Kristyl D. Tift Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 2 Visit Journal Homepage It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Kristyl D. Tift By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF In “Criteria of Negro Art” (1926), W.E.B. Du Bois identifies what he called the “new stirrings” among young Black people of the time—“stirrings of the beginning of a new appreciation of joy, of a new desire to create, of a new will to be, as though in this morning of group life we had awakened from some sleep that at once dimly mourns the past and dreams a splendid future.” 1 Du Bois’s valuation of joy, creativity, consciousness, and futurity echoes the creative vibrancy and urgency happening during the Harlem Renaissance. Believing in the potential of younger generations of Black folk to use Art to establish the humanity and brilliance of the “race,” Du Bois, here, expands his research as a sociologist of African American life and culture to activism. Manning Marable notes that, after publishing The Philadelphia Negro in 1899—a first-of-its-kind sociological study of Black Philadelphians living in the Seventh Ward between 1896 and 1897—Du Bois “was especially convinced that careful sociological measurement, combined with a proper cultural and historical understanding of a social group, could lead to the construction of a social agenda for reform.” 2 In the groundbreaking study, Du Bois determines the need for Black communal “reform” based on his observations of a large section of the population who had limited or no access to decent wages, jobs, food, housing, sanitary living conditions, and education. These bleak outcomes, which directly resulted from American slavery and the failed Reconstruction era, required interventions. In "The Talented Tenth" (1903), Du Bois proposed a solution: encourage the Black middle class to take responsibility for helping lower-class Blacks become upwardly mobile (through hiring Black labor, for example). He believed that a new generation of educated Black elites, a group he called The Talented Tenth, would lead the race to full civil rights. Du Bois imagined that 10% of African Americans who excelled academically, socially, economically, and artistically were the chosen ones whose collective intellectual contributions, cultural production, and leadership would function holistically as an armor of resistance to systemic racism in the U.S. Theoretically, the emergence and institutionalization of the “tenth” would help not only those less privileged to become liberated, but it would liberate the entire community. While this call to action was notable for its emphasis on the moral duty and obligation of the middle class, it ignored the alluring benefits and exclusionary politics of capitalism, which reinforced the very class hierarchies that Du Bois identified as obstacles to racial uplift in his early studies. As Marable writes, “The Talented Tenth theory was a strategy to win democracy for all Black Americans. The burden of struggle resided upon those of the race best prepared, educationally and economically, to lead that fight.” 3 The problem with this theory is that while the “burden” seems a light load to carry for those with class privilege, for racialized people the load is still quite heavy regardless of class, and the weight can breed self-righteousness, self-loathing, and resentment that only deepens intraracial divisions. The African American class conundrum is one that generations of playwrights have explored at length in the theatre, 4 including Richard Wesley, who, having studied under Owen Dodson at Howard University, began his professional career at New Lafayette Theatre in the early 1970s under the mentorship of Ed Bullins. A number of Wesley’s plays, including The Mighty Gents (1978) and The Talented Tenth (1989), document the promise and disillusionment of Black American dreams—not only because of White racism but, more remarkably, because of intraracial class breakdowns. His works magnify the elusive pleasures and lingering anxieties and regret often associated with performances of superiority and dominance. The Talented Tenth recognizes, as Du Bois himself eventually did, the inherent classist assumptions and practical limitations of Black elitism. In this essay, I am concerned with Du Bois’s shift from the individualized theory of the “tenth” to an institutional conceptualization of “Negro Art”. 5 Reading Wesley’s The Talented Tenth , set in the 1990s, I explore the playwright’s use of dreams and memories as reflections of and responses to Du Bois’s shifting ideas about what constitutes Black advocacy, activism, and excellence. 6 In The Talented Tenth , the curtain rises on a beach in Negril, Jamaica. Bernard, a man in his forties, stands off to the side as his wife, Pam, and their three friends, Marvin, Ron, and Rowena—all of whom are former Howard University classmates—relax in the sun. Bernard is daydreaming about his first job interview with Mr. Griggs, who is in his fifties and the owner of a radio station. The daydream, which is shown onstage, takes place in the 1960s. The dialogue begins easily, with the two connecting over a mutual acquaintance, before quickly shifting into more direct speech (similar to a grilling rather than an interview). Their exchange, thereafter, exemplifies the kind of miscommunication that can occur between those of differing generations; it also captures the tension of the nationwide racial and political upheaval of that turbulent time. Griggs—a World War II veteran-turned-businessman—has achieved success through hard work, whereas Bernard has only recently graduated from Howard and is at the start of his career in business. While Bernard aspires to Griggs’ level of success, the older man is grumpy and condescending with a temperament that suggests that whether or not the young man gets the job, achieving and maintaining a spot in the mythical “tenth” will not (and should not, according to Griggs) be easy. Griggs holds the keys to the metaphorical gate between Bernard and his first job, but it is important to note that, although respectful, Bernard is not docile (a fact that leads him and Griggs to disagree on the direction of the radio station in the years that follow). Bernard has an activist past, including participating in protests as a college student and embracing a pan-Africanist worldview, which was strengthened by his relationship with his then-girlfriend, Habiba. After graduation, the general expectation was for him to secure a “good” job and put his radicalism aside for the betterment of the race. By doing this, he sacrifices his dream for Du Bois’s dream, which, as Zachary R. Williams summarizes it, was for “college-educated blacks to become race men and women [and] lead the race to social equality.” 7 Bernard represents a new wave of young, educated Black people invested in individualism and capitalism. 8 To Griggs’ annoyance, the young man has his sights set on the fruits of his labor (i.e., “[making] lots of money” and spending it) rather than the labor necessary to make money that would serve the needs of the company and, proximally, the needs of the race. To Griggs, young people of Bernard’s generation have a “duty” and “responsibility” to suffer and struggle for the next generations, just as he has. He instructs: It’s the first seven generations after slavery that will suffer the most. They’re the ones who have nothing to look forward to except struggle. They’re the ones who have to bear the pain, make the sacrifices, and fight the battles that have to be fought and won. Your trouble will always come when you begin to think that you deserve a good time; when you begin to think the world is your oyster. You’re generation number six, Mr. Evans. Your grandchildren can have the good time. 9 Griggs articulates a logic and ethic not uncommon among his generation, for whom lifetimes of sacrifice have resulted in more freedoms for their children than they were afforded. This strategy is reminiscent of Robin D. G. Kelley’s “freedom dreaming,” 10 which is, essentially, imagining liberty and justice through a love for the collective that exists beyond the boundaries of what is possible realistically and politically. The discourse on Black freedom through acts of dreaming and speculation is not new in Black Studies, but scholars such as Jayna Brown, reading Frantz Fanon, have discussed such acts in the context of utopia. Brown defines Black utopia as “the moments when those of us untethered from the hope of rights, recognition, or redress here on earth celebrate ourselves as elements in a cosmic effluvium.” 11 Embracing the present as a radical temporality, Brown writes, “In fact, I don’t think utopia needs hope at all. Hope yearns for a future. Instead, we dream in place, in situ, in medias res, in layers, in dimensional frequencies.” 12 It is within a dimensional frequency that nods toward the future but is situated in a past adjacent to the present that opposing Black male-centered utopic ideologies touch discursively in Bernard’s paradisaic dreamscape. Bernard and Griggs both have dreams rooted in economic success; however, Griggs’ dream is Blacker than it is green. Economics, for him, is a way to amass power that will inevitably advance Black people. Griggs is doggedly focused on racial uplift through ownership rather than what he reads as Bernard’s pursuit of economic gain for selfish reasons. This is a subtle yet important nuance: the men are similar, yet their generational positionalities leave them dreaming slightly different dreams, imagining slightly different realities, and pursuing those realities in slightly different ways. It is from this marginal difference that Griggs harshly scrutinizes Bernard. The tail end of the scene reveals Griggs’ paternalistic posturing for what it is: a performance meant to arouse obedience. The end of the scene is a reflective imagining, an annotation of sorts, in which Bernard tells Griggs that his words that day “frightened [him].” Griggs replies simply, “I know.” Then, Bernard admits, “I’ve been frightened ever since.” 13 The surrealism of this moment allows the two men to be honest, even vulnerable, with one another without being intimate or even present together. It is no coincidence that Bernard’s fear and Griggs’ intent are made evident in a daydream; it is a calmer frequency in which to tell the truth. Further, neither of them discusses affect or emotions in the realistic scenes between them that follow. Instead, those scenes are mostly centered on business discussions related to the radio station. As the scene shifts back to Bernard’s contemporary reality with his wife and friends on the beach, it is clear that he is at a crossroads directly shaped by his race, age, class, and gender. That first interview lingers in Bernard’s mind, and it is interesting that at a time and place when he should be relaxing and enjoying his money and leisure time, the memory of it haunts him. Bernard yearns for something missing or lost in his life—something reflective of the downside of assuming a class positionality “above” rather than “alongside” one’s people. Of the Bernards of the world who “now found themselves in their forties and successfully integrated into the American dream,” Wesley observes the material reality—the “spacious homes, the requisite expensive cars, overseas vacations, excellent pension packages, and political connections” 14 —that still leave them desiring something they relinquished to acquire the people, places, and things that keep them occupied, sedated, and blind to the needs of the collective. Wesley’s dramatic inquiry into what happened to the young activists of the 60s who shifted their talents in an alternative direction exposes a Talented Tenth whose roots in Black working-class communities were at best leggy. Reflecting on Du Bois’s idealistic dream of the “tenth” and his subsequent shift away from it, Wesley writes, “Realizing almost immediately how elitist this idea appeared, Du Bois abandoned it and never sought to promote it.” 15 This is a truth that, according to Joy James in Transcending the Talented Tenth (2013), is often underacknowledged. “Race memory,” James writes, “misleads as it fails to recall that the greatest promoter of black elite agency became, in time, its most severe critic.” 16 After the opening daydream ends, Wesley depicts this Du Boisian course correction through a sequence of stressful encounters that lead Bernard to a crisis point in his personal and professional lives. Bernard’s life has been an experiment in intraracial “double consciousness” which has manifested as class and color trouble. Understanding the complexities of double consciousness within the race, Wesley explores colorism in the love triangle between Bernard’s light-skinned wife, Pam, his dark-skinned former girlfriend, Habiba, and his dark-skinned mistress, Tanya. 