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football becomes sports-art in which its fundamental aestheticism if fully exposed. Sports viewed on television has a similar effect. On the creen football takes on an artiness when filtered through theslow metion or freeze-frame effects of the »instant replay ,« and a golf stroke looks arty when a camera close-up emphasizes its formale elements. Sportscasters, in these instances, serve as narrators of performance. Perhaps the most infamous example of sports as aesthetics (albeit fascist ones) is Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympiad, a documentary of the 1936 Olympic games in Germany in which Hitler’s personal maker of images filmed athletes in all their pristine elegance. Visions of supermen were easily accomodated in, and even created Nazi ideology; Nietzsche would have loved the film. Away from the bustle and anxiétés of rehearsal at Pratt. Breuer and I discussed the aesthetics of dynamism over luach in a cozy Village diner. The sound of ’hut two’ and ’sweep left,’ and the cackle of two hands catching a pass were already far away. But, the significance of sports icons remained and this was our real interest. »All fascist psychology inclines toward a selfaggrandisement based on the images of strength, »Breuer remarks, and I think of the acuity of Susan Sontag’s statement from her recent essay on fascist aesthetics: » Certainly Nazism is ’sexier’ than communism.« Breuer reaches even, farther back into history to make his point. In the Hellenic period in Greece, statues started to look like superheroes in comic books. This is the associative pattern to the football hero—enormous shoulders from the padding, the steely helmet. Football is the Hellenistic imagery of statues pushed over to an absurdist category. A sport for the » he-man « is really about power; and football after all is nothing but a series of powerplays like politics. The politics of sport is a central metaphor of The Saint and the Football Players, a most emphatic and timely one in this period of history when the Olympics have become political events in which East battles West in stadiums that symbolize miniature battlefields. The piece was originally conceived in the Nixon era remember Richard Nixon who used to telephone coaches to discuss plays before the big game? as a statement on politics. Between bites of a ham and egg sandwich Breuer tells me; At first there were interesting political overtones because of Nixon running the country like a football team and so one of the ideas was to do it on the White House lawn or in from of the Washington monument. But you can even make the same statement about Jerry Ford. Later on he likens Knute Rockine’ s »Fight, Fight, Fight« pep talk to a Shakespearean before-the-battle speech. Associations with this piece are endless. Though Nixon’s out of the White House Breuer feels that The Saint and the Football Players makes even more sense in a Bicentennial year. » This is the year for this piece, where it belongs. It reflects the values that went into the American Revolution and which have now come down to the football field.« Not by chance he thinks of it as a war dance. Football players dress and makeup for their slow dance on the killing ground.

If The Saint and the Football Players comments on the politics of sport, it also alludes plenty to sexual politics. It implies a critique of the macihsmo ethic in football players whose battered knees and elbows and blackened eyes serve as emblems of manliness. Breuer calls it a » total put-on on macho.« This coming from an erstwhile football freak who traveled to Rose Bowl and Homecoming Games when he was at UCLA. Yet, one of the contradictions of the work is its curious effect on the people in it. Breuer laughs, » You get these girls who want to be in the piece in the same way they want to be cheerleaders.« Plus sa change,plus c’est la тете chose? L. B. Dallas who performs in the piece admits during a conversation after the rehearsal. » I’m not a normally rambunctious, contact person. But, when I put on the pads Ido assume that attitude.« And Terry O’Reilly, his »teammate« who has always hated football, mentions the » euphoria « he experiences when he puts his suit on. Much of what The Saint and the Football Players explores are concepts of hero-worship, roleplaying, players getting off on their own images of strength and sexuality and the similarity of performing in a theater and performing in a sports arena. Underlying all of this is the transcendental Romaniticism of the sports experience. Sports columnist Wells Twombly hit the phenomenon on the head when he proclaimed. » Football is the state religion .« Sports heroes have replaced God and the stadium has become a giant open-air cathedral in which the faithful are transformed by the powers of magic and ritual. When the Redskins stop on the playing field for a moment of prayer they become suppliants at the foot of the altar. God isn’t dead, he’s at the Rose Bowl. For Breuer the analogy between football and religion results in the piece’s being a pun about yardage. » Football teams try to make horizontal yardage .« he explains. »This is the idea about trying to make vertical yardage yardage with God.« » Look at the sweat shirts that were worn by the basketball team at Notre Dame last year God Made Us Number One«. Breuer laughs at the absurdity of it, at the same time recognizing how deep-rooted the impulse is. » We’re simply going along with these associations. They’re verc much at the core of the country’s mock heroicism .« Isn’t there a team, I add, called the New Orleans Saints? The Saint and the Football Players is a metatheater that grabs the collective unconscious of America at its roots. It was the Puritan ethic that led to American imperialism. Founded on the pastoral ideal baseball eventually lost its popularity because it wasn’t violent enough; football, on the other hand, is about conquering territory the acquisition of property so it is the perfect game for a nation raised on the myth of the Wild West and territorial expansion. Just think of the names of football teams they signify speed, conquest, and the Wild West myth —Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Minesota Vikings. Now compare these with a few of the mildly named baseball teams: Chicago Cubs, Baltimore