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Marketing the Outlier – Goodman Theatre and “2666”

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In 2014, Roy Cockrum, a Chicago stage actor turned Episcopal monk living in Tennessee, hit that state’s Powerball and donated vast sums of his $153 million lump sum to arts programs across the United States, including one major demand: that Chicago’s Goodman Theatre adapt and stage a version of Roberto Bola√±o’s 2666, a novel long considered impossible to adapt.

This Saturday, “2666” will begin a five-week run at the Goodman, just a few blocks north of us on Dearborn Street. With the play’s provenance consisting of those almost unbelievable circumstances, the fact of its mere existence onstage is a minor miracle.

2666 was published in 2004, a year after the Chilean writer’s death. In the decade-plus since then, a following that can only be called cultish has developed around Bola√±o’s work. (Full disclosure: I consider myself firmly amongst this cult.) 2666, which is essentially five moderately connected novellas, pushes 1,000 pages, spans the entire 20th century and takes place on multiple continents. It is the work that posthumously secured a spot for Bola√±o on the pantheon of Latin American literature. So how does one even begin of conceiving of putting 2666 on the stage? And how should a theatre market such a unique show?

 
How should a theatre market such a unique show?

 

When a theatre brands a season of shows, the communications materials, by nature, will look similar. There are two reasons for this. One, you’re not branding the individual shows so much as the theatre itself. Two, shows for a theatre’s season are strategically chosen. They might have a running theme (race, perhaps) or share a common trait (maybe all were composed by Irish playwrights).

When the Goodman agreed to Cockrum’s request, it already had its 2016 schedule planned out. “2666” isn’t a thematic match with the theatre’s other upcoming shows, which includes musicals and romps. Also, “2666” is massive—really, really massive. The play will clock in at over five hours with three intermissions. It will even include a full-on original movie projected onto a screen. It is, in almost every regard, an outlier. It is one-off, true event theatre. But it is also a very niche production. The show will obviously appeal to us Bola√±o cultists, but perhaps not so much to the average theater-goer, who might be turned off by the story’s brutal depictions of violence in Mexico or scared away by a runtime that makes “Lawrence of Arabia” seem short by comparison.

The marketing options before the Goodman were multiple. It could trumpet the celebrated dead writer whose epic, enigmatic novel inspired the play. Bola√±o lived an incredible life. He became a Trotskyite in his teens, took part in revolutions, founded a poetry movement and died young, before his star had truly taken off. In many ways, the legend of Bola√±o has eclipsed Bola√±o the writer, as has happened with Hemingway, Plath, Fitzgerald. This is certainly the type of larger-than-life personality around which to anchor an advertising campaign. The Goodman also had the option of calling out other big names involved. Beyond Bola√±o, though, “2666” boasts relatively few. Robert Falls, Goodman’s artistic director and the co-director of this production, is widely known in theatre circles, but his name is hardly one that will put the uninitiated in seats. The third avenue for advertising “2666” would be to make the most of the unique nature of the play and its labyrinthine, improbable path to production.

And that’s the path Goodman chose. Marketing materials describe an “epic adaptation” as well as “a soaring” one. Goodman’s very own summary calls the play “an ambitious new work unlike any other theatrical experience.” The theatre’s PR team has presumably been working overtime, securing multiple appearances in the New York Times. Each Times piece tells how 2666 became “2666,” never failing to mention Cockrum, his winning ticket and Falls’ fervent drive to stage the play.

Each Times piece tells how 2666 became “2666,” never failing to mention Cockrum, his winning ticket and Falls’ fervent drive to stage the play.

This, I believe, is the ideal branding for this particular show. “2666” is an oddity. It couldn’t possibly pair with the energetic, more lighthearted fare of the rest of the season. The story of how it came to the Goodman Theatre is stranger and more unpredictable than anything Bola√±o, one of our strangest and most unpredictable writers, could’ve cooked up. Goodman has chosen to let that story speak for itself and for the play to do the same. And what a unique story it is, and what a unique play it surely will be.