17 Habiba is a memory that never materializes, yet she is very present. She represents a missed opportunity for Bernard to pursue a life and career path rooted in Black liberation and Black cultural practices of love and activism. He idealizes Habiba, lamenting what could have been had they not split up. Despite this, he applies principles of the Black Power Movement to his work at the radio station to positive effect. As Griggs’ partner, he does not have the power to make major decisions about the company’s direction, but he anticipates that his hard work over the years will lead Griggs to give him ownership of the company. Although it is never explicitly stated, ownership, to Bernard, is the consolation prize for carrying future generations on his shoulders. Griggs, however, intends to sell the company to a communications conglomerate called Pegasus International—a move which sparks frustration and resentment. Bernard believes this conglomerate will take advantage of his programming work in centering Black voices and music, which has, to this point, grown the station’s listenership. Although he has the option to continue as an employee, the buyout will likely disrupt the radio station's “controversial” aesthetic and other political elements that make it culturally Black. On top of this betrayal, his marriage to Pam and extramarital relationship with Tanya are crumbling under the weight of his ambition, apathy, and self-centeredness. Wesley’s play is Du Bois’s Talented Tenth theory in practice, and Bernard’s life is the foremost case study. The women in the play, especially Tanya and Pam, play supporting roles, representing Bernard’s desire and ambition. Wesley, highlighting their importance, gives them space to speak in monologues inserted between scenes or self-reflective moments within scenes; this is the only way their voices and perspectives are relayed without Bernard as their filter. When they speak, it becomes clear that they are successful, intelligent women defined by their proximity to a man and his dreams. Tanya, a journalist who graduated from Spelman College and Columbia University, grew up in a working-class family. While she fills the ever-present void of Habiba (in complexion only), it is clear by her incessant requests for Bernard to leave his wife that she is the anti-Habiba—she does not have the strength to leave him although she communicates a multitude of reasons why she should. Reading like Savannah in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale , she considers herself to be a “woman of substance” rather than a “popular” woman (like Pam), which leads me to determine that Tanya is not fighting for Bernard, she is fighting against Pam—a placeholder for light-skinned women—who, in Tanya’s experience, have not had to be of substance to get the guy of their dreams. Patience, she believes, is the attribute that will make her the victor, overall; however, she does not factor in the other “other woman”—Habiba—as a potential obstacle. Pam, however, is well aware that Habiba (the memory of her) is both of their competition. Pam and Bernard’s marriage has always been more about optics than love. From a colorist perspective, she was the more pragmatic choice for a wife instead of a dark-skinned woman like Habiba or Tanya—a fact that Bernard never denies (because he cannot). Aesthetically, Pam exists in harmony with the quintessential picture of the African American family that he was sold; that is, the elitist imagining of Du Bois’s notion. In a conversation with Tanya, who is pressuring Bernard to decide between her and Pam, he reveals that his achievements—running a radio station, heading a household, being respected by his cadre of middle-class friends, and even having a loving girlfriend outside of his marriage—are unfulfilling. He admits, “Now, it’s all these years later and I’m scared and I’m angry because I want to change my life and do some things I’ve never had a chance to do. But, if I do I could hurt my wife and my children and everyone who depends on me, so I stay where I am and I dream. But I don’t dare act .” 18 Standing and dreaming alone while afraid is where we find Bernard at the beginning of the play and, although he appears in control, he remains in that state psychologically and emotionally. In this embodiment, he appears stuck in stillness on the sidelines as life moves around him; however, he has options. He can remain still or move forward, but he seems to be waiting for the right decision to occur to him or for someone else to make it for him. What is clear is that he is tired of gauging his choices by society’s metric. While Tanya’s concern is whether he loves her more than Pam, Bernard is on the precipice of making choices in his business and personal lives that put the security and respectability of those he is responsible for, even Tanya, at risk. As “talented” as he is, he is too human and too fallible to live up to unattainable standards. Thus, he stands and he dreams, evaluating his past in the present. The best decision eventually occurs to him. In fact, he divorces his wife and ends his relationship with Tanya. Some weight is lifted off of his shoulders, and he acts on his dreams by devising a plan to buy the radio station. In the final scene, parroting his interview with Griggs, Bernard interviews a “young man”—his son—“the seventh generation since slavery”—for a position at the station. The scene is similar to the first but, instead of completely reproducing the toxic dynamics between his younger self and Griggs, Bernard infuses hope in the conversation. Nearly verbatim, he repeats Griggs’ diatribe about generations, history, passivity, race, and struggle. As was his experience, the content of this monologue “scares” the young man. Then, Bernard follows up with a directive to dampen his son’s fear and help him take actionable steps forward—“Well, don’t be scared, young blood. Just be ready.” 19 This resolution is a full circle moment in which Bernard is now the empowered mentor; however, instead of playing Griggs’ role, he has taken the useful lessons he learned from him and adjusted them slightly, leaving room for a new generation to move. The Talented Tenth demonstrates how the theory that inspired it is handicapped by elitism and a lack of attention to the nuances of the intraracial politics that sometimes complicate Black American dreams. Be that as it may, a debt of gratitude is owed to W.E.B . Du Bois, the foremost Black intellectual of the twentieth century, for proposing an idea that has become a catalyst in dramatic narratives dating as far back as Theodore Ward’s Big White Fog (1938), Abram Hill's On Strivers Row (1939), and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959). It is difficult to imagine what the substance of Black Theatre would be without Du Bois’s polarizing concept. The Talented Tenth and contemporary plays that painstakingly scrutinize the inner workings and interpersonal impact of class on Black individuals and communities make clear that the discourse is as significant now as it was when Du Bois was most prolific. The Talented Tenth , as I read it, is more dream than theory. The century-old quandary of how best to cultivate and employ Black talent to elevate Black people is always already followed by unending ellipses that those of us within the collective, however privileged, must interpret and redefine as we progress between points along the margins of a surreal society…to the center…and back… References 1 W.E.B. Du Bois, Criteria of Negro Art (Crisis Publishing Company, 1926), 2. 2 Marable, Manning, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (Boston: Twayne, 1986), 26. 3 Emphasis mine. Marable, 51. 4 Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates (2022), Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (2017), Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (2009), Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly (2008), Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman (2002), George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum (1986), Charlie L. Russell’s Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Ed Bullins’s Clara’s Ole Man (1965), Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman (1964), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind (1955) are but a few plays featuring Black characters wrestling with intraracial class conflicts. 5 Du Bois proposed the “talented tenth” theory at the turn of the twentieth century (known as The Progressive Era) during which time social and political reform were on the rise, while his Negro Theatre concept was unveiled in The Crisis during the Harlem Renaissance. 6 The point of this essay, as in the play, is not to criticize Du Bois or his early notion, but to unpack a mindset in Black society that continues to hinder the racial progress that he and many other thought leaders since have only dreamed of. 7 Zachery R. Williams, In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, 1926-1970, 1st ed (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009), 17. 8 In 2006, as a graduate student studying at The New School/Actors Studio Drama School, I published a passionate essay that evinced my concern about the state of Black Theatre in the hands of Generation X and cuspy Millennials like myself. What I observed was a desire by twentysomething artists of my generation to assimilate to White Theater standards rather than familiarizing themselves with, valuing, and performing essential plays in the Black theatrical canon. It is validating to read Wesley’s play and interview transcripts in which he discusses a similar social phenomenon among his generation. See Kristyl D. Tift, “Black Theatre in the Hands of Generation X” (Bronx: Black Masks, 2006). 9 Richard Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology ( Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books , 2015), 174. 10 See Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). 11 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 1-2. 12 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias , 1. 13 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 174. 14 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 168-69. 15 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 171-72. 16 Joy James, Transcending the Talented Tenth : Black Leaders and American Intellectuals (London: Routledge, 2013), 28: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315022383 . 17 For more on the function of colorism in The Talented Tenth ideology before and after Du Bois, see Ronald E. Hall’s “The Du Boisian Talented Tenth: Reviewing and Assessing Mulatto Colorism in the Post-Du Boisian Era” (78-95) in Journal of African American Studies 24, 1 (2020): https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-019-09457-3 . 18 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 186. 19 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 219. Footnotes About The Author(s) Kristyl D. Tift is a performing artist, writer, director, educator, and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema, Media Arts, and Theatre at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include African Diaspora theatre and film, queer-feminist performance, theatre for social change, and performance theory. Her essay “Making  Colors : A Black Queer Feminist Experiment in Solo Performance” is published in  Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change . An article in  Theatre History Studies  is forthcoming. Other publications include articles and book reviews in  the Black Theatre Review,   Frontiers ,  Theatre Journal,  and the  Journal of American Drama and Theatre . Tift’s book,  A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance , is in production with The Ohio State University Press. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” “One Great and Fine Mode of Expression”: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre Reflections on Fundamental Principles An Expansive “Us”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Pan-Negro” Theatrical Vision W. E. B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T The Wild Duck Picnic at Hanging Rock Last Call: A Play with Cocktails The Dinosaurs The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, editors. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 652. Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Winners Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 2 Visit Journal Homepage Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Winners By Published on May 12, 2021 Download Article as PDF The Errol Hill Award is given by the American Society for Theatre Research in recognition of outstanding scholarship in African American theater, drama, and/or performance studies, as demonstrated in the form of a published book-length project (monograph or essay collection) or scholarly article. The book or article must deal with African American theater history, dramatic literature, or performance studies (research on dance, acting and directing, public performances, i.e., parades, pageants, etc.). 2020: Kemi Adeyemi, University of Washington, Seattle, “Beyond 90°: The Angularities of Black/Queer/Woman/Lean,” Women and Performance 29:1 (February 2019). 2019: Joshua Chambers-Letson, Northwestern University, After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer Color of Life, New York University Press Honorable Mentions Joanna Dee Das, Washington University in St. Louis, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora, Oxford University Press Christian DuComb, Colgate University, Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia, Michigan University Press Shane Vogel, Indiana University, Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze, University of Chicago Press 2018: Kellen Hoxworth, Dartmouth College, “The Many Racial Effigies of Sara Baartman,” Theatre Survey 58:3 (September 2017). 2017: Renee Alexander Craft, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama (Ohio State University Press, 2016). Honorable Mentions Christen Smith, University of Texas at Austin, Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil (University of Illinois Press, 2016). T. Carlis Roberts, UC Berkeley, Resounding Afro Asia: Interracial Music and the Politics of Collaboration (Oxford University Press, 2016). 2016 : Uri McMillan, UCLA Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance (New York University Press, 2015). Honorable Mention Adrienne Macki Braconi, Harlem’s Theatres: A Staging Ground for Community, Class, and Contradiction, 1923-1939 (Northwestern University Press, 2015). 2015 : Paige McGinley, Washington University in St. Louis, Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism (Duke University Press, 2014) Honorable Mention Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2014). 