NOT the Enemy?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/

Not everyone is a racist, but the very laws protecting minorities also protects racists. Freedom of speech, of religion, prohibitions on discrimination based on color, creed, or religious affiliation protects liberals and racists alike. Our society is woven of these disparate elemental threads. The question no one wants to address is how do we evolve into a more ideal society where people are not judged  solely on their appearance without destroying the whole cloth? Blaming the men and women who are trying to keep the peace without the use of deadly force is not fair, but turning a blind eye and being supportive of a broken system is not fair either. 

If we had no violent criminals, we would have no need for a violent police response is not a valid argument. I have, as an inspector and a private citizen had to talk my way out of difficult situations. It can be done but only if you are willing to give up the tough, macho guy image. Not so easy to do for many. The use of force must become the exception and not the rule. 

 Here's an analogy from OSHA. Once a worker willfully and knowingly disregards a safety protocol and behaves in a dangerous manner at work, the law no longer protects that worker. This is not fair and sets a bad precedent for work place safety!

Once people break the law in the presence of a police officer, that person is subject to some type of enforcement. All the media is ever showing is the enforcement of the law, not the breaking of the law. Are there are folks intentionally trying to provoke the police into scenes of violence? Are there bad cops? Or are we allowing violence to continually dictate how we shape our world?

Obey the law. If you don’t like the law then change the law is simplistic and impossible with the deck stacked against us. The bottom line: when the people summon the police, we want them to help, not hurt. 

Beliefs in a broken system has cost so many more lives. Re-reading the linked article from WP today is heartbreaking. Maybe from my vantage point at the time I could not see the problem. Or did not want to see. It is time for me to confront and identify my own racism. Long overdue. I can’t even begin to call myself “woke” until I explore this in myself and shed light on the facts.  The changes made to this post represent the start of that journey.  6/5/20

Pocatello at Playwrights Horizons

Pocatello is the most recent play by Samuel D. Hunter at Playwrights Horizons. 

Eddie manages a failing restaurant in a small town suffering the fate of corporatization. The state of our nation’s economy plays a not so subtle role here as this nondescript chain, perhaps Olive Garden or something very similar, is governed by the bottom line. Technically the inciting incident is news about the place’s imminent closing. Eddie has his demons, not the least of which happen to be that he is an openly gay man in an area almost devoid of gay culture (Eddie’s mom Doris can’t even say the word “gay.”) All of the action takes place in one dining room.

Troy is Eddie’s longest employee at the restaurant. He is married to Tammy, his high school sweetheart, and is the meat in our sandwich generation’s dilemma between a bulimic 17 year old daughter, Becky, and a father who recently had been committed to the County Care facility suffering the early stages of dementia. Of course, Troy and Tammy’s marriage is in trouble. Becky wishes they would divorce and get it over with already.

Denial plays a big part in the play. Nick, Eddie’s older brother seems to be well-adjusted as he was able to move on, marry, and become a successful real-estate broker in Minnesota. He and his wife, Kelly, take every opportunity they can get to travel as far away from Pocatello as possible. The inciting incident for this play, for me, happens more than 20 years in the past when Nick and Eddie’s father commits suicide after the failure of his own diner. Nick explodes with incredulity as Eddie tries to serve a dish their father’s menu once featured.

It is clear Eddie lives in that past, pining over the old family homestead which is rapidly deteriorating on the edge of town and long since passed from their domain. He has refused to tell his employees that their livelihoods’ at the restaurant are about to be terminated. His character arc peaks quickly and as the plot unravels, so does he.

One of the most fully developed characters, along with Eddie and Troy, is Becky. She goes through the play with a traditional arc and is clearly the most changed by the end. She comes to some kind of terms with the blatant and infuriating hypocrisy of life. The scene between her and her grandfather, Cole, who just wandered out in a classic Silver Alert, and walked five miles from the home to end up in the dining room, was almost metaphysical in the way Becky changed from his touch and a kiss on the forehead. It was as if he was physically passing some great unspoken pearl of wisdom from the wise old sage whose dementia is both disturbing and enlightening, to a ferocious young spirit struggling with harsh reality.

