Fans of Chekhov
Fans of Chekhov
Re-Approaching “High Culture”
The academic literature on fandom is both extensive and central within popular cultural studies. Yet there is little comparable analysis of fans of high-culture entertainment forms like theater. Superficially, this may be due to an old-fashioned cultural studies rejection of high culture, even though some of the founding fathers of the field, like Raymond Williams, worked comfortably in both television and theater studies (see Roberta Pearson’s polemic—with which I agree—on behalf of the return to discussion of cultural value in the previous chapter). But nor has there been much help from within theater studies. Despite a powerful theorization of performance in recent years, audience studies within theater/performance analysis have tended to remain a marginal activity, and where these have existed (as in Susan Bennett’s work, 1997), they have not engaged with theories of fandom.
However, a sociological version of performative analysis, in Abercrombie and Longhurst’s Audiences (1998), has focused on fandom as part of a consumer-to-enthusiast spectrum. Their specification of differentiated identities (of consumption and production) among consumers, fans, cultists, and enthusiasts is part of a broader “audiencing” move beyond the “resistant reading” tradition in audience research (see also Alasuutari 1999b).
In turn, though, Abercrombie and Longhurst’s underpinning postmodernist emphasis on “the play and the pleasure that is involved in fandom” (1998: 155) is itself being superseded after 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings by an extension of “risk society,” “risk culture,” and “risk governmentality” debates. These re-emphasize the interplay of reflexive individualization linked to Foucauldian surveillance that Abercrombie and Longhurst seek to downplay. Symptomatically, Abercrombie and Longhurst draw significantly on Beck’s and Giddens’s “risk society” thinking about the reflexive project of the self, but only by lifting the notion of the individualized ordering of self-narratives without any reference to the “risk society” and “risk governmentality” debate it depends on.
Risk theorists argue that audiences, wherever they are in the spectrum from consumers to enthusiasts, are living in a darker context than Abercrombie and Longhurst’s more ludic preference for performativity and pleasure. Rather, in a world hegemonically defined as part of the “war against terror,” risk thinking—from leading international power brokers and globalizing sections of the media, as well as in parts of academia—has increasing discursive salience among publics, and has political outcomes in mounting governmental threats to civil liberties. Further, de Zengotita refers to the profound tension between, on one hand, Abercrombie and Longhurst’s Western world of postmodern, reflexive performativity, in which the possibilities of choice seem endless and, on the other hand, the world of millions of others “dominated by our interests” (2005: 291). This, even in Western societies, is “part of the unrepresentable mood that eludes mediation at the dawn of the age of terror” (2005: 287).
This is the broader framework within which my piece on Chekhov fans needs to be positioned. But it has not yet been fully worked through. I was myself seriously injured by a suicide bomber three feet from me in a London underground train on July 7, 2005, an event that terminated my writing for an extended period. However, preliminary work (Tulloch 2004: 29–36) had been done in bringing together performance, risk, and audience theory in theater production and reception, and my brief excursion into Chekhov fandom in this chapter should be seen in this context. It remains part of my own “reflexive project of the self” (Tulloch 2006), to which I’ll return at the end.
Chekhov Fans: A Local Study
As part of an Australian Research Council funded project, “Chekhov: In Performance, Criticism, and Reading,” I designed one study to focus more closely on theater fandom, while also opening up the possibility of risk analysis. I chose one particular theater, the Theatre Royal, Bath (TRB), one country (England), in one season, playing one particular author (Chekhov) in three different productions. Chekhov is the second most popular “classic” playwright (after Shakespeare) on the British stage—and probably first among actors. So popularity and fandom were central to my choice of research subject. The three productions studied at the TRB were the English Touring Theatre’s Cherry Orchard, starring Prunella Scales and Frank Middlemas; the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Seagull, starring Richard Pasco and Penelope Wilson; and Janet Suzman’s Free State, a contemporary South African adaptation of The Cherry Orchard. So all were popular classics of Chekhov, with highly visible and popular stars; while one, Suzman’s adaptation, allowed analysis of audiences’ rethinking of Chekhov’s fin-de-siècle social transition in The Cherry Orchard in a different context, of risk and racism, in late twentieth-century Britain and South Africa.