2014: Kathleen Gough, Kinship and Performance in the Black and Green Atlantic (Routledge, 2013). Honorable Mentions E. Patrick Johnson & Ramon Rivera-Servera, Solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews and essays (Northwestern University Press, 2014). Macelle Mahala, Penumbra: The Premier State for African American Drama (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 2013 : Diana Rebekkah Paulin, Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in US Drama and Fiction (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). 2012 : Bernth Lindfors, Ira Aldridge: The Early Years 1807-1833 (University of Rochester Press, 2011). Honorable Mention Brandi Catanese, The Problem of the Color[blind] (Univesrity of Michigan Press, 2011). 2011: Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (University of Michigan Press, 2010). 2010 : Tavia Nyong’o, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (University of Minnesota Press, 2009). 2009: Jayna Brown, Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern (Duke University Press, 2008). 2008: Cedric Robinson, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theatre and Film before World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 2007: Daphne Brooks, Bodies in Dissent: Performing Race, Gender, and Nation in the Trans-Atlantic Imaginary (Duke University Press, 2006). 2006: Jill Lane, Blackface Cuba, 1840 – 1895 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). 2005: Harry Elam, The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (University of Michigan Press, 2004). 2004: E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke University Press, 2003). 2003 : Thomas DeFrantz, Dancing Many Drums (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002). 2002: David Krasner and Harry Elam, Jr., eds., African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader (Oxford University Press, 2001). 2001 : Kimberly W. Benston, Performing Blackness: Enactments of African-American Modernism (Routledge, 2001). 2000: George A. Thompson, Jr., A Documentary History of African Theatre (Northwestern Univeristy Press, 1998). 1999: Jill Lane, “Blackface Nationalism, Cuba 1840-1868.” Theatre Journal 50, no. 1 (1998). 1998: David Krasner, Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre, 1895-1910 (Macmillan Publishers, 1997). 1997: Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, eds., Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth Century Blackface Minstrelsy (Wesleyan University Press, 1996). References Footnotes About The Author(s) Editorial Board: Guest Editors: Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans Guest Editorial Team for this issue: Mark Cosdon, Stephanie Engel, La Donna Forsgren, Javier Hurtado, Mia Levenson, Khalid Long, Derek Miller, Monica White Ndounou, Scot Reese Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Co-Managing Editor: Casey Berner Co-Managing Editor: Hui Peng Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction to "Milestones in Black Theatre" Prologue to the Issue and a Thank-you to Errol Hill Earle Hyman and Frederick O’Neal: Ideals for the Embodiment of Artistic Truth Newly Discovered Biographical Sources on Ira Aldridge Subversive Inclusion: Ernie McClintock’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble 1991: Original Broadway Production of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Antimusical Mule Bone Is Presented A Documentary Milestone: Revisiting Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement A Return to 1987: Glenda Dickerson’s Black Feminist Intervention Dancing on the Slash: Choreographing a Life as a Black Feminist Artist/Scholar Playing the Dozens: Towards a Black Feminist Dramaturgy in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston Guadalís Del Carmen: Strategies for Hemispheric Liberation “Ògún Yè Mo Yè!” Pathways for institutionalizing Black Theater pedagogy and production at historically white universities Interviews and Afterviews on “Milestones in Black Theatre” Talking About a Revolutionary Praxis: A Conversation with Black Women Artist-Scholars in the Wake of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration. Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden, eds. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020; Pp. 252. Casting A Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative. Claire Syler and Daniel Banks, eds. New York: Routledge, 2019; Pp. 266. The Theatre of August Wilson. Alan Nadel. Metuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London; New York: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Collections, 2018; Pp. 224. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future. James Shapiro. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. Pp. 221. The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on the World Stage. Kurt Eisen. Methuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2017; Pp 242 + xiv. Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 18 Winter 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Renewed Awareness Toward Salvation: The Journey of The Story of Zahra from Page to Stage By Raeda Ghazaleh Published: December 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF INTRODUCTION Banned in many Middle Eastern countries after its publication due to the provocative nature of the text, Hanan al-Shaykh’s novel The Story of Zahra explores the life of Zahra, which spans multiple decades and continents. In 2019, I co-adapted the final chapter of the book with Matthew Spangler, which focuses on Zahra’s life during the Lebanese Civil War. This article examines the invigorating and boundary-pushing process of adapting and directing this challenging text at the Palestinian National Theatre El-Hakawati in 2020. While often mischaracterized as a Western import, Middle Eastern feminism, as practiced in my artistic work, emerges from local socio-political realities and cultural contexts. It is not a replica of Western feminist frameworks, but rather a situated and evolving praxis that responds to the lived experiences of women. In adapting The Story of Zahra , we drew upon feminist theory and Brecht’s alienation effect to create a critical distance that invited audiences to reflect on structures of gendered and political oppression. In this context, feminist theory foregrounds women's voices and insists on their centrality in cultural narratives and social transformation. Similarly, Brechtian theatre seeks to expose systems of power and challenge theatrical conventions. To this end, we employed three levels of narration that aimed to bring all these elements to the stage. Together, these approaches enabled a form of political theatre that confronts injustice and imagines possibilities for feminist expression in the Arab world. BACKGROUND INFORMATION The play The Story of Zahra premiered in Jerusalem at the Palestinian National Theatre El Hakawati in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdown. It later toured Palestine in October 2021 and was performed at the Journées Théâtrales de Carthage in Tunisia in December of the same year. I first met Lebanese author Hanan al-Shaykh in 2000 while in London directing staged readings at the Royal Court Theatre. Katherine Viner of The Guardian , who interviewed me at the time, introduced us, sensing a shared sensibility. From that meeting, a long-standing friendship developed. I began reading al-Shaykh’s novels and discussing her early life in Beirut, including her decision to leave Lebanon at the outbreak of the civil war. Born in 1944 into a Shiite family in Beirut, al-Shaykh experienced a turbulent childhood marked by her mother’s departure and subsequent years in boarding school. At sixteen, she began writing for An-Nahar newspaper and later pursued her studies in literature at the American College for Girls in Cairo. After a brief return to Lebanon, she resumed work in journalism, but the onset of civil war in 1975 compelled her to flee to London with her two children. Her novel The Story of Zahra (1980) was a turning point in her career. Written in Arabic and met with widespread censorship across the Arab world, the novel was deemed controversial due to its unflinching depiction of sexuality, war, and patriarchal violence. The narrative centers on Zahra, a young woman whose experiences of abuse, political instability, and familial trauma expose the psychological toll of life within a patriarchal community. The novel’s raw critique of patriarchal structures led Arab publishers to reject it, prompting al-Shaykh to publish it independently. Since its English translation in 1986, The Story of Zahra has become a canonical work in Arab literature and is frequently taught in university courses across Europe and North America (Spangler, 3, 10). Al-Shaykh’s literary voice is marked by emotional honesty and feminist conviction rooted in her cultural and political context. As Edward Said remarked, she is “the premier woman writer in Arabic who has done more than any other to explore the misperception of Arab women's lives” (AUB). Her feminism, while distinct from Western frameworks, is deeply committed to giving voice to silenced and fractured female subjectivities. My connection to The Story of Zahra was immediate. After first reading it in 2000, I envisioned its potential as a stage adaptation. Nearly two decades later, I encountered playwright Matthew Spangler, known for his adaptation of The Kite Runner , and found in him a collaborator who shared my sensibility. When I proposed the adaptation to al-Shaykh, she expressed concern about how such a complex and interior novel could be staged. I assured her that the theatrical form I envisioned would honor the novel’s intensity and fragmentation. With that trust, she permitted us to begin the adaptation process. THE NOVEL The Story of Zahra Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra is structurally divided into two distinct books, each reflecting Zahra’s changing psychological state. The first book, comprising the majority of the novel, is primarily narrated from Zahra’s perspective. It recounts her traumatic childhood, marked by her mother’s instrumentalization of her in an extramarital affair and her fear of her abusive father. Seeking escape, Zahra travels to Africa to stay with her uncle, but instead of finding liberation, she is further subjected to sexual harassment and retraumatized by memories of earlier abuse, which included two abortions (Larson, 1991). Her experiences also include an emotionally hollow marriage to her uncle’s friend Majed and repeated returns between Africa and Beirut, underscoring her psychological dissociation and inability to find safety or belonging. Al-Shaykh complicates the narrative voice by including chapters from the perspectives of the uncle and Majed, men who are also portrayed as wounded figures, before returning to Zahra’s fragmented inner world. Through these shifting perspectives and nonlinear chronology, the novel resists classical narrative form. As Sirhan (2024) argues, al-Shaykh “breaks the time continuity” and constructs a plot composed of interwoven threads, reflecting Zahra’s psychological dislocation and aligning the novel with Brechtian techniques of fragmentation and estrangement (2024, 121–126). The second book, set during the Lebanese Civil War, marks a shift in Zahra’s agency. No longer isolated, she begins to engage with the world around her, questioning her past and present: “I am no longer Zahra. In short, my questions and inquiries do not stop” (al-Shaykh 1989, 153). The war serves as a catalyst, prompting Zahra to break free from patriarchal constraints (Sirhan 2024, 112). Her complex and morally ambiguous relationship with a sniper, at once violent, erotic, and psychologically charged, becomes a pivotal point of self-assertion. For the first time, Zahra chooses a relationship, believing she is both reconnecting with her body and preventing further violence. However, her pregnancy and fantasy of family are shattered when she is ultimately killed. As Sirhan notes, her death signifies the delusion of safety in wartime and encapsulates the cumulative violence she has endured (2024, 113). It was this second book that I chose to adapt for the stage, drawn to Zahra’s growing awareness and active engagement with her surroundings. I was particularly interested in how the war acts as a metaphorical rupture that propels Zahra toward self-reflection and confrontation with her trauma. Her wondering about the sniper in the neighbourhood leads her to have a sexual relationship with him. She fears the sniper, but she keeps going to him as she starts to connect with her body again. Zahra’s “relationship with the sniper [is an] embodiment of her deteriorating psychological state” (2024, 112). She realizes that her relationship with the sniper is the first time she is making her own choices. She rationalizes it by telling herself that, by being with the sniper, she is stopping him from killing people (al-Shaykh 1989, 189). However, she soon ends up dead. As Sirhan puts it, “Her death in the end is evidence that feeling safe in war is a delusion” (Sirhan 2024, 113). Zahra’s demise is a culmination of all kinds of violence that she experiences and witnesses. I aimed to create a performance that would allow the audience to hear Zahra’s voice without judgment, to understand her actions within a broader context of gendered violence and political collapse. Zahra’s story functions as a feminist critique of war and patriarchal society in Lebanon (2024, 125). Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra. Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. BRECHTIAN AND FEMINIST THEORIES IN ADAPTATION Feminist theory critiques patriarchy as a system in which women are historically oppressed, marginalized, and socially constructed to serve male interests. It interrogates how culture, especially literature and performance, has represented women through male fantasies rather than female realities. As Simone de Beauvoir famously said, “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman,” a statement Judith Butler expands on to show how gender is produced through repeated social behaviors rather than biological destiny. Gender can be understood as a patriarchal social given that is determined by the repetition of specific actions over time, “embodying certain cultural and historical possibilities...” (188) rather than leaving the existence of natural and instinctive actions that determine a person’s identity. This opens the door to exploring the possibility of a different kind of repetition, perhaps in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style that indicates to us the gender that is renewed in its identity (2007, 188). Women face many challenges in liberating their bodies from this patriarchal oppression. Still, they must also liberate themselves from their personal perspective, feelings, and opinions acquired through their experiences and backgrounds, which have shaped how they see themselves and their relationship with the world around them. As female subjectivity in general has been shaped within the patriarchal male vision, to be able to become free of it, there is a need for women “to escape the confines of the subjectivity patriarchy sets up for them” (Fortier 2002, 111). Judith Fetterley’s theory of the “resistance reader” was paramount to me throughout this process. Women throughout history adapted the vision of the dominant patriarchal culture. Even when women were allowed to participate in culture, they carried within themselves the male perspective; they wrote from a male point of view. Therefore, in order for women to liberate themselves from that, they must read against what they read, to be able to understand, realize, and criticize how literature has been written from a male perspective, even if women wrote it. Through this act of resistance reading, women can be liberated from patriarchal authoritarianism (Fortier 2002, 108). Theatre has long played a role in reproducing patriarchal narratives, but feminist theorists like Hélène Cixous insist on a woman-centered language and form that emerges from women’s embodied experience. The Story of Zahra employs feminist language techniques because it is a language whose characteristics are the opposite of those found in classical male language. It is free from all the rules of language or the rules of conventional theatre. Its content and form are based on female body characteristics. Just as the “phallocentric” male language takes its components from the male body from which it grows and expresses itself. Similarly, female language draws its components from the characteristics of the female body and sexuality. Just as the male body has created a theatrical form that serves the thinking of men, and this form is the one that is accepted in society, the linear and unidirectional. Feminist writing contrasts with this, the woman’s body is connected to forms that are “circular, cyclical, polyphonic, associative, repetitive, abstract, soft, and constantly changing” (2013, 139). The connection between the body and language is not only metaphorical, but it applies to both men and women, and Cixous explores this idea in depth. Cixous points out that the feminine metaphor that creates the form and manner of expression has a direct and literal connection to the woman's body as a source of creation, inspired by the characteristics and sexuality of women, and this, of course, affects the form of expression in female writing and productions. Through feminist writing, we come to understand that women must rewrite themselves; they must begin expressing themselves from their bodies and their rhythms, from their relationship with motherhood, and their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development as females. They need to establish their history and rediscover their identity and voice. This differs significantly from the straight male line with a conventional plot. This feminist aesthetics opens up space for dramaturgies that reject the classical, male-oriented structure in favor of more fluid, experiential ones. Cixous’s call for women to “write themselves” has profoundly influenced contemporary feminist theatre, particularly as it intersects with Brecht’s epic theatre. While Brecht did not focus on gender, feminist practitioners appropriated his alienation techniques to critique gender as a constructed sign system. Materialist feminism, in particular, found in Brechtian theory a valuable toolkit for exposing systems of oppression, economic, social, and gendered, through performance. As Aston and Diamond argue, feminist-Brechtian theatre not only aims to represent women differently but to expose and dismantle the patriarchal mechanisms that shape representation itself. Brecht's technique helps to present women in a different way towards revolutionary and social change. As Brecht said: “The production took the subject matter and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding” (Willett 1964, 71). Brecht himself did not focus on gender, but rather his work was about a political theatre based on the call for class liberation and a revolution for the oppressed working class. In this way, Brecht failed to recognize that gender discrimination is a crucial component of the working class's struggle. Therefore, the possibilities that could be applied through his theatre theory for the benefit of the materialist women’s movement originated from the feminist movement itself and were utilized to advance feminist projects. Brecht’s theory and his alienation effect technique for the performers “demonstrate systems of social oppression through the medium of performance” (Aston 1999, 13). Spangler and I focused on form: the novel’s nonlinear structure, psychological depth, and estranged timeline, working to align them with epic feminist strategies. Although, two major feminist performance strategies include “reading against the text” to subvert patriarchal narratives and “re-dressing,” which reframes characters to highlight and complicate gender constructions (Sue-Ellen Case; Alisa Solomon), we didn’t need to “read against” the original text because the feminist voice was already there. Nor did we re-dress the characters.The play centers on Zahra as the narrator of her own story, recounting the war in Beirut and the instability of her relationships, especially with her brother Ahmad, who joins a militia, and with the sniper. Initially, the play followed a linear narrative structure, with Zahra as storyteller and expanded roles for Ahmad and the sniper. Yet something essential was missing. We realized the audience lacked access to Zahra’s interiority and the reasons behind her actions. In response, we incorporated three monologues that draw on material from the first book of the novel. These monologues function as Zahra’s inner voice, offering insight into her trauma and charting a trajectory toward self-awareness and strength. We mirrored the novel’s temporal fragmentation, echoing its shifts between past and present. As al-Shaykh “removes the boundaries between times ... inside the character” (2024, 126), the novel’s structure becomes a map of Zahra’s fractured psyche. We followed suit onstage, echoing this disjointed timeline to reflect the character’s trauma and inner life. In the novel, as in our performance, memory and the present interweave. This dramaturgical approach resonated with what Aronson-Lehavi describes as “the interpretive process” of adapting a text for the stage (2013, 120). We developed the script through workshops with actors in May 2019 and a subsequent gathering with readers of the novel. These engagements made clear the importance of contextualizing Zahra’s actions for the audience, particularly in light of ongoing debates around gender-based violence and so-called “honour killings” in Palestinian society. The adaptation resonated deeply with Palestinian women, who recognized Zahra’s pain as reflective of their own experiences. As Spangler initially questioned the relevance of a Lebanese narrative to Palestinian audiences, I argued, and was later affirmed by the response, that Zahra’s story transcends national borders through its feminist lens on oppression, silence, and survival (Spangler, 7). Ultimately, adapting The Story of Zahra for the stage enabled us to amplify a silenced voice, offering a form of feminist resistance that challenges both patriarchy and war. The project not only brought Zahra’s journey into the public realm but also fostered dialogue with audiences about the entanglement of personal trauma and collective history. The stage adaptation traces the psychological and political journey of a young woman navigating a lifetime of patriarchal violence amid the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War. As Zahra gains momentary freedom from familial control, she seeks autonomy and meaning, only to confront forms of exploitation. The production, as noted in the programme, “explores how women are particularly brutalized in times of violence and oppression.” The performance unfolds across four dramaturgical stages, charting Zahra’s evolving consciousness and ultimate demise. Stage One introduces Zahra in wartime Beirut, recounting the fear she experienced in her childhood. Through direct address and domestic scenes, she speaks of the structural oppression she endured, particularly from her father. She provides glimpses into her complex relationship with war, trauma, and desire. In a moment of confronting all of this, a memory of her mother using Zahra as a child to cover up an extramarital affair, taking Zahra with her when meeting her lover, resurfaces in her mind. Her fear and the violence she experiences are what prompt her to leave, looking for a fresh start. Stage Two presents Zahra living independently for the first time. In an abandoned apartment, she initiates a hesitant relationship with the sniper, initially driven by fear, curiosity, and a longing for connection. The arrival of her brother Ahmed, a civil war combatant, reveals further layers of patriarchal aggression and ideological disillusionment. Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (left) and Mohammad Basha as Ahmad (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. Stage Three delves into Zahra’s past, particularly her abuse in Africa by a relative and a failed marriage that compounded her trauma. The deepening of her relationship with the sniper appears, to Zahra, as an act of volition, “the first thing she has chosen in her life.” Yet, as she challenges him about his past and observes her brother's further descent into brutality, the limits of her autonomy become increasingly visible. Stage Four sees Zahra confront the most harrowing episodes of her youth: sexual exploitation, forced abortion, and psychiatric abuse. These memories culminate in Zahra's pregnancy by the sniper. Her fantasy of a future rooted in choice and love unravels and, in the story’s final moments, Zahra walks through the streets only to be shot. The ambiguity of the final act underscores the impossibility of liberation within a society shaped by war and patriarchy. Her desire for a new life ends in silence, possibly at the hands of the very man she thought had offered her freedom. Milad Knebe as Sniper (left) and Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. This adaptation stages Zahra’s narrative not simply as a personal tragedy, but as a broader critique of the intersecting violences of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Our approach drew upon Brechtian techniques to reject psychological realism in favor of critical distance. Zahra’s monologues, direct address, and the disrupted timeline invited audiences to reflect on structural violence rather than become absorbed in a singular character’s tragedy. By fragmenting time and foregrounding Zahra’s consciousness, we disrupted narrative closure, instead emphasizing the broader critique embedded in her story. By staging The Story of Zahra , we offered a feminist form of resistance, confronting the entangled violences of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Our staging emphasized Zahra’s social entrapment not as her private trauma alone, but as a shared, political condition. I resisted Spangler’s initial idea of staging it as a monodrama, knowing that isolating Zahra would risk individualizing her struggle. The play stems from Zahra’s logic, and if we isolate her on stage with all her conflicts, the risk is that the audience will interpret her struggle as purely internal, absolving the public and political context of responsibility. However, if we surround her with other key characters, we can more clearly see the effects they have on her. This multiplicity aligns with Brechtian dramaturgy, where individual psychology is always presented in relation to historical and material conditions. Instead, I built an environment around her, soundscape, spatial design, and supporting characters, that demonstrated how society actively constructs her reality. Even the choice to use the Lebanese dialect, rather than the Palestinian one, created an intentional estrangement effect for local audiences, prompting them to analyze rather than empathize uncritically. The Story of Zahra on stage becomes an example of feminist epic theatre—disrupting traditional narratives, centering women’s experience, and provoking critical engagement with gendered violence as a structural, not merely personal, problem. THREE LEVELS OF NARRATION In the script, there are three levels of narration: storytelling, Zahra’s interactions with other characters, and her memory monologues. Zahra’s storytelling guides the audience toward what the character herself wants us to see and know. This level of narration spans the entire stage space. While this section addresses the levels of narration from a scriptwriting perspective, I find it impossible to separate the text from its theatrical realization. Accordingly, I interweave elements of the production into the discussion of each narrative level. The first