Hunter has the ability to make you feel a part of the extended dysfunctional nuclear family. Using mostly kitchen sink realism, he engages his audience by highlighting the most disturbing aspects of any given situation…in this case two families whose sole connections is the small town in which they all once, or still, live. A few of the characters may be a tad underwritten, like Nick and his wife, or the waiter Max suffering from meth addiction or the waitress Isabella, suffering from a lack of opportunity in a small town? But they are electrons caught in the orbit around the protons and neutrons of the play. As directed by Davis McCallum, all the actors shine in their roles.

Hunter taps in to our primal attachment to nostalgia with the lightest touch of sentimentality. He reminds me of another Sam who dealt with the family drama of Americans and practically invented Heightened Realism. That would be Sam Shepard.

Straight...White...Men...

Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee is either a brilliant play by an up and coming playwright or an excuse to explore normally incendiary topics (to the GOP) in a frivolous manner. I must admit I had a few laughs and was prepared to see the play by a plethora of previously published material, including an interview with the playwright featured in American Theatre magazine.

I saw her Untitled Feminist Show a few years back which was perhaps not the best way to be introduced to her work. As I read her bio, and about her process, and production history, I decided she needed to be seen again. In what she calls her first attempt at “realism” I experienced a cleverly crafted portrait of Straight White Men saying things we hear them say every day, or rarely ever hear them say, but imagine that they do. Or might.

First things first. The most memorable part of the play comes before you get through the door of the theatre where my companion and I were treated to a scene which went something like this:

SFX: LOUD MUSIC WITH RACY LYRICS (pre-show music)

Usher is standing in the door scanning tickets. He is tall, slim, and young and wears a head-set with ear-piece and microphone.

Enter- Little Old Lady (LOL)

LOL- Excuse me. (to usher) Excuse me is this music going to be playing the whole time before the play?

Usher- What? (He can’t hear her and stoops to get closer.)

LOL- I say, (Raising her voice as high as she possibly can.) Is this loud, offensive, obnoxious music that should be only played late at night in a strip club, going to be playing the whole time before the play?

Usher- Yes.

Exit little old lady.

If you entered the theatre upon opening of the house, you were treated/subjected to… an ear splitting hip-hop mix over which conversation spiked with anticipation was not possible. To many this was a sophomoric prank at best. Young Jean Lee, whose motto is: Destroy the Audience invokes Silenus, the satyr, and makes sure there is some offense right from the get.( I dug it and was rocking in my seat much to the consternation of my companion.)

While she maybe did not destroy her audience, she did her best to destroy their ear drums. I am sure she was working her “Alienation Affect” bone…with a generous amount of lube, but was it worth it?

Oh, yeah, then the lights went down and there was a lovely play.

Thanks Giving

This year will be a particularly poignant season of giving thanks for all we have. Mom and dad are both gone now. We miss them dearly, but the gratitude for the life they gave me, for the course I eventually found myself on, will never end. I am thankful for my family, for my wife, and the family I married into...I am thankful for my work family, and for the city of New York. Finally I am thankful for life itself. There is nothing more precious. I am thankful for my voice, and for the freedom of speech I am about to exercise.

With that in mind...I just want to ask can we, as a nation, commit to not having one more unarmed person of color die at the hands of our police? Can we commit, in the coming year to take a step back from shooting first and asking questions later? Can we go through a year without violence dominating the headlines? Can we stop giving anarchists and rabble-rousers the fuel for their hateful flames?

Can we say no more: Amadou Diallo, no more Sean Bell, no more Trevon Martin, no more Eric Garner, no more Michael Brown, no more...the list goes shamefully on...For their families and loved ones I pray...there is an empty place at all their tables.

Happy Birthday Daddy.

Day 6…again. November 4, 2014. Happy, Happy birthday to my father. I am so happy he was born. Obviously. I love life and he helped give it to me. He would be 84 today. I miss him. The good, the bad, the seventies!

Just came off of the 22 hour shift. I earned my money. 3 Incidents in the span of my tour. We handled them all. Just as I was drifting off to Kalimba by 46 Bliss, Damon barges in and I spring into action. Rather fell. Into action. It is so autumn. It’s time to vote.

