Today I had the unpleasant experience of having to listen to an actor from New York talk about the theater in the Tampa area as if he knew all about it.  His conversation bothered me a great deal, though I held my peace and avoided making a scene (though it did bother me to hear him talk).  In fact, listening to him talk about his own career and that of his circle of theater associates helped me to see some of the biggest problems with the lack of high culture here in Tampa.

For one, all of the people who are most active in the Tampa dramatic scene (despite being perhaps Tampa’s most prolific playwright, that does not include me) seem to know each other and have worked with each other for many years, especially in New York.  In fact, many of them appear to be active here in the Tampa area for the purpose of breaking back into the Broadway scene in New York City rather than for the benefit of local culture.  The fact that he had talked about working at St. Leo University and about other friends of his who worked at various high schools, I understood that a primary difficulty with the dramatic scene in Tampa was that it was a little bit too inbred.

Another issue I noticed was that there seemed to be little desire for originality or creativity.  The plays the fellow rattled off were not very impressive, for the most part.  There was an abandoned attempt to do a play by Chekov, there was talk about a performance of Aristophanes’ The Frogs (itself a worthy play, though hardly a new one).  Then there were the even worse ones, a Sondheim revival and the sequel to someone’s collection of narrative songs from other plays.  Never once did I hear the fellow talk about the need for some creativity or originality, or to help encourage the development of the existing culture here.  It was all about New York or Europe, as if there was no local culture at all here to speak of.

I personally happened to find that deeply offensive.  Tampa does have its own local culture, even if it is a culture that is somewhat alienated due to the transient and artificial nature of local society, where high crime, vagrancy, and a notorious adult entertainment industry combine with a robust tourist economy, large amounts of senior citizen retirees and snowbirds, a large and highly segregated black and Latino population, and the remnants of a ferocious Southern culture.  The elements for fascinating local culture are present in the examination of corrupt politics, cultural and racial tensions, the contrasting pulls of modernity and memory, the longing for intimacy and a sense of place in a place that seems to actively destroy both, the haphazard nature of “development,” and the seemingly permanent status of being incomplete and unfinished are all major elements in the air and soil of Tampa.

Needless to say, many of those elements tie into my own work, which I must admit can be a bit unsettling and off-putting.  I have always been someone for whom the boundary line between my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences and my prolific writing has been a very porous and tenuous one, though not often a straightforward one.  To see what is called culture here be an alien variety planted by foreigners (New Yorkers) with no love or connection to the local culture except their own ambitions to return to their homeland as conquering heroes is very upsetting.  Why is there no examination or reflection on the local culture as it is, because it exists in genuine forms and has an important and worthwhile story to tell.

It is a tragedy to see what is genuine and true be ignored for a pale imitation of someone else’s original project.  We deserve better than that.