However bad, there was a light that shone in Jackson
heavenly music.
In fact, exceptional creatives are not too dissimilar from most people in their personal failings, and in some cases their flaws are far more egregious.
Whether we should shun their works depends on a couple of factors.
If the offending artist’s income and luxury lifestyle will be prolonged by ongoing support, we should be careful not to further enrich him.
If the work is in some way directly related to some awful behaviour, such as if an artist painted a boy he raped, then that would also be reason to cease contact and support of his work.
But otherwise a number of reasons exist why we need to cut ourselves some slack.
Shunning an artist because of their behaviour is a slippery slope. A serial killer who is also a brilliant artist is easy to put in the beyondthe-pale basket. But where do we draw the line?
Enjoying an artist’s work does not signal approval of that artist’s conduct or character, as long as we acknowledge the behaviour and don’t try to brush it under the carpet or make excuses.
A creator and their works are certainly not separate entities. But we need to remind ourselves that the work we admire and enjoy and that has stood the test of time is the product of the talent and its disciplined, ambitious exercise. It is the product of good, not evil.
The selfish, depraved part of Michael Jackson did not produce Thriller. The sickening, exploitative side of Harvey Weinstein did not help bring about some of the best movies of the last 20 years.
The sublime work of a flawed creative may also result from the tortured inner battle between good and evil. It’s not hard to imagine the act of overcoming or battling with a personal demon can produce something good.
The field of politics provides some guidance. Both John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King were notorious philanderers. That does not negate the transformational work they did.
President Donald Trump’s personal failings would certainly be overlooked by his critics if he decided to tighten up gun laws, implement universal free healthcare and become welcoming and solicitous towards immigrants.
In other words, we separate good outcomes from personal failings. A cheating, lying Donald Trump could still care deeply about inequality and be determined to right the balance. We are prepared to overlook Robin Hood stealing from the rich because he gives the proceeds to the poor.
The point is that flawed and harmful people do achieve great things, whether in art, music or other endeavours. But few people are all bad, and talent does not choose only the saintly. Great works or doings can be seen as the redeeming product of the light that still shines in people even if they are corrupt and awful.
What have you learnt today? Whether you’re reading this in the morning, the afternoon or the evening, I’m willing to bet you know a lot now you didn’t when you woke up, unless this column is the first thing you’ve set eyes on today. If it is, I hope you learn something during the next few minutes.
We’re always learning, and I find that inspiring. It often dawns on me randomly that I’ve just learnt something new, and that’s exciting, because I equate learning with growth, with staying young, even if the body doesn’t necessarily reflect that.
And what I’m learning right now is just how much the same text on a page can change meaning over a period of time.
No, this isn’t some postmodernist mumbo-jumbo. It’s about learning lines – something I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, along with several fellow cast members in the South Canterbury Drama League’s new whodunnit Cut! , which opens on March 15. And it’s a world premiere, don’t you know.
As always seems to be the case, I was a little late to the races for this production. This is the fourth show in an eight-month accidental acting career I’d never even believed possible a year ago, and for at least the third time, I’m an emergency cast member. But I’m loving it.
One of the main reasons is a growing understanding of how a character develops over a lengthy period of rehearsal; through direction, interaction with other cast members, or simply by things dawning on me. Certain events, even just elements of events, within a storyline, can suddenly take on a whole new slant.
It’s character development, and it’s very much a joint effort.
Obviously, we’re talking about amateur theatre here, where people have busy lives away from the show and little spare time to spend getting into the heads of their characters. It’s a challenge.
Late last year, just a couple of days after our run of Blackadder Goes Forth finished, I got an urgent message from a friend and fellow cast-member in Voices From The Front, the show that had started the ball rolling for me a few months earlier.
I think it was a Tuesday, and she asked if I’d be available to play a small role in a Shakespeare In The Gardens production during Timaru’s Festival of the Roses that weekend, once on Saturday night and three times on Sunday.
The show was Much Ado About Nothing, which I appropriately knew virtually nothing about. Fortunately it was a scaled-back version, 40 minutes or so, so Borachio had just a few lines, and one key scene, where he boasts to his friend, Conrade, of his role in a plot to undermine the forthcoming marriage of Claudio and Hero.
Though put up to it by his There were several contributing factors to the success of Don John’s dastardly scheme, but Borachio was making it clear his dodginess was the clincher: ‘‘ . . . chiefly by my villainy, Claudio left enraged . . . ’’ he proudly told Conrade.
Discord had been sown, and he was drunk on the role his own depravity had played.
That last performance was by far my best. I was energised by Kimble’s challenge, and it left me wishing there had been more opportunities to deliver that boastful diatribe the way it had been written.
That’s how it’s been these last few weeks, tiredness notwithstanding, and that’s why I’ve come to enjoy it so much. Seeing the pennies drop for others, coming to new realisations myself, feeling the whole thing coming together. Wondering how the gags will land for audiences.
Unusually, we’ve got six different endings, one for each night, six different murderers, six different motives. That means more lines and more cues for each performance, more that could go wrong.
However, it also makes the whole exercise that much more challenging, much more fun. It probably means we’ll be learning right until curtain-up each night. Now that’s exciting! Please come and see us at The Playhouse in Timaru if you’re around.