drafts of the script were written in English, after which I began translating the text into Arabic, initially using the Palestinian dialect. I later decided to shift to the Lebanese dialect, finalizing the script in collaboration with al-Shaykh during a trip to London. This process contributed to the script’s alienation from Palestinian audiences from the outset. In Brechtian terms, this linguistic shift functioned as a distancing device, interrupting the potential for immediate identification with the character or setting. Rather than fostering emotional immersion, the language aimed to provoke critical observation. As previously mentioned, the novel posed significant challenges to patriarchal norms and was banned across much of the Arab world. My objective in adapting the novel for the stage was to add a critical dimension: to allow the audience not only to track Zahra’s actions but also to hear her internal commentary. It was essential that the audience listen to the play’s ideas, though this had to be handled with care. As Ayat Yaghmour observed in her review: “The play included many hints that were sometimes used to avoid the explicitness of the action and not to disturb the audience, and at other times the hints were used to attract the audience, awaken their imagination and provoke their intelligence” (2020). Her comments pertain to the performance, but also highlight the way the script strategically withholds emotional resolution to encourage reflection. Rather than passively judging Zahra, viewers are encouraged to consider the social structures that surround her. In this, the production pursues transformation through critical spectatorship rather than passive empathy. The second level of narration consists of Zahra’s interactions with other characters, situated in spaces such as the family home and the sniper’s rooftop. This layer introduces dialogic tension and reveals embedded social hierarchies. It aligns with Brecht’s principle that characters should not merely express psychological interiority, but instead represent broader social forces. From this perspective, Zahra is framed as a woman attempting to escape the constraints imposed upon her, even as she remains ensnared by the violence of war and patriarchal expectations. Spatial design played a central role in supporting this tension. At first, characters moved freely across the stage, which represented the family home. After the family departs Beirut and Zahra remains behind, the stage is divided, and the city’s streets and neighborhoods begin to emerge between these spaces. This spatial reconfiguration follows Zahra’s journey as she begins to step outside the home, yet remains trapped between the male authorities in her life, her brother and the sniper, and the larger social structures represented by the community. The non-naturalistic scenography and choreographed spatial divisions invite the audience to consider their own relationship to what unfolds before them. Rather than being lulled into empathetic identification, spectators are encouraged to question. Zahra’s direct address to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, serves as another Brechtian device that foregrounds theatricality and resists illusion. The third level of narration takes the form of Zahra’s memory monologues, which shift into a distinct aesthetic register. These moments occur at the front center of the stage, within a focused circle of light, where the character confronts herself and delivers unfiltered reflections that disrupt narrative continuity. In developing the soundscape for these scenes, I collaborated with musician John Handal. Rather than conventional music, we sought an ambient, environmental texture, something that would avoid manipulating emotions and instead cultivate a space for thought. Music appears only during these memory monologues, consisting of a single, recurring note: minimal and insistent. In these instances, as Zahra faces her past in order to move forward, the sound design compels concentrated attention. The final scene collapses all three levels of narration into a single dramatic moment. Zahra is shot, and as she falls, she reveals her thoughts in her dying breath: “I close my eyes. Eyes that were never truly open. I feel the rain” (Spangler and Ghazaleh, 56). Her past and present converge. The rain, descending from above, suggests a gesture of purification. Yet rather than allowing the audience to sink into sentimentality, the production exposes the theatrical mechanism, showing how the rain effect is produced on stage. There is no catharsis. Instead, the moment is designed to agitate, directing the audience’s attention toward the structural violence and patriarchal control that have governed Zahra’s life. Tahseen Yaqeen notes this effect in his review: “Here, we will find ourselves, as we watch this creative play, wondering about the historical moment, not of the civil war, which seems not to have ended yet, but about the place here and the time, Palestine 2020?” (2020). The epic theatre techniques employed in the production, disruption of illusion, direct address, stylized scenography, and fragmentation of narrative structure, were deployed in pursuit of the alienation effect, toward the broader goal of constructing an epic feminist theatre. Iman Aoun as Fatmé (left) and Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. CONCLUSION This experience marked an important moment of reflection for me as a Palestinian woman and theatre artist. It offered the space to reconsider the creative journey behind The Story of Zahra and to re-examine the Brechtian and feminist theoretical frameworks that have long shaped my artistic practice, whether consciously or not. Brecht’s theory of the alienation effect has always spoken to me; his insistence on breaking theatrical conventions to expose injustice aligns with my desire to make theatre a space for social critique and transformation. At the same time, feminist theory, though I did not always name it as such, has coexisted with me throughout my life. My rebellion against patriarchal structures was never about claiming rights for women alone, but about demanding the freedom for everyone, including men in my society, to live without oppressive expectations. In adapting The Story of Zahra for the stage, I found these two theoretical lineages converging. The performance not only retold Zahra’s personal tragedy but also offered a broader feminist critique of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Using Brechtian techniques, we rejected psychological realism in favor of critical distance, inviting the audience to reflect rather than simply empathize. The process of bringing this controversial and groundbreaking novel to the stage was full of challenges, but ultimately created a space where Zahra could be heard, not judged. In retrospect, this work affirmed for me that feminist epic theatre is not only possible, but necessary: a form that disrupts dominant narratives, centers women’s voices, and invites audiences into active, critical engagement with structural violence. It is through this kind of theatre, rebellious, reflective, and deeply human, that we can begin to imagine possibilities for liberation. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes Al-Shaykh, Hanan, The Story of Zahra , London: Pan Books, 1987. Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon, Gender and Feminism in Modern Theatre . Raanana: The Open University of Israel, 2013. Larson, Charles R., “The fiction of Hanan Al-Shaykh, reluctant feminist,” World Literature Today , Jan 01. 65:1 (1991); 14-17. Butler, Judith, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”, in The Performance Studies Reader , second edition, Ed. Henry Bial. New York: Routledge, 2007;187-199. Diamond, Elin, “Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory: Towards a Gestic Feminist Criticism,” in Unmaking Mimeses . New York: Routledge, 1996; 43-55. Fortier, Mark, Theory/Theatre: An Introduction , second edition, London: Routledge, 2002. Ghazaleh, Raeda, and Matthew Spangler, The Story of Zahra, unpublished script. Jerusalem: Palestinian National Theatre, 2020. Sirhan, Rabab, “The Feminist Narrative in the Lebanese War Novel: Hikayat Zahra and Bareed Beirut as a Model”, Al-Majma: Studies in Arabic language, literature and thought 19 (2024); 103-128. Spangler, Matthew. “Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra at the Palestinian National Theatre”, unpublished essay. Willett, John, ed. & trans., Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, London: Methuen, 1964. American University of Beirut, Hanan al-Shaykh, aub.edu.lb , 2019 https://www.aub.edu.lb/doctorates/recipients/Pages/Hanan-al-Shaykh.aspx The Story of Zahra programme, Palestinian National Theatre, 2021. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4654476531253574 يقين، تحسين. "مسرحية حكاية زهرة لرائدة غزالة: البحث عن المعنى عبر جماليات تعبيرية"، أمد للإعلام ١٤-٠٣-٢٠٢٠ https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2020/03/14/1321900.html يغمور، آيات. "حكاية زهرة في الحرب الأهلية.. من بيروت إلى مسرح العاصمة المقدسية"، الحدث ٢٦-٠٢-٢٠٢٠ https://www.alhadath.ps/article/115485/حكاية-زهرة-في-الحرب-الأهلية-من-بيروت-إلى-مسرح-العاصمة-المقدسية References About The Author(s) Raeda Ghazaleh is a theatre director and actress, co-founder of Inad Theatre and Al-Harah Theatre in Beit Jala, where she served as artistic director until 2016. She directed and acted in many plays in Palestine, Europe, and America. Her recent productions include acting in Artificial Heart , Bethlehem Calling at the Celtic Connection music festival in Glasgow as a co-director; the Palestinian National Theatre production of The Story of Zahra , a theatrical work she adapted with the American writer Matthew Spangler from Hanan Al-Shaykh’s novel; and Jihan's Smile with Al-Harah Theatre, where she also directed Confinement; Making Senses; Do You Still Love Me?; and Hanin Al Bahar. Her theatrical acting credits include David Hare’s Stuff Happens at the Royal National Theatre in London, and most recently Other Places with Khashabi Theatre. She directed the television series Joking Seriously in 2005 and acted in television and film productions. Ghazaleh received her MA in Theatre Directing from the Central School of Speech & Drama in London where she also worked with the Royal Court Theatre, with whom she had established a playwriting connection with Palestine. Ghazaleh recently established Masahati, an independent creative space offering a refuge for like-minded artists to express themselves freely without external interventions limiting creativity and art. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Practicing Place: Site-Specific Performance and the Reinscription of Memory in Palestine Resisting the Unleashed Evils of the US- Invasion of Iraq in Amir Al-Azraki’s The Widow (2017) Dina Mousawi’s RETURN: a Compelling site of representing Women’s Status of Agency Under Occupation Renewed Awareness Toward Salvation: The Journey of The Story of Zahra from Page to Stage Site-Specific Performance and Theatrical Memorialization of the Nakba Performance Review: WAILING SONGS OF THE PAST, MIGHT THEY GROW OUR RESILIENCE. By Maya al-Khaldi. Performance Review: DUMMY IN DIASPORA. By Esho Rasho. Performance Review: ENGLISH. Written by Sanaz Toossi Performance Review: THE CAVE. By Sadieh Rifai Performance Review: IRAQ, BUT FUNNY by Atra Asdou Performance Review: COSMOS/AWALEM by Ashtar Muallem and Emile Saba. Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Karina Gutiérrez Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 3 Visit Journal Homepage Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Karina Gutiérrez By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. The precarious era of Argentina’s dictatorship (1976-1982) stifled political resistance and artistic expression. However, the years following the administrative regimes of Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Massera, and Leopoldo Galtieri prompted many people in the newly democratic Argentina to reflect upon and recoup their national identities. Noe Montez’s Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina considers (re)emerging individual and collective memory narratives and their effects on judicial policies in Argentina’s transitional postdictatorship period. Drawing on contemporary research in memory studies and theatre history, Montez recounts the momentous artistic reactions to policies implemented by the administrations of Carlos Menem, Néstor Carlos Kirchner Jr., and Cristina Kirchner. In so doing, Montez’s text contributes to a growing repertoire of Argentine works in the field of performance studies. As Montez himself rightly notes, the vast majority of scholarship on theatrical responses to the dictatorship tends to focus on the oeuvres of more internationally renowned playwrights such as Ricardo Bartis, Griselda Gambaro, and Eduardo Pavlovsky, whose works were staged during or directly following the dictatorship. Instead, Montez charts the trajectory of emerging directors, playwrights, actors, designers, and companies that flourished in Buenos Aires during this transitional era. Montez divides his book into four chapters, arranged chronologically to highlight theatrical productions that reacted to each administration’s approach to transitional justice and contributed to collective memory. Chapter one explores “disconstructive resistances,” a term that is never fully unpacked but appears to refer to the disjuncture between collective memory narratives and state-sanctioned memory narratives constructed and propagated by the Menem administration’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings held from 1989 to 1999. Each of the four plays that Montez examines in this chapter considers the limitations of state-sanctioned narratives of impunity, to say nothing of clemency and amnesty policies, directed toward those in office accused of