Is it any wonder why I lover her so? Wouldn't trade her for gold!

My wife and my dad. 2005 at his 75th.

4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane

See me, feel me, touch, me...heal me

Saint Ann’s Warehouse is currently located at the beginning of Jay Street in Dumbo. The last event we saw there was an all-female rendering of Julius Caesar set in a women’s prison. The institutional theme plays heavily in the TR Warszawa production of Sarah Kane’s swan song: 4:48 Psychosis a play about a woman dealing with mental illness.

This theater changed me. It is the epitome of theatrical power to express and transform. Magdalena Cielecka is riveting as the tortured protagonist. By the fatal end, I felt as if when she was looking right at me; she was looking right through me. Exposing my fear, my truth, my guilt. I swear we made eye contact. I was the dark figure of her madness. The specter of death itself.

 Adapted and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, I felt that I not only intimately witnessed the severe condition of a woman struggling to battle her affliction and express it through her art, but I also felt as if I was experiencing psychosis of my own. There were so many immediately identifiable and relate-able nuanced details that struck chords of truth like a dulcimer. By the end, the audience was torn to shreds.

My immediate thoughts jotted into my black berry on the subway trip home: Still stunned. I have seen greatness tonight. The searing truth. The truth kills. The audience is destroyed. The smattering of applause forced. No curtain call. No joy here. No vanity of craft. No need. All needs filled. Speechless. And thoughtless I am. Stunned into muteness...I will be landing in this for a long time. Sarah Kane was an English playwright whose plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, physical and psychological torture and death. Her plays feature poetic intensity, pared down language, exploration of theatrical forms and the use of violent stage action. Kane committed suicide in 1999.

"Love me. Touch me. Speak."

Precision. That is how I would describe the quality and skill with which Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis eviscerated me. I came away from this performance with a new empathy for my fellow creatures. If you staged T.S. Elliot’s “Wasteland,” this is how it would look.

"I gassed the Jews. I bombed the Arabs. I raped the children while they begged for mercy." most probably the most horrid speech ever uttered in any language on any stage. And yet all I could feel was beyond profound pity for this miserable being. Profound pity and direct connection to parts of me experiencing the exact same condition. This tortured individual with whom I share so much, if not so intensely and severely, this same madness, is the “other” I recognize in myself.

Despite the final lines of her poem, Kane will never vanish. But this staging goes away on October 26^th. In Polish with English super-titles.

www.stannswarehouse.org

Mad Cow, Orlando: The Who"s TOMMY

Usually my reviews are from in and around NYC. Welcome to my first road review!

In 1975 I was having the best year of my life up to that point. I was a junior in high school, I had a beautiful girlfriend and Tommy was made into a film starring just a bunch of my favorite celebrities and artists. When the Rock Opera came to Broadway I was in a different place and I never did see the Broadway production. So when my beautiful wife suggested we go see a staging in downtown Orlando as part of out 11th wedding anniversary celebration I was so pumped!

I will be cruel only to be kind in this review.

Firstly let me commend the ensemble and all the leads. They were individually and collectively magnificent. The energy and commitment projected from that modest stage blew the roof off and kept my toe tapping and my seat rocking through out. Nothing could hold them back. Not the casting, the concept, the costumes or the set. Their brilliance lit the night sky of Orlando. Kudos to the musicians, costumer, scenic designer and choreographer as well.

A staging like this makes me want to go back to grad school and get my MFA in directing. With my biggest peeve the blocking during the opening moments of the Acid Queen number. I missed the entire opening tableaux because Captain Walker and his little son Tommy stood directly in front of me. If they wanted to see the Gypsy, played by the lovely Valerie Witherspoon, in all her revealing glory...they should have bought a ticket like I did and sat in a seat so everyone else could see!

I wanted to shout: Yo, I'm from Brooklyn! Down in front!

Other than that...I don't think it would be productive to go into further detail. My emotional attachment to the material may cloud my judgement. Though my wife, who had never seen the movie or the musical before, and knew nothing of the story going in, had a billion questions for me afterward. Such is life in the theatre!


Ciao for now.