the truth can only emerge in the conflict of different points of view.
而那么做的论点在于,唯一会有真相浮现的地方,就是两种不同观点冲突的地方。
It's not the possession of any one person.
真相并非任何人所拥有的。
And if you believe in democracy, you have to believe that.
如果你相信民主,你就会相信这点。
If you don't believe that, you're an autocrat who is putting up with democracy.
如果你不相信这点,你就是独裁者,只是在忍受民主。
But that's the basic thesis of democracy, that the conflict of different points of views leads to the truth.
但那就是民主的基本论点,不同观点的冲突会导出真相。
What's the other thing that's happening? I'm not asking you to sit back and listen to me.
另外,还会发生另一件事。我并没有请你们坐好听我说。
I'm asking you to lean forward and imagine my point of view -- what this looks like and feels like to me as a character.
我是在请你们向前倾,想象我的观点--当我是个“角色”的时候,看起来跟感觉起来就是这样子的。
And then I'm asking you to switch your mind and imagine what it feels like to the other person talking.
接着我会请你们转换一下头脑,想象一下身为另一位在说话的人,感觉是什么。
I'm asking you to exercise empathy.
我是在请你们行使“同理心”。
And the idea that truth comes from the collision of different ideas
“真相来自不同想法的碰撞”这个概念,
and the emotional muscle of empathy are the necessary tools for democratic citizenship.
以及同理心的情绪肌肉,都是民主公民权所必要的工具。
What else happens? The third thing really is you, is the community itself, is the audience.
还会发生什么?会发生的第三件事,其实就是你,是共同体本身,是观众。
And you know from personal experience that when you go to the movies, you walk into a movie theater,
你们从自己的个人经验都知道,去看电影时,当走进电影剧院,
and if it's empty, you're delighted, because nothing's going to be between you and the movie.
发现影厅中都没人,你会很开心,因为你和电影之间不会有任何阻碍。
You can spread out, put your legs over the top of the stadium seats, eat your popcorn and just enjoy it.
你可以大方伸展开来,把脚放到前排的椅子上,吃你的爆米花,好好享受。
But if you walk into a live theater and you see that the theater is half full, your heart sinks.
但当你走入现场演出的剧院,看到观众席已经半满,你的心会沉下来。
You're disappointed immediately, because whether you knew it or not, you were coming to that theater to be part of an audience.
你马上会感到失望,因为不论你是否知道,你去到那间剧院,就是成为观众的一部分。
You were coming to have the collective experience of laughing together, crying together,
你是来取得集体经验的,大家一起笑、一起哭、
holding your breath together to see what's going to happen next.
一起摒息,等着看接下来会发生什么。
You may have walked into that theater as an individual consumer,
你走入那间剧院时,或许只是一个个体的客人,
but if the theater does its job, you've walked out with a sense of yourself as part of a whole, as part of a community.
但如果剧院有做好它的工作,当你走出剧院时,你会觉得你自己是整体的一部分,共同体的一部分。
That's built into the DNA of my art form.
内建在我艺术形式的DNA当中。
Twenty-five hundred years later, Joe Papp decided that the culture should belong to everybody in the United States of America,
2500年后,约瑟夫·帕普决定,文化应该属于美国的每一个人,
and that it was his job to try to deliver on that promise.
而他的工作就是要实现这项承诺。
He created Free Shakespeare in the Park.
他创建了“公园中的免费莎士比亚”剧院。
And Free Shakespeare in the Park is based on a very simple idea,
“公园中的免费莎士比亚”根据很简单的想法,
the idea that the best theater, the best art that we can produce, should go to everybody and belong to everybody,
这个想法就是:最好的剧院,我们所能产出最好的艺术,应该要接触到每个人,应该属于每个人,
and to this day, every summer night in Central Park, 2,000 people are lining up to see the best theater we can provide for free.
而至今,在中央公园,每个夏日晚上,会有2000人排队,要看我们能提供的最好的戏剧。
It's not a commercial transaction.
那不是商业交易。
In 1967, 13 years after he figured that out, he figured out something else,
1967年,在他想通了这件事的13年后,他又想通了另一件事,
which is that the democratic circle was not complete by just giving the people the classics.
那就是,只把经典给予人民,还不够让民主圆圈变完整。
We had to actually let the people create their own classics and take the stage.
我们得要真正让人民去创作他们自己的经典,站上舞台。
And so in 1967, Joe opened the Public Theater downtown on Astor Place,
所以,在1967年,乔瑟夫在阿斯托广场闹区开了一间公众剧院,
and the first show he ever produced was the world premiere of "Hair."
他所制作的第一场演出,就是《毛发》的首演。
That's the first thing he ever did that wasn't Shakespeare.
这也是他第一次做不是莎士比亚的戏剧。
Clive Barnes in The Times said that it was as if Mr. Papp took a broom
《纽约时报》的克莱夫·巴恩斯说,那彷佛就是帕普拿了一支扫帚,
and swept up all the refuse from the East Village streets onto the stage at the Public.
把东村街道上的所有拒绝,通通扫到公众剧院的舞台上。
He didn't mean it complimentarily, but Joe put it up in the lobby, he was so proud of it.
他并没有赞美的意思,但乔瑟夫把这篇报导陈列在大厅,他感到好骄傲。
And what the Public Theater did over the next years with amazing shows
在接下来的几年,公众剧院有许多出色的节目,
like "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf,"
像是《给那些当彩虹出现,就要考虑自杀的有色女孩》、
"A Chorus Line," and -- here's the most extraordinary example I can think of:
《歌舞在线》以及--这是我所能想出最不凡的例子:
Larry Kramer's savage cry of rage about the AIDS crisis, "The Normal Heart."
拉里克莱默出于艾滋病的愤怒而发出野性吶喊的作品,《血热之心》。
Because when Joe produced that play in 1985,
因为当乔瑟夫在1985年制作那出剧作的时候,
there was more information about AIDS in Frank Rich's review in the New York Times than the New York Times had published in the previous four years.
在《纽约时报》上法兰克瑞奇的评论中,关于艾滋病的信息量比《纽约时报》前四年所出版的所有信息加起来都还要多。

