We don't often get to do a show like thi...

We don't often get to do a show like this where we can just put on whatever we like figure OK what the hell lets just do whatever we feel like and hope you'll enjoy it. I often feel those of us who are in the museum world are particularly blessed. Because we get to explore our feelings whatever they may be that's a sort of freedom. You know, that's how it is to deal with art because art is made in the freedom of the imagination with no rules it's the only human activity like that where it can do no one any harm so it is possible to be completely free and see what it may be that people think and feel when they are completely free in a way, what it is to be human when a human being is free and so art lets us practice freedom and helps us know what it is to be free and so what it is to be human.

But, still, it often seems to me almost miraculous how we can put things here in the museum and ordinary folks my mom and dad and my own neighbors and I myself will come to see things sometimes things that I myself find completely incomprehensible and really offensive people will come to our museum and think: oh, that's interesting or, oh, that's stupid but they don't really hold it against the show they just move on and look at something else and think oh that's cool. And I wonder: how do we get away with that? And I think well, we are a free people that's why and we understand that in a way maybe other people in the world don't we like an adventure often we might think well, that's a piece of junk but that's how this fellow sees the world and there's a certain pleasure in seeing things from his point of view we are a patient people no matter what you hear people say and a tolerant people and a fearless, open people that's how it is for us

I think that's how it is to be an American.

We're all unique. It's a precious thing to compare ourselves to nothing else. This is my working attitude. I don't feel shame in my joy.

Charles Mee, bobrauschenbergamerica, 2001, pp. 42-43. Full play text

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Show information from the American Repertory Theater