human rights violations. Montez devotes a substantial amount of space to key performance groups and playwrights including El Periférico de Objetos, Javier Daulte, Marcelo Bertuccio, and Luis Cano. He describes their use of multimedia and avant-garde artistic practices to advance their political agendas; by exposing the artifice of authorized modes of remembrance, these artists resisted the Menem administration’s politics of erasure. The second chapter centers on how Teatroxlaindentidad , a long-running Buenos Aires-based theatre festival created to raise awareness about the hundreds of children kidnapped during the dictatorship, collaborated with artists to promote public access to declassified archives. Montez notes that works by Patricia Zangaro, Hector Levy-Daniel, and Mariana Eva Perez demonstrate the value of historical archives for the construction of personal and national identities. However, Montez adds a further dimension: he studies how institutional support from non-theatrical entities impacts an organization’s overall creative output and longevity. He offers as an example Teatroxlaindentidad’ s partnership with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The partnership is notable because the goals of the latter imposed significant restraints on the artistic visions of the former, specifically in the earliest years of this alliance. Indeed, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other stakeholders limited commissioned work in the festival’s line-up to those who spoke directly to reuniting kidnapped children with their next of kin through genetic testing. In the second half of the book, Montez attempts to capture the ideological dissonance of various agents staking claims to history. Chapter three, “Reparation, Commemoration, and Memory Construction in the Postdictatorship Generation,” looks at the importance of self-archiving or self-reflexive personal testimony as a means of talking back to state-appointed sites of memory. Of particular interest are those testimonies that “talk back” to sites established during the Néstor and Cristina Kirchner administrations (2003-2007 and 2007-2015, respectively). Montez delineates the social divide between those who favored the Kirchner administrations’ memorialization efforts and those who did not. Meanwhile, in the final chapter, Montez explores four theatrical performances produced alongside Christina Kirchner’s rebranding of the Malvinas War (also known as the Falklands War). Montez describes how the Kirchner administration sought to recast this national defeat as a point of nationalistic remembrance, shaping memory narratives of the war and the people of Malvinas. While works by Patricio Adadi, Mariana Mazover, and Lisandro Fiks critiqued Kirchner’s commemoration, Julio Cardoso’s vision fell in line with the administration’s memorialization efforts as he opted to honor veterans as heroes. The differing reactions to the Malvinas War demonstrate how acts of remembrance can be linked to acts of erasure in a variety of contradictory ways. Though Montez does not explicitly make this point, one can surmise that the opposing artistic treatments of the Falkland Islands mirror the contradictory socio-political views of these territories today. Montez’s illustration of performance and social engagement in postdictatorship Argentina highlights the nation’s vibrant and tenacious theatre scene. More importantly, his book draws attention to Argentina’s artistic agents—long neglected by U.S. scholars and theatre audiences—who are determined to grapple with identity, social justice, and individual/collective memory. Montez weaves pertinent historical content with play descriptions for what is, overall, an assessment of current artistic measures that seek to reify or contest dominant memory narratives. Scholars of Latinx theatre and performance, specifically those who concentrate on politics, will value Montez’s timely study of artistic mobilization in postdictatorship Argentina. I would, however, recommend this book be read in conjunction with texts by Diana Taylor and Jean Graham-Jones; though often cited, reading their respective theories on performance and activism firsthand may deepen understanding of Montez’s argument. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina contributes to the growing archive of memory studies and, more importantly, to nuancing the fledgling U.S. awareness of Latin American performance and performance studies scholarship in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. References Footnotes About The Author(s) KARINA GUTIÉRREZ Stanford University Editorial Board for Special Issue: David Bisaha Meredith Conti Leah Lowe Inga Meier Robert Vorlicky Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Embodied Arts Collective Choreography for Weathering Black Experience: Janelle Monáe and The Memphis "Tightrope" Dance Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance. Stephanie Nohelani Teves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018; Pp. 220. Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La MaMa Experimental Theatre. Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017; Pp. 198. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. Kevin Winkler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; Pp. 368. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018; Pp. 399. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED By Areeg Ibrahim Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED. By Mustapha Shohaib. Directed by Mohamed Sobhi. Sonbol City Theatre, Egypt. Feb. 18, 2023. Reviewed by Areeg Ibrahim, Helwan University At the outskirts of Cairo, on the way to Alexandria, lies Sonbol City, a cultural complex established by prolific Egyptian actor and theater director Mohamed Sobhi (b. 1948), who named the place after a famous role he played in a television series. Sonbol City hosts the Mohamed Sobhi Theatre House, which showcases a photo gallery of Sobhi’s works before the audience enters into the auditorium of the stage. There, I recently watched the play A Family That Has Been Blocked . First performed in 2022 , A Family That Has Been Blocked is a comedy that traces changes to Egyptian family values through time. The play is written by Mustapha Shohaib and directed by Sobhi, who also plays the leading role as patriarch of a family that spans four generations, with supporting roles played by Wafaa Sadek, Kamal Attia and others. At the beginning of the play there is a mix of cinematic and theatrical tools. A screen projection plays a video showing a future time where life has been dehumanized, and humans have become more like robots. Then the scene shifts to the house of an average Egyptian family. The play follows this Egyptian family and its patriarch, Zeinhom Effendi (Mohamed Sobhi), from the time of the revolutionary figure Saad Zaghloul, who led the 1919 Revolution. The family is shown to abide by strict decorum and tradition. We follow the same family’s descendants through time until we reach the present, witnessing their deterioration in values, respect and their level of language use. One symbolic example is the willingness of the descendants to sell the family’s library and books. Another example shows the impact of technology—such as the phone, television, media and social media—on the disintegration of family relationships. One particular scene refers to the deterioration of education, to the extent that the family’s children take private lessons and memorize their lessons like a song accompanied by drum beats. The title of the play can be interpreted on several levels. First, the family members have blocked one another, dissolving the family connections. “Blocking” may also refer to the family’s neglect of the past glory of Egypt and of the family’s relationship with their ancestors. In addition, the play’s title may refer to a general societal tendency to neglect familial values. This socio-political satire draws our attention to the role of family, and didactically promotes family values while criticizing materialism, the domination of social media, and the deterioration of the educational system. Sobhi was famous for his collaborative theater work with the late playwright Lenin El-Ramly (1945- 2020). Their collaboration during the eighties produced famous comedic and political satires, such as, for example, You Are Free (1981), The Savage (1985), The Indecisive (1985), Hallucinations (1989) and Point of View (1989) . Later on, Sobhi directed and acted in a number of successful plays with Egyptian actress Simone; these included Carmen (1999), A Woman’s Plaything (2000) and The Road to Safety (2000). This play is a comedy that incorporates several songs, but its spirit is slightly different from the Lenin/ Sobhi comedic style, which was subtly satirical. Here, the play seems to be trying too hard to re-capture the previous commercially successful formula of comedy, song, political satire and nationalistic fervor. Sobhi’s directorial style depends on some physical slapstick, as well as satirizing social situations and changes in societal taste concerning the quality of music and songs. The comedic effect happens through the repetition of certain motifs and phrases that seem to slightly change across the scenes and times. For example, different scenes refer to the prices of goods and make fun of how prices have become inflated. But this comedic effect felt predictable and labored at times. The scenery also sometimes failed to evoke warmth and intimacy; this may have been intentional, however, to show the alienation of the family members and the coldness sweeping over their relationships. Despite some biting jokes about inflation and education, the play ends on a didactically nationalistic and hopeful note. Overall, A Family That Has Been Blocked is a pleasant family outing. The front of the house team at the theater is well-managed and punctual, the play is neatly blocked, and all participants appear to be well-trained and highly disciplined. Sobhi has managed to leave a mark in the history of Egyptian theater both as actor and director, and his years of theater experience show to good effect in his work. However, for this play, it may have been a better idea to train another actor in the leading role; more humor could have been created from the combination of Sobhi’s experience with the fresh perspective of a budding comedic theater talent. But Sobhi’s play is worth watching for its humor, values and professionalism. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Areeg Ibrahim is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Helwan University, Cairo. She was the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Effat University, KSA in 2020. She has published widely in both Arabic and English on Arabic and international drama, and is the co-editor of a Routledge book, Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre . She has translated a number of theater books published by the National Center for Translation in Egypt. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Bindi Kang Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 2 Visit Journal Homepage Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Bindi Kang By Published on May 22, 2022 Download Article as PDF Early in the spring of 2021, the New York City-based Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America (YRT) commissioned five playwrights of Chinese heritage [1] to adapt stories from Pu Songling’s 18th century Chinese classic Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio ( Liaozhai Zhiyi ), one of the most popular and celebrated works in Sinophone [2] culture. Later that year, these modern one-act play adaptations were performed together in a virtual program called Clubhouse or Liao Zhai , a name that means “a studio where people chat” and resonates with the social media platform Clubhouse. Producing such a project, YRT intended to build a network for Asian/American [3] theatre practitioners and to express a shared reaction of concern, anger, and vulnerability to the long history of anti-Asian violence—from both individuals and political administrations—that has resurged since the COVID–19 pandemic. After providing background on YRT, I discuss the emotions we shared in the creative process, and then provide an analysis of the five adaptations from premodern Chinese literature to the contemporary American stage. Ultimately, I argue that the transition of narrative persona in these adaptations is a subversive and empowering gesture: the playwrights of Chinese heritage identify with the anomalies, return to Chinese theatre traditions, and present a mixture of human world and underworld for the ghost characters to take back their subjectivity and to speak their needs. With Clubhouse , YRT hoped to continue their mission of developing and strengthening a supportive network among Asian/American theatre artists. Founded by Sister Joanna Chan in 1992, YRT has been a “welcoming home” for newly arrived artists, “supporting them to launch their professional careers in NYC.” [4] In Chan’s words, theatre should be a tool to “promote social well-being in the community.” [5] Under her leadership, YRT also staged important productions such as the world premiere of Between Life and Death by Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian. The company’s social mission continued after Chongren Fan (as artistic director) and Sally Shen (as executive director) took over in 2017. Their works embrace the power of theatre as a live and unmediated public venue, to bond and serve the Asian immigrant community of New York City through providing cultural education, promoting diverse cultural values, and discussing current social issues from the perspective of Asian immigrants. When discussing whom to commission for the Clubhouse project, YRT “want[s] to work with writers who are bilingual and US-based, writers who are from our generation and share the same