为什么剧院对民主很重要

Larry was actually changing the dialogue about AIDS through writing this play, and Joe was by producing it.

拉里透过撰写这部作品的方式,来改变关于艾滋病的对话,而乔瑟夫是制作人。
I was blessed to commission and work on Tony Kushner's "Angels in America,"
我很有福气,受到委任做了托尼·库许纳的《天使在美国》,
and when doing that play and along with "Normal Heart,"
在做那出戏和《血热之心》的时候,
we could see that the culture was actually shifting, and it wasn't caused by the theater,
我们可以看出文化真的在转变,这并不是由剧院所造成的,
but the theater was doing its part to change what it meant to be gay in the United States. And I'm incredibly proud of that.
但剧院有扮演好它的角色,改变了在美国被认为很娘的定义。对此我感到非常骄傲。
When I took over Joe's old job at the Public in 2005,
2005年,我接下了乔瑟夫在公众剧院的工作,
I realized one of the problems we had was a victim of our own success, which is:
我了解到我们的问题之一,其实是由我们自己的成功所造成,就是:
Shakespeare in the Park had been founded as a program for access, and it was now the hardest ticket to get in New York City.
公园中的莎士比亚成立时是要成为大家都可使用的计划,而它现在是纽约市中最难取得的票。
People slept out for two nights to get those tickets. What was that doing?
大家要在门外过夜排队两个晚上,才能买到票。那是怎么回事?
That was eliminating 98 percent of the population from even considering going to it.
那会让98%的人完全不考虑要去那里了。
So we refounded the mobile unit and took Shakespeare to prisons,
所以我们重新成立了一个行动组,把莎士比亚带到监狱、
to homeless shelters, to community centers in all five boroughs and even in New Jersey and Westchester County.
游民收容所、所有五个行政区,甚至新泽西和威斯特彻斯特郡的小区中心。
And that program proved something to us that we knew intuitively:
该计划向我们证明了一件和我们本来的直觉相符的事:
people's need for theater is as powerful as their desire for food or for drink.
大家对于剧院的需求,和他们对食物或饮水的欲望一样强大。
It's been an extraordinary success, and we've continued it.
这计划一直非常成功,我们还在持继进行。
And then there was yet another barrier that we realized we weren't crossing, which is a barrier of participation.
接着,还有一个障碍,我们一直都还没跨越,那就是参与的障碍。
And the idea, we said, is: How can we turn theater from being a commodity, an object,
我们说,这个想法是:我们要如何将剧院从一种商品、一个物体,
back into what it really is -- a set of relationships among people?
转变回它真正的本质--人之间的一组关系?
And under the guidance of the amazing Lear deBessonet, we started the Public Works program,
在李尔·戴本森奈特的杰出指导之下,我们开始了“公众作品”计划,
which now every summer produces these immense Shakespearean musical pageants,
现在,每年夏天,这个计划都会制作这些超棒的音乐盛会,
where Tony Award-winning actors and musicians are side by side with nannies and domestic workers
在盛会中,得过托尼奖的演员和音乐家会与保姆、国内的工人、
and military veterans and recently incarcerated prisoners, amateurs and professionals, performing together on the same stage.
退伍军人、刚出狱的犯人、业余玩家以及职业专家肩并肩携手合作,一起同台演出。
And it's not just a great social program, it's the best art that we do.
它不只是个很棒的社会计划,它是我们所能做出最棒的艺术。
And the thesis of it is that artistry is not something that is the possession of a few.
它的论点是:艺术才能并不是少数人所拥有的。
Artistry is inherent in being a human being.
身为人,天生就有艺术才能。
Some of us just get to spend a lot more of our lives practicing it.
只是我们当中有些人花了更多时间在练习它。
And then occasionally... you get a miracle like "Hamilton,"
然后,偶尔...就会出现奇迹,像《汉米尔顿》,
Lin-Manuel's extraordinary retelling of the foundational story of this country
林-曼努尔重新诉说这个国家开国故事的不凡之作,
