Avant-garde?

This past weekend, I sat in the audience of Othello at Marin Theatre Company, and a couple behind me (matching the description of most of the audience members there:  These Fine Folks were a heterosexual upper middle class white couple in their seventies) were discussing cancelling their subscription to Berkeley Repertory Theatre.  Apparently Berkeley Rep has become “too avant-garde.”  They then discussed the possibility of going to Aurora Theatre Company instead, but the wife quickly discounted that idea, saying that Aurora is even more avant-garde than Berkeley Rep.

Now, I know I’m one of these damn young kids that sits in front of a screen all day...but Berkeley Rep?  Aurora?  Avant-garde?  I mean, they keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.  


By “avant-garde” what do they mean?  
Too many solo shows?  (Palomino, Rita Moreno, Let Me Down Easy)  
Too many people of color on stage?  (Arabian Nights, Ruined, Trouble in Mind)  
Too much puppetry?  (Compulsion, The Composer is Dead, The Soldier’s Tale) 
Too much multi-disciplinarianism?  (Soldier’s Tale, The Wild Bride)
Too much activism?  (The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Let Me Down Easy)  
Too many gay characters?  (Ghost Light, Body Awareness) 
...What?

Of course These Fine Folks are entitled to their opinion, and should subscribe to whatever theatre floats their boat!  But what does this mean, if the shows that Berkeley Rep and Aurora are programming for their seasons is too...whatever...for couples like These Fine Folks, who make up a good portion of the subscription population that these companies are trying to please? And what does it mean when some of the members of these audiences might find a lot of the "avant-garde" shows offered by professional theatres in town not at all avant-garde, but firmly within their boundaries?  Those same audiences that find all of those elements listed above not only aesthetically exciting, but sometimes even normal in their theatre going experience: those same audiences may actually WANT to see people of color, multidisciplinary art, masks and puppets, gay characters, and activists, and to see them as a matter of fact, and not as something "other".  


In fact, these "avant-garde"-loving audience members might find it stretches their comfort level to watch what These Fine Folks behind me at Othello would call normal. Stuff that Berkeley Rep and Aurora still program with as much frequency as the rest of it: shows about what These Fine Folks seem to want to see, shows that feature people that look like they do and grew up in similar circumstances and whose sexual orientation is neutral or closeted or straight, just like their own. Shows like A Delicate Balance, Red, Metamorphosis, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, How To Write a Book for the Bible, Anatol, A Doctor in Spite of Himself...well, frankly, more than half of each theatre's season.

Surely there’s a middle ground here.  In fact, I think the middle ground IS the ground.