Rather than follow the empiricist demographic approach of much theater audience research, both my quantitative and qualitative questions began by emphasizing what going to this particular theater event meant to particular audience members in the context of their everyday life. “Why did you come to this particular production of The Cherry Orchard today?” was, for example, the opening question of my theater audience survey, which also examined in detail respondents’ liking/disliking of two key features of live theater: its multimediality (Eversmann 2003) across acting, costume, lighting, set design, sound, etc.; and its live interaction between performances and audiences. Readings of both the semiotic density of theatrical performance and its live performer/performer/audience interaction could then be correlated with audience members’ everyday choices as to why they were at the theater that day.
The open-ended first question (“Why did you come… today?”) was postcoded according to the respondents’ own categories, and revealed a relatively small number of generic leisure-time categories. It was quite easy to spot the various fan and non-fan responses. For example, the following questionnaire responses were classified as “Chekhov fans”: “Whenever possible I see—whether on the stage, film or TV—Chekhov’s plays,” and “Love a Chekhov ‘fix.’”
A different kind of fan response was from audience members who went to a particular production because they loved seeing a particular star actor. One respondent, for example, talked about Janet Suzman in The Free State as “almost as good” in her “live aura” as her “all-time love,” Vanessa Redgrave. Another was disappointed that Prunella Scales, the star she had especially gone to see in the TRB’s Cherry Orchard, was “not as good” as she had been in an Ibsen play the respondent had seen. Again, these different fans’ responses to the multimediality and live interaction of a particular production could be compared with those who are not fans of anything, but are studying the play for school exams, are looking for a night out (with dinner afterwards at a restaurant), were “told to go” by a husband or schoolteacher, or were given a ticket “blind” as a birthday treat.
There are all kinds of practical difficulties in getting this kind of complex data from theater audiences (Tulloch 2004). But it can be very rich research, and offers the opportunity to compare the readings of both the semiotic variations of production and the live interaction of performance between fans and non-fans, as well as between different kinds of fan and non-fan. In the space I have here, I will begin to explore some variations in response between two of my fan classification groups: Chekhov fans and star fans.
I choose these two classifications for my focus because, according to both audience-led and researcher-led quantitative survey questions, these particular motivations—being fans of Chekhov and being fans of a particular star—came first and second as reasons for coming to a particular production at the TRB. My methodology also contained a number of different qualitative approaches to the audiences of the three Chekhov productions, but this chapter will focus mainly on part of the questionnaires handed out and returned after two evening and one matinee performance of the third production in the TRB Chekhov sequence: The Cherry Orchard, produced by the English Touring Theatre (ETT). This survey also contained questions about the two earlier Chekhov productions, The Free State and The Seagull (including a question as to whether and why audiences members didn’t go to these productions).
The TRB was, in the words of its marketing manager, a “star-driven, not playwright-driven” theater, which meant a long-term encouragement of audiences as star fans. In fact, both the Chekhov fans and the star fans have a clear marketing institutional basis in British theater. According to an individual theater’s perceived market profile, they are produced because this playwright or this star is thought likely to put bums-on-seats in this regional town on a pre- or post-London run by major touring companies like the RSC, the National, or the ETT. In contrast, a third type of theater fandom has a different economic-institutional base: the need among poorly subsidized theaters for out-of-house productions. Touring companies can thus build up their own fan base, who follow their productions around. As I discovered from various theater surveys I conducted at regional theaters, theater fans go to the theater very frequently (many visit as much as 40-plus times a year), and often drive significant distances by car to a number of theaters in their region or to follow a production company while on holiday. Thus, some tourists from Dorset said, “We saw the English Touring Theatre’s production of The Master Builder, which we enjoyed very much—so thought we’d try a Chekhov. (Also we are on holiday this week, so were able to spend a day in Bath!)”
My first approach to examining the mix of quantitative and open-ended qualitative data I have in my theater-fan research has been to consider similarities and differences within and between each of the generic leisure-time (“why I came?”) categories. I also looked at the responses across any one questionnaire as an individual mini-narrative that tells us quite a lot about the profile of each audience respondent, his/her horizon of expectations, and the meanings he or she generated in watching the multimediality and the interactivity of this particular production of the play.