through the eyes of the only Founding Father who was a bastard immigrant orphan from the West Indies.
透过开国先驱的视角来呈现,而他是来自西印度群岛的私生子移民孤儿。
And what Lin was doing is exactly what Shakespeare was doing.
林所做的,就是莎士比亚所做的。
He was taking the voice of the people, the language of the people, elevating it into verse,
他将人民的声音、人民的语言提升成为诗节,
and by doing so, ennobling the language and ennobling the people who spoke the language.
通过这么做,让那语言变得更尊贵,也让说那语言的人民变得更尊贵。
And by casting that show entirely with a cast of black and brown people, what Lin was saying to us,
全剧的选派演员用的全部都是黑色和褐色皮肤的人,林想要对我们说的是,
he was reviving in us our greatest aspirations for the United States, our better angels of America,
他要唤醒我们心中美国最伟大的热望,我们更好的美国天使,
our sense of what this country could be, the inclusion that was at the heart of the American Dream.
我们对于这个国家能够成为什么样子的看法,位于美国梦核心位置的包容。
And it unleashed a wave of patriotism in me and in our audience, the appetite for which is proving to be insatiable.
它在我体内、我们观众体内,释放出一波爱国主义,而有关于此的胃口已经证明是不会被满足的。
But there was another side to that, and it's where I want to end, and it's the last story I want to talk about.
但还有另一个方面,我想用这个方面来结束,这是我想要谈的最后一个故事。
Some of you may have heard that Vice President-elect Pence came to see "Hamilton" in New York.
在座有些人可能听过当选而尚未就任的副总统彭斯来纽约看《汉米尔顿》。
And when he came in, some of my fellow New Yorkers booed him.
当他进来时,一些纽约人对他发出嘘声。
And beautifully, he said, "That's what freedom sounds like."
他说了句很棒的话:“那就是自由的声音。”
And at the end of the show, we read what I feel was a very respectful statement from the stage,
在节目的最后,我们在舞台上读了我认为非常有敬意的声明,
and Vice President-elect Pence listened to it, but it sparked a certain amount of outrage, a tweetstorm,
而彭斯副总统听了它,但它点燃了某些怒火和推特风暴,
and also an internet boycott of "Hamilton" from outraged people who had felt we had treated him with disrespect.
还有针对《汉米尔顿》的一项网络抵制活动,发动者是愤怒的人,他们觉得我们不尊重他。
I looked at that boycott and I said, we're getting something wrong here.
我看着那些抵制然后说,我们有什么地方出了差错。
All of these people who have signed this boycott petition, they were never going to see "Hamilton" anyway.
所有这些签署了抵制请愿的人,反正他们永远不会去看《汉米尔顿》。
It was never going to come to a city near them.
该剧永远不会到他们邻近的城市演出。
If it could come, they couldn't afford a ticket, and if they could afford a ticket,
就算有,他们也买不起票,就算买得起票,
they didn't have the connections to get that ticket.
他们也没有人脉可以取得票。
They weren't boycotting us; we had boycotted them.
他们不是在抵制我们;我们已经先抵制了他们。
And if you look at the red and blue electoral map of the United States, and if I were to tell you,
如果你看看标上蓝色和红色的美国选举地图,如果我告诉你:
"Oh, the blue is what designates all of the major nonprofit cultural institutions," I'd be telling you the truth.
“喔,蓝色标记代表所有主要的非营利文化机构。”那我告诉你的是真相。
You'd believe me. We in the culture have done exactly what the economy,
你会相信我。在文化上,我们所做的事,完全和在经济上、
what the educational system, what technology has done, which is turn our back on a large part of the country.
教育体制上、科技上所做的一样,那就是背弃了这个国家大部分的人。
So this idea of inclusion, it has to keep going.
所以,这个包容的概念得要持续下去。
Next fall, we are sending out on tour a production of Lynn Nottage's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Sweat."