For example, across one questionnaire I could trace whether a particular Chekhov fan really “loves Chekhov” to the extent of having such a cultural competence in terms of conventionally sedimented notions of “Chekhov” (e.g. ensemble acting, tragicomedy, balance between change and inevitability, etc.) that he/she knows “how Chekhov should be performed” in terms of acting, set design, lighting, and so on, and responds in evaluating the current performance accordingly. Fans of popular cultural performances quite systematically draw on their cultural competences to construct “all-time best” and “all-time worst” productions of their favorite show (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995). Might this same fan effect not operate in relation to high-cultural texts and performances?
A first significant finding was that, examined quantitatively, the Chekhov fans rated the ETT production of The Cherry Orchard less pleasurable than the star fans did: 81 percent of the star fans but only 56 percent of the Chekhov fans liked it. But was this the result of the particular cultural competences associated with different forms of fandom? Three survey-narratives from Chekhov fans who disliked the ETT Cherry Orchard are symptomatic of what I found more generally in this category of theater fan.
Margaret (who went to the play because of her “love of Chekhov,” having enjoyed The Cherry Orchard in the past) disliked the ETT production because it was a “very ‘flat’ production. There was little atmosphere, and the characters generally did not evoke the audience’s empathy. It did not ‘feel’ Russian.” “Conflicts of the period [are] in the text, but easily missed.” She also disliked the set because the “cherry orchard was not evident, [so you were] not aware of its importance as the central theme (It was like a cheap American hotel).” In contrast, The Seagull was a “wonderful production. Beautifully acted—felt really involved—a very believable production. You felt the resonance of the period.” Margaret came all the way to Bath from Weymouth to see this production, and her disappointment was all the keener for it: “Two gentlemen near me snored their way through sections of the play[….] Only the final moments of the play moved me in any way. In fact, the leading lady seemed to be as bored as some of the audience.”
Cassy, another Chekhov lover, disliked the production, the acting (“technically competent but they failed to communicate that complicated detail beneath the text”), the interpretation (“it seemed just a performance of the plot like a competent amateur show”), the sets (“clumsy, badly changed”), and the costumes (“didn’t look as if they belonged to the characters”). In contrast, The Seagull was “brilliant… I was completely drawn into this production. There wasn’t a moment in the play when you weren’t aware of what was going on in their minds. The set made you feel there was no one really looking after it. It was impermanent, which added to the discordant element. The costumes looked like the characters had lived in them for the last 20 years.”
John (who loves Chekhov and needs his “annual fix”) disliked this production. “The actors appeared bored, poor diction, over-acting.” The interpretation “failed to convey the changing times in society, the ‘fin de siècle’ theme within the play.” He also disliked the set with its “dominant doorway dividing the stage, while one side to the right seemed bare.” The Seagull was “much better—good directing, well acted; an enjoyable performance.”
Chekhov fans at the TRB talked a lot about the “subtlety” of Chekhov’s text, and his “balance” between pathos and humor, which they felt was lost in the “shouting” and “OTT” acting of the English Touring Theatre’s Cherry Orchard. They spoke of the loss of “Russian feel” or of “fin-de-siècle atmosphere” or of the “resonance” of “changing times” conveyed by set design, costuming, and performative mood. They regretted the production’s loss of the “complicated detail” and the “conflicts of the period in the text.” They knew about Chekhov’s “ensemble” acting and complained about the “insufficient attention to the relationship between characters” because actors looked “bored,” walking through their parts in a “flat” production.
Chekhov fans also tend to have a particular notion of Chekhov’s “history,” which is to do with end-of-nineteenth-century social change in Russia, prior to the 1905, then 1917, revolutions. This does not necessarily preclude the enjoyment of contemporary adaptations of Chekhov. Thus, Anne (who liked Chekhov and saw The Free State with her husband because she wanted to compare the two versions) disliked the ETT Cherry Orchard because of “too exaggerated” acting, making “silly” characters (thus depriving the play of subtlety), and the “silly bookcase.” In contrast, she found The Free State to be “a much stronger production—less overacted and more powerful for it.” Here, Chekhov was “translated very well to South Africa” at the time of Nelson Mandela’s 1993 election victory. Similarly, Jim (who very much likes The Cherry Orchard and enjoys the TRB’s pre-London season touring policy) disliked the unsubtle performances of the ETT production of The Cherry Orchard (“just speaking their lines”), the lack of ensemble integration, Lopakhin’s “raving after buying the orchard,” and Ranyevskaya “weeping too long” in overpassive response. He liked The Seagull for the Russian atmosphere it created through acting, lighting, scenery, and subtle character development. And he very much liked The Free State for its convincing performances and characterization (“an excellent transfer to South African modernity”).
In contrast, other Chekhov fans did not like the “politicization” of Chekhov in Suzman’s Free State. Thus, David (who has a particular interest in The Cherry Orchard) disliked the ETT production because of “too many anachronisms and too frantic acting […] some performances were unbelievably ‘over the top.’” But he didn’t go to The Free State because he saw it as “too political (in a modern sense).” And Ellen (who “loves Chekhov” and hoped The Cherry Orchard “would be as good as The Seagull”) didn’t like much of the ETT production. “It did not seem very Russian. I was a little disappointed by Prunella Scales’ interpretation.” But Ellen chose not to see The Free State. “I thought that Chekhov knew what he was at, so why change him?”—though after reading good reviews, she thought she might have made a mistake not going.
There were, then, some variations between Chekhov fans over the historical/ideological interpretation of Chekhov—which matches, of course, different theater critical positions over a century of Chekhov production, circulation, and reception (Tulloch 1985). But the “truths” about Chekhov performance that seem to cross almost all critical traditions—subtlety of mood, ensemble playing, fin-de-siècle feeling (Chekhov, unlike Shakespeare, is almost always played in period dress), social change, tragicomic “balance”—form a core of agreement among Chekhov fans as they watch and interpret set design, costumes, lighting atmosphere, and actors’ interactions with each other and with the audience. These audience members were usually patiently aware of the minimalist tendencies in stage design imposed on theater companies that tour from town to town. So their impatience with a “silly bookcase,” or an invisible cherry orchard, or a “dominant doorway unattached to walls on either side” is not normally the result of a demand for complete nineteenth-century naturalism. Rather, as one can tell by reading responses across individual questionnaires, it relates to fans’ dismay over a “missing” Chekhovian mood or sense of historical moment.
It is important to note that among the ETT Cherry Orchard audience who were Chekhov fans and liked the production, there were similar expectations about “Chekhov,” though in this case usually rated positively rather than negatively. Thus, Sean (who went “because I am a big Chekhov fan”) liked an “excellent Ranevskaya and Michael Feast [as] a brilliant Lopakhin—both the best I’ve seen for many productions. Excellent smaller parts too.” The play was “rightly set in its period,” and the interpretation was “faithful to Chekhov’s intentions.” He chose not to see The Free State “because I was afraid it would be a violation of Chekhov.” And Vicky (who went to see a favorite play that she had acted in) liked this “superb production. It is easy to exaggerate the characters to lighten the text, but this was done to perfection and was very moving.” As to interpretation, the “eternal conflict/difference between young hope and the desire of the older characters to hold the past was well drawn—particularly in Ranevskaya’s speech to Trofimov where she says he was too young to understand.” While quite a number of the respondents said they disliked the set, Vicky felt the “minimal set suited the play well, as does the period costume, and the lighting was not noticeable, as it should be.”
Notably, the positive Chekhov fans drew on the same sets of expectations of “Chekhov” as the more negative ones. Thus, they looked for (1) Russianness (“never better than when in Russia,” the “symbolism” of the passage of time, the conflict between old and new orders—so that sets, costumes, music, and lighting were appraised in relation to this particular sense of “atmosphere”); (2) ensemble—with particular performances pronounced strong or weak according to their ability to portray a particular character’s contribution to this ensemble: thus Ranyevskaya’s need to be “mercurial,” “generous,” “feckless,” and Lopakhin’s “mixture of humility and pride and passion and arrogance which makes him destroy those he loves”; (3) Chekhov’s “balances”—between “humour and inevitability,” and the “eternal conflict between young hope and desire to hold to the past.”
Star Fans
In marked contrast to the Chekhov fans were the respondents who said they went to this Cherry Orchard production because they “adore Prunella Scales,” or “to see Prunella” together with an “outstanding cast.” For them, the “star” was the major feature of the theatrical event that drew them from their homes that day.