明年秋天,我们有一场巡回演出,演出作品是让林恩诺塔吉得了普立兹奖的出色剧作《汗水》。
Years of research in Redding, Pennsylvania led her to write this play about the deindustrialization of Pennsylvania:
她花了数年时间在宾州的雷丁做研究,写下这出关于宾州去工业化的剧作:
what happened when steel left, the rage that was unleashed, the tensions that were unleashed,
如果钢铁工业外移会是怎样的情况,被释放出来的怒火,被释放出来的压力,
the racism that was unleashed by the loss of jobs.
被释放出来的种族主义,都会因失业而起。
We're taking that play and we're touring it to rural counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
我们巡回演出这出剧的地点是在乡下的市县,包括宾州、俄亥俄州、密歇根州、明尼苏达州和威斯康星州。
We're partnering with community organizations there to try and make sure not only that we reach the people that we're trying to reach,
我们和当地小区组织合作,以确保我们不仅能触及到我们试图触及的族群,
but that we find ways to listen to them back and say, "The culture is here for you, too."
同时也能有方法反过来倾听他们的声音,并说:“文化也到这里来见你了。”
Because... we in the culture industry, we in the theater, have no right to say that we don't know what our job is.
因为...我们这些在文化产业的人,我们这些在剧院的人,没有权利说我们不知道我们的职责是什么。
It's in the DNA of our art form. Our job "... is to hold up, as 'twere, a mirror to nature;
它内建在我们艺术形式的DNA当中。我们的职责是“彷佛要举起大自然的镜子,
to show scorn her image, to show virtue her appearance, and the very age its form and pressure."
让轻蔑看见她的影像,让美德看见她的外表,让这个时代看到它的形式和压力。”
Our job is to try to hold up a vision to America that shows not only who all of us are individually,
我们的职责是要支撑着美国的远景,这个远景呈现的不只是我们每个人各别的身份,
but that welds us back into the commonality that we need to be,
还有它将我们结合起来,重新成为我们需要成为的共性,
the sense of unity, the sense of whole, the sense of who we are as a country.
一体的感受,整体的感受,我们身为一个国家的感受。
That's what the theater is supposed to do, and that's what we need to try to do as well as we can. Thank you very much.
那是剧院应该要做的事,那是我们应该尽力而为试着去做的事。非常谢谢各位。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
decade ['dekeid]

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n. 十年

联想记忆
classics ['klæsiks]

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n. 古希腊、古罗马的文学著作 名词classic的复数

 
savage ['sævidʒ]

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adj. 野性的,凶猛的,粗鲁的,荒野的
n.

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autocrat ['ɔ:təkræt]

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n. 独裁者

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commodity [kə'mɔditi]

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n. 商品,日用品

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brilliant ['briljənt]

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adj. 卓越的,光辉的,灿烂的
n. 宝石

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conflict ['kɔnflikt]

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n. 冲突,矛盾,斗争,战斗
vi. 冲突,争

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bastard ['bæstəd]

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adj. 私生的,错误的,混蛋的 n. 私生子,混蛋

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scorn [skɔ:n]

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n. 轻蔑,奚落,笑柄
v. 轻蔑,鄙视,嘲弄

联想记忆
switch [switʃ]

想一想再看

n. 开关,转换,鞭子
v. 转换,改变,交换

 

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