As we saw quantitatively, this category of respondent was far more positive than the Chekhov fan about the ETT Cherry Orchard. Andrew (who went “primarily because Prunella Scales was playing a leading role”) liked it, “although I would say the production was diverting rather than gripping.” The “lighting was excellent—real sense of the orchard representing some perfect ideal, just out of sight, out of reach, but bathed in golden light.” Pat (who went particularly “to see Prunella Scales”) liked The Cherry Orchard. “Everybody did well” and it was “easy to follow.” This respondent even liked what many others disliked intensely: “It was unusual to see the set being changed in between acts when lights went up.” Like Andrew, she had not been to see The Seagull or The Free State because neither “appealed to me” in terms of stars. R. J. B. (who went to see “Prunella Scales/Hopefully No SWEARING!”) liked every aspect of the production, except one thing. “Excellent atmosphere—except the very LOUD SHOUTING!” The light, music, set, and costumes were all enjoyed, as was the interpretation, “except shouting!” This respondent was attracted to the Bath Theatre Royal by “classical/traditional plays with ‘star leads.’” Jonathan (who had always wanted to see The Cherry Orchard, and was particularly attracted to this version, having seen “P. Scales in The Birthday Party”) liked the production. The “leads were very strong, nice to see experienced hands working their craft.” Though he had “no knowledge of Chekhov or the story prior to that night,” he found the interpretation interesting; and liked the sets. “Simple but effective, uncluttered and gave the actors freedom to move.” K. S. (who was drawn by “the reputations of Prunella Scales and Frank Middlemas”) liked the production. Not knowing the play or dramatist, this respondent says that he or she cannot comment on the interpretation, but “Prunella Scales was excellent […] I thought the lighting and the music were effective and unobtrusive.” June (who went because a “great fan of Prunella Scales and Frank Middlemas”) liked all aspects of the production: “Impressed by all the performances. I was sitting in the rear of Royal Circle and able to hear all.” She also “particularly enjoyed the music and the costumes were good.”
Unlike the Chekhov fans, the star fans were almost unanimous in their pleasure in The Cherry Orchard. But there was a tendency to rather different measures for excellence. Star actors tend to be contrasted with their performances in other theater parts or on TV, rather than critiqued or praised intratextually in terms of a prior expectation of the character within the ensemble (the star fans tend to have much less knowledge of “Chekhov”). Like Janet, who enjoys “a good straight play,” star fans tended to be happy if the production was “uncomplicated,” “direct,” and “easy to follow” (an effect, probably, of expecting Chekhov to be “difficult”). Sets were seen more functionally—giving actors “space to move.” Lighting and music for these respondents should be “expressive,” perhaps evoking an “ideal, just out of sight, out of reach,” but otherwise “unobtrusive” in order to be “effective.” Similarly functional were some of the (very few) criticisms of the acting: not being able to hear Prunella Scales’s voice in the back of the theater—or, conversely, hearing everything “beautifully” from the Royal Circle. “Diction” was important—and this became an increasing feature with older people who were hard of hearing.
A Typology of Fandom: Postscript
One of the valuable aspects of Abercrombie and Longhurst’s study of audiences is their fan typology in terms of textual production. Thus the average consumer is involved in little textual production, other than “fleeting and not written down” texts (1998: 149) through casual talk about the potential actions of characters. Fans, in contrast, “produce something ‘material’ which can be passed on to others. Therefore when young children act as fans, characters from films and television series will be incorporated into the general playground games but will also be included in their drawings” (1998: 149). Cultists (which is where they place Star Trek fans) generate and circulate across the cult community “new texts of a variety of types on the basis of the characters and situations depicted in the television programmes and films” (1998: 149). The “enthusiast tends to revolve around the production of things, from railway models to plays to second-hand dresses” (1998: 150).
Schematically this is useful, so that we can begin to position some of the different “fan” positions described by Pearson and myself in our chapters. Thus, according to their typology, my “star fans” might be classified as “those people who become particularly attached to certain programmes or stars within the context of relatively high mass media use. They are individuals who are not yet in contact with other people who share their attachments” (1998: 138). In contrast, the not inconsiderable number of amateur actors among my Chekhov fans would be enthusiasts whose pleasure “tends to revolve around the production of things” (1998: 150). Further, it would be valuable to explore the interaction of consumers, fans, cultists, and enthusiasts with the theatrical event itself, via its multimediality and actor/audience interaction.
However, schematic analyses are only a start, and Abercrombie and Longhurst are right to emphasize “in the context of the postmodernist debate” the “fluidity of identity formulation and reformulation” (1998: 154). Thus, by way of notions of reflexive individualization, I was able to explore the pleasures in Suzman’s Free State sets and acting style of an “enthusiast” audience member who had recently acted in the Trevor Griffiths version of The Cherry Orchard according to his different identities as “Trevor Griffiths’ actor,” “actor insider,” Chekhov-lover, and senior teacher of Russian at a prestigious English school. In contrast, some other actors in the audience also had experience of the African continent, and so played through their own reflexive ordering of (white) self-narratives via the performative context of racist social gaffes among Suzman’s white characters in her explicit “risk society” of apartheid, life destruction, scientific surveillance, and torture. Further, members of The Free State audience who were clearly Suzman fans engaged not only with her “aura” through other TV or theater performances but also with her political status in South Africa.
Abercrombie and Longhurst, following Debord (1994) and Featherstone (1991), also talk valuably of the “aestheticization of everyday life” as style and design pervade the selling of all commodities, and the culture industries themselves become commodified. Thus everyday life “can be turned into a work of art” and “the boundary between high and popular culture may be undermined by de-emphasisizing the auratic quality of art” (1998: 86).
This is familiar postmodernist analysis, and yet it fails to account for the strength of feeling among my star fans for the relationship among star, aura, and risk politics in Suzman’s Free State. Nor does it go far in exploring the different kinds of audience aestheticizing. Here I found “risk culture” analysis valuable, for example, Scott Lash’s (2000) distinction between two different kinds of aesthetic reflexivity: on the one hand “judgments of the beautiful” within the conventionalized aesthetics of high culture (for instance, the “authentic Chekhov” of “Russianness,” “ensemble,” and “balance” among Chekhov fans) and the “terrible sublime,” which many audience members experienced at the shattering finale of Suzman’s Free State, where the Firs character, transformed into a faithful black retainer to white masters, spat out at the end of apartheid, affected audience members “paralysed by the silence of it—the ending of an era, which didn’t mean the next one would be O.K.” (Tulloch 2004: 240).
The next time I encountered this “paralysis” affect among audiences in the theatre was at the end of a performance of Hecuba in London in 2004, where many of the audience sat silent and motionless for many minutes after an Iraq War–inflected production, where the Trojan War–humiliated queen extends her horror over the killing of her children by cutting into pieces—into a see-through bag of body parts—the young children of one of her betrayers. Less than one year later, I was myself surrounded by human body parts in a Tube carriage near Edgware Road station, London, on July 7, 2005; and certainly I—and I suspect many “audiences” for 7/7—felt the sense of contingency and lack that Lash describes: “Aesthetic judgments of the sublime expose bodies with lack, expose open bodies to the ravages of contingency, to darkness and ‘fear and trembling’[….] Risks and threats, thus re-experienced and subsumed under neither determinate judgment of the understanding nor the judgments and syntheses of the imagination therefore bring us in touch with our finitude” (2000: 57).
Writing about postmodernity and terrorism, the actor-academic Thomas de Zengotita speaks of a profound tension between our Western world of postmodern virtuality, where the possibilities of choice and self-aware performance seem endless, and the world of millions of others dominated by our interests—not least those parts of the world that generate the ideas and ideologies of terrorism. If the world of postmodernism is performative and ludic, that “Other” world counters with the surreality of an everyday life in which the “mighty bridges, the highways and tunnels, the mountainous buildings” are reduced to ground zero—and “[o]nce apparent only to artists and metaphysicians, the contingency of all things became apparent to everyone” (2005: 283–84).
In the months before 7/7, I had begun to explore the way audiences were responding to the astonishing wave of live theater plays in Britain in 2004–2005 that revisited Greek tragedy in the context of the Iraq invasion and the “war on terror” (Tulloch 2006). How do lovers of Greek tragedy and star fans respond to what is in essence a form of “resistance” within British theater to post-9/11 and post-7/7 surveillance and neoliberal governmentality? And how does the array of discursive rationalities (and of image assemblages, like newspaper cartoons and photographs) across different media outlets, including the wide spectrum of political positions adopted by British newspapers in relation to “new wars” like the Iraq invasion and the “war against terror,” interact with the multimediality and actor/audience interaction of theater, and with the aestheticization of everyday life among consumers, fans, cultists, and enthusiasts inside and outside the theater auditorium? That bigger picture of high (and popular) cultural fandom has only just begun to be explored, and for me it was ruthlessly cut off. But there’s a lot still to be done!