cultural upbringing (Chinese heritage), and writers who are genuinely interested about the concept.” [6] In the commission offer, the theatre wrote: “After a year of total isolation, grief of loss, and an acute yearning for human connection, we hope this program will bring healing powers to everyone.” [7] At our first roundtable on March 14, 2021, the “acute yearning for human connection” was satisfied as the nine team members gathered from all over the United States via Zoom, including the producer Sally Shen; the director Chongren Fan; five playwrights Stefani Kuo, Yilong Liu, Livian Yeh, Minghao Tu, and Han Tang; cultural consultant Xiaoyi Huang; and me, the dramaturg. Besides discussing the context of Strange Tales and adaptation possibilities, we were excited about this new community with similar expatriate experiences: all of us were born and raised in mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan and later came to study and stay in the US as theatre professionals. At the end of our first meeting, we were awash in smiles: our longing to find and fortify a community of newly transplanted theatre practitioners had been fulfilled. Two days later, the traumatic mass shooting in Atlanta targeting Asian women brought our collective joy into “a lot of emotions—fear, anger, frustration, pain, and possibly, confusion.” [8] What was the most painful, however, was our somewhat unsurprised reaction: based on all the harmful stereotypes of Asians especially with racial fetishization, we knew that this tragedy was one additional note in the long history of racist violence in the United States. Early evidence includes the Page Act of 1875, which “banned the importation of Asian Women, [being] feared to be engaging in prostitution in the country, whether they were or not.” [9] Throughout the years, the images of “the hypersexual but docile Asian woman really took hold in America.” [10] These emotions and histories pervaded our plays. Among the five works, Han Tang’s dramatic poem Ghost Story takes on an explicit point of view from the female ghosts: A Ghostly existence Called upon for necessity and ignored in presence We were traded, used, raped and killed, and denied records […] Sexualized by men, serving their muses, wallflowers, toys Sprinkled in their stories as garnishes And blamed for their sins and evils. [11] Juxtaposing the ghost’s and Asian American women’s identities, Tang articulates the fetishized stereotypes cast upon them and the suffering they have experienced. Sharing a similar sense of restless anger and helpless vulnerability, Stefani Kuo’s play my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today starts with an Asian woman who just returned from her husband’s funeral. While listening to the mourning and crying in a self-help group full of recently widowed women, she hears a gun click; her late husband brought a gun and came to find her. At the end of the play, the audience learns that the narrative persona was the victim of gendered anti-Asian violence— another act of gendered anti-Asian violence. As stated above, this should never be examined as an isolated incident—it is one of the many cases in which Asian women are seen as a “temptation [that] leads to murder, […] because of the gendered racialization of Asian women as villainous temptresses, a paradoxical ‘controlling image’ that renders them sexually desirable [and] a threat to the social order and thereby expendable.” [12] Livian Yeh’s piece Stacy in the States pushes the notion of the strange into thrilling horror. Pu Songling’s original tale is a young scholar’s bildungsroman of how he eventually passes the imperial-level civic exams with a fox-fairy’s assistance. Yeh turns the beautiful fox-fairy into Stacy, a young girl from Taiwan, who is an impeccable housewife of a seemingly perfect woman and who also works as a social media influencer, seeing her followers as her “family” (“because I have no family in the States” [13] ). But her relationship is full of manipulation and betrayal, and the episode ends with Stacy live-streaming a cooking show in which her hands and face are covered with her husband’s blood. Yilong Liu’s piece Do You Still H8 Me adapts Pu Songling’s The Forty Strings of Cash . A newborn child collects money that his father owed him in the previous life, and the child dies as soon as the debt is cleared. Liu focuses on the complex generational relationship, presenting a pregnant Molly, whose unborn baby is her reincarnated mother. Molly hires a psychic for an online exorcism, during which her mother’s spirit talks in Molly’s body. Day 364. The Scaled Boy by Minghao Tu extends this motif of identity transformation to an extreme. For the entire play, the scaled boy suffers from a strange skin disease and is therefore tightly covered in black fabric from head to toe. He has been painting a perfect skin for himself, hoping to be freed from his disease and pain once he puts on the new skin. Coincidentally, each contemporary playwright switched the narrative persona from the original male narrator in the 18th century stories to the “exotic others,” i.e. the uncanny anomalies: fox fairies, ghosts, and immortals—reanimated corpses and reincarnated spirits. I interpret this artistic choice as the creators exploring their Asian/American expatriate identity in the US Akin to the anomalies in Pu Songling’s original text, the images of Asian/Americans—from characters to casts—are often presented on the American stage as invisible or passive objects, constantly being gazed at, manipulated, and consumed. Angela Pao asks in a review of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2012 production of The Orphan of Zhao , a production that triggered backlash over intercultural adaptations and yellowface: “But why is that, whether on stage or in society, East Asians as an ethnic minority are considered uniquely qualified to play their parts silently and make their contributions invisibly? Why should they haunt the peripheries as ghosts rather than occupy center stage as living, speaking human beings?” [14] Concurrently, the ghosts in Chinese culture and Asian/Americans in the racist ideology of yellow peril have terrifying powers gained from the underworld: immortality, sexual seductiveness, and the ability to disguise. Therefore, the transition of narrative persona in all five episodes of Clubhouse is a subversive and empowering gesture: by identifying with the anomalies of Chinese theatre traditions, the narrators and expatriate playwrights reclaim their power in both this supernatural world and the anti-Asian world of the US. While the depictions of anomalies in Chinese literature suggest fear of the unknown underworld, ghost figures in classical Chinese theatre always take the center stage, appearing in a solid form no different from that of living human beings. Having been a popular subject matter in Chinese literary history, the anomalies in the specific genre called zhi guai (literally meaning “records of anomalies”) often cater to a desire for exotic novelty. As Robert Ford Campany puts it in Strange Writing , “anomaly is inherently a matter of the discrimination of kinds or domains of objects, beings or states, and of the boundaries between them. On the face of it, the anomalous is that which is taken by an observer or speaker as crossing some boundary.” [15] The English word “strange” can refer to three related Chinese words, guai , yi , and qi . [16] When the YRT artists translated yi in Pu Songling’s work to “strange” in English, this word positioned the “anomalies” as a discriminated-against other who resides outside of a social normality . These dynamics of literally and metaphorically estranging Asian/Americans reflect anti-Asian racism and representation on the American stage. Asian people are often portrayed as ghosts and fantasy figures—being “othered” and excluded from the reality and normality of American society. Figured as pollutants, as the “yellow peril,” they wield threatening powers. They constitute both an “abjective matter”—in the words of Julia Kristeva and Karen Shimakawa—as well as an exotic other. [17] In contrast to Orientalist images, the Chinese classical stage granted anomalies subjectivity and certainty. They usually have clear purposes for remaining in the human world after death, either to seek social justice (as in Snow in Midsummer ) or to continue a forbidden true-love relationship (as in The Peony Pavilion ). Moreover, from costume to movement, these anomalies look no different from other human characters. They can even make their request at court, the very place that requires legitimacy in identity. Similar to Jessica Nakamura’s analysis of ghosts and the underworld in noh theatre, the Chinese classical stage “brings the spirit or nonhuman into visibility, […] offers a mode of recognizing the nonhuman […], includ[ing] listening to its perspective and needs.” [18] The playwrights of Clubhouse returned to traditional Chinese theatre, identified themselves with the anomalies, and empowered the anomalies to take back their subjectivity as storytellers, thus making their needs visible. As Han Tang wrote, “From ancient cultures we came / Exuding wisdom and Grace / Landing in the West / Announcing our existence / Claiming our space our rights our legacy.” [19] Although this Chinese tradition of anomalies affirms the identities of these characters and, by extension, the expatriate playwrights, the authors do not have firm footholds in either their Sinophone culture of origin or the American cultural space in which they live. For all five playwrights, the ambiguous space between these two sides is marked by feelings of detachment and disconnection. In Do You H8 Me , Molly has been cut off from her family of origin for years. In both Stacy in the States and my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today , communities exist only on social media platforms and are thus abstract and virtual . Due to the plays being solo pieces performed online with modest filming resources, there was not enough material support to present homes with crowds at locales overseas realistically. Another issue is that these projects were developed in reaction to anti-Asian violence, and hence, their motifs ascribe more weight to identity exploration and self-reflection. Finally, I would like to propose an additional factor that shaped these adaptations toward uncanny anomalies: artists of Chinese heritage tend to avoid explicit portrayals of their culture because of rising Sinophobia in the States. As a dramaturg and a scholar from China, I have noticed that often, when I compose creative or scholarly work about my homeland, I seek an “appropriate” positionality. I constantly wonder how I can voice my real Chinese experience without worrying that I will be accused of being “brain-washed” when my story presents a positive image of China. When my work critiques Chinese policies and systems, I worry that it will be decontextualized, misinterpreted, and manipulated into another superficial spectacle of “yellow peril.” I believe this struggle and everlasting concern are quite common among Chinese scholars and artists. But we did not have to face such concerns and struggles during the creation of Clubhouse. Because of our similar expatriate identity, we were free from self-censorship. It was indeed a rare experience that we used Mandarin, our mother tongue, as our primary language despite the professional environment in the US. [20] It was also rare for me as a dramaturg to be free from the laborious work of avoiding misrepresentation and misinterpretation. This made our Clubhouse experience a treasured one. Bonding through theatre has always been a mission of the YRT. It is a compelling political act in our sociopolitical moment. It freed us—the expatriates, the anomalies, the strange racial others—to collectively take back our subjectivity and to speak, defend, and celebrate ourselves on the American stage. References [1] “Writers of Chinese heritage” is the expression that our production team developed after careful consideration, intended to focus on the culture shared by all participants. [2] The term “Sinophone” in this essay refers to “Chinese/Sinitic Language” in linguistic practice and literature tradition, regardless of the political mapping as suggested in Shu-mei Shih’s critique, which casts sinophone literature as the writing in “Sinistic-language communities and their expressions […] on the margins of nations and nationalness in the internal colonies and other minority communities in China as well as outside it” because “present day China largely inherited and consolidated in a continuous colonial project.” See Shih Shu-mei, “The Concept of the Sinophone,” PMLA 126, no. 3 (May 2011): 709-718. This article does not intend to overlook existing geo-political tensions but emphasizes a collectivity with a group of Asian/Americans out of a shared literary cannon and a popular cultural phenomenon. [3] Inspired by Dylan Rodríguez’s article, I use the term “Asian/American” to refer to people racialized as “Asian” in the US. I avoid using terms such as new immigrant or first-generation because they imply residency, political, and national identity statuses that I do not intend. I believe our shared intercultural and diasporic experiences are more important than our political identities (even though permanent residency and citizenship are crucial to most new expatriating artists). See Dylan Rodríguez, “The ‘Asian Exception’ and the Scramble for Legibility: Toward an Abolitionist Approach to Anti-Asian Violence,” Society & Space , https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/the-asian-exception-and-the-scramble-for-legibility-toward-an-abolitionist-approach-to-anti-asian-violence. [4] “Our Story — Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America.” Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, https://www.yzrep.org/our-story (accessed 9 November 2021). [5] Esther K. Lee, A History of Asian American Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 104, 110. [6] Sally Shen, interview by author, email, 24 March 2022. [7] Sally Shen and Chongren Fan, Email message to commissioned writers, 1 March 2021. [8] Chongren Fan and Sally Shen, Email message to the production team, 19 March 2021. [9] Rachel Ramirez, “The History of Fetishizing Asian Women,” Vox, last modified 19 March 2021, https://www.vox.com/22338807/asian-fetish-racism-atlanta-shooting. [10] Ibid. [11] Han Tang, Ghost Stories , in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [12] Maria C. Hwang and Rhacel S. Parreñas, “The Gendered Racialization of Asian Women as Villainous Temptresses.” Gender & Society 35, no. 4 (2021), 567-576. Concept of “controlling image” is cited from Patricia Hill Collins. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1990) [13] Livian Yeh, Stacy in the States in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [14] Angela Pao, “The Red and the Purple: Reflections on the Intercultural Imagination and Multicultural Casting,” Contemporary Theatre Review 24, no. 4 (2014): 467-474. [15] Robert F. Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 2. [16] In Chinese: guai 怪， yi 异， qi 奇. [17] See Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de L’horreur (English) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); Karen Shimakawa, National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). [18] Jessica Nakamura, “Against the Flows of Theory: Expanding the Ghost with Japanese No,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 35, no. 2 (2021): 151-169. [19] Han Tang, Ghost Stories , in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [20] Interestingly, there were moments when we couldn’t find the correct word in Chinese, and so we had to switch to English. Our expatriate identity is confirmed in bilingual conversations: we fluently speak Mandarin in everyday settings, while English as our professional language is also integral to our experience. Footnotes About The Author(s) Bindi Kang is a dramaturg and scholar now based in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is a doctoral candidate in the Theatre and Performance program at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and teaches at University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a temporary lecturer. Her research specializations encompass East Asian and Asian American theatre and performances as well as performance of everyday life and its intersections with contemporary digital culture. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance and Transpacific Redress The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration Introduction to Asian American Dramaturgies Behind the Scenes of Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Representation from Cambodia to America: Musical Dramaturgies in Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Holding up a Lens to the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists: A Photo Essay Theatre in Hawaiʻi: An “Illumination of the Fault Lines” of Asian American Theatre Randall Duk Kim: A Sojourn in the Embodiment of Words Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed Dance Planets Dramaturgy of Deprivation (없다): An Invitation to Re-Imagine Ways We Depict Asian American and Adopted Narratives of Trauma Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Off-Yellow Time vs Off-White Space: Activist Asian American Dramaturgy in Higher Education Asian American Dramaturgies in the Classroom: A Reflection Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF By Steve Earnest Image Credits: Article Interview with Walter Bart, Artistic Leader of Wunderbaum Collective and Director of Die Hundekot-Attacke from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Wunderbaum, Co-creators of Die Hundekot-Attacke at Theaterhaus Jena Walter Bart was born in Rotterdam in 1978 and completed his training as an actor at Toneelacademie Maastricht in 2001. In the same year, he founded the collective Wunderbaum with Maartje Remmers, Wine Dierickx, Marleen Scholten and Matijs Jansen (they were later joined by stage designer Maarten von Otterdijk), and together they created more than 50 productions over the past 22 years. Wunderbaum collaborated with Johan Simon’s company Hollandia and with NTGent before the collective joined up with Theater Rotterdam in 2010. Theater Rotterdam continues to be Wunderbaum’s basis today. From 2018 to 2022, Wunderbaum formed the team of directors of Theaterhaus Jena. With Wunderbaum, Walter Bart created theatre for the main and the small stage as well as other venues across the city. They developed concepts, directed and performed. The collective’s most recent productions include “Alfa Romeo”, “Wunderbaum spielt LIVE, online läuft es schief” (both in 2024), “La Cordista”, “Der Platz” and “Die Hundekot-Attacke”, a co-production with Theaterhaus Jena that was invited to the 2024 Theatertreffen. About the Incident in Question In February 2023 Choreographer and Ballet Leader of Hannover Opera Marco Goeke walked up to critic Wiebke Hüster , confronted her about a scathing review she had published about his new work “In the Dutch Mountains” the day before. Angered about her comments, Goeke then pulled out a back of dog excrement (from his pet dachsund) and violently smeared it all over Hüster’s face. The police and authorities then got involved and Goeke, a rising star in the German dance scene, was first suspended and later removed from his post as Director of the Hannover Ballet. The incident made national news across Europe (as well as the New York Times ). The Hannover Ballet stated that Goeke’s impulsive and violent actions damaged both Ms. Hüster as well as the reputation of the company itself. The incident was universally condemned as an attack on the freedom of the press. ES: So your background, you're now the artistic director of Theaterhaus Jena? WB: No, no, I used to be, until 2020. But together with my group, Wunderbaum, we are an actors' collective from the Netherlands. And we are based in Rotterdam, in Theater Rotterdam. And then we read that this theater was looking in 2018 for a new artistic direction, or a new artistic leader. ES: And they specifically asked for a collective to apply for the leadership role? To come in as a group of people leading? WB: Yeah, a group of people. They wanted a group of people. Not just one, and that's kind of like the way this theater, the background of this theater is. They like to work as a... Yeah, and it has partly to do with the history of it, because it was torn down. I will give you a book of the history of the theater house, it's pretty interesting. It's like, after the wall came down, they... I mean, the whole East was like... Kind of like, they didn't know in what direction to go, of course. So, they were all kind of... And all the money was gone. All the money was gone, so they were really poor. And they tried to... They invited a group from the Ernst Busch, in 1990s, 91. And that's a group of actors from the Ernst Busch Schule in Berlin, and they... it was a class from the Ernst Busch who took over this theater. . So the leaders of this theater, they just drove there, and they said to a few actors, come over to Jena, you'll get the whole theater, and do what you want. ES: It sounds like an excellent opportunity for a group of young actors studying theatre to finish their last year in this situation. Was it? WB: It was okay. But there was not a lot of money. And they got a... Good luck.Yeah, good luck. And the theater was really run down. It was really terrible., like a mess. And I'll show you later the building. And then... So there is something like this situation in the DNA of the house, there's a strong collective vibe. And then it's also led by a group of... They call them... It means like some sort of a board. But in the board are also technicians, for example, from the theater. And they decide of the future, so they choose the next people. And so for that reason, I think the theater also always had like a collective background. And then they asked us to come and we... But we are an actors' collective, so we are six actors. It's funny, we worked quite a lot in the U.S. as well, as a group. ES: So has your company visited the USA? WB: We did two, three co-productions with the Red Cat Theater in Los Angeles. The Red Cat. It's Mark Murphy. There's so many theaters in Los Angeles. It's part of the Disney Theater. It's the Red Cat. And then we went to play in Austin in the Fusebox Festival a few times. And in New York also in a theater. And we did... Yeah, Detroit. We've been in the U.S. quite a while. But never in Carolina. It's a pity. No, no, no. Maybe Atlanta would be the closest. The U.S. is so huge. So the actors are also involved in decisions about how they run the theater. And now this group, the actors, and my girlfriend, who's a director, and our set designer, do it till this summer. And then we moved to Berlin. But Wunderbaum stays in Rotterdam. But I moved to Berlin. And then they asked me as a director to do this piece. So they invited me again. ES: So what about this piece? I wanted to know how you developed this project. WB: Obviously, it was a big story at first. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like... Why make a play out of this? I always thought... Because a lot of people didn't know how to talk about it. And I kind of liked that about it. Because you felt there was a huge insecurity. Because of course the press framed it pretty fast as an attack on the freedom of speech. And then you felt on the artistic side, people who deal with critics, they think, okay, what can I say about it? The image of somebody putting... Yeah, it's so extreme. And all the time you... I felt there was such much... People were so uncomfortable to talk about it. So, there was not an honest talking about it. t's also like... And for me that kind of fitted in the time. I think in this time there's a lot of subjects. And I think it certainly has to do with Corona. It also has to do with politics. That I felt there's a lot of topics where people don't immediately say there, open your mouth. It's like immediately... And not in the first conversation. But say, okay, are you a Trump voter? Or are you a Biden voter? Or are you a pro this or pro Corona? Believe me, that's a big problem. I know, of course. We follow the American politics day by day. I'm hooked on it, unfortunately. It's stupid. Make a play about that. Yeah. I think Americans have to do it themselves. It's already a play. ES: It is. We're living it. WB: But then I felt like this kind of discomfort, is that a word? Where you don't know how to talk. And I thought that was in this subject a lot. Because it's kind of like... You didn't know what to say about it, actually. Or you don't know. People were not like... And then I thought that... So it would be great to... Because it's so difficult to talk about it. But then theater is the best place also to talk about it. Because it happened in a theater. ES: What actually happened in the theater and how did you guys make the piece? WB: It happened in a theatre in Hanover, the incident. So, then we made the concept about the theater. And I did it before with Wunderbaum. And that piece played also in the United States. Which one now? It's called Looking for Paul . And it also won in Edinburgh. We won a big theater award for it. And it is about... It was the same concept. It is a group of actors who want to make a piece. But they end up in a fight. So they don't make it to the premiere. And they fail. So they don't... But that's in fiction. It's like... We play a group of actors. We're developing a play. And they don't succeed. And in the end, they decide to read the emails they wrote each other during the rehearsal process. So, it's like this meta. So, it's a group of actors reading emails. About why they didn't succeed. And then you follow this group of actors and all their thoughts. And I knew that this way of having more perspectives on one subject and blurring the line of fiction and reality. WB: So, it's kind of like a pseudo-documentary work. Because the actors use their own names and use real stuff and mix it with fiction. And then I thought it's also a great way to... It's on reality TV now. Everybody is so interested in that, but I don't understand that. Not, exactly. We cringe at Survivor . ES: I can't believe that. My wife likes to watch The Bachelor . WB: I would leave the room to watch The Bachelor . It's terrible. What is it? The Bachelor . This married idiot. This young single idiot wants to date all these girls. It's so stupid. And the women are like, Oh, he's so sweet. I'm like, shut up. It's funny. ES: This totally took over our culture. I wonder why. WB: Yeah, me too. I think it will go away. I hope so. It's like zombies. ES: It's like zombies. They just came and took everything. And now, please go. WB: Well, of course, in a way, I think TikTok took over. I mean, the younger generation is, of course, watching TikTok. And it's the same. What I like about TikTok is hat's reality TV. Everybody can produce it. So, it's getting easier and easier. I read this Michael Cohen thing. I read it every day. This process that's happening now. He said, no, I'm going on TikTok at night. When I'm tired and I want to lose stress, I go on TikTok. And then he goes on TikTok saying these stupid things, you know, about this process. He also has this trouble that he's saying too much about the process. I don't know. But it's legal. ES: He can do this. Yeah, he can do it. Freedom of speech. WB: Exactly. But I'm so surprised people do that. I would never, like, at night when I cannot sleep, go live. Or maybe you've been drinking or something. You say things. Yeah, I would be way too scared. But that's kind of funny as well, that these people see this reality. I don't know. They don't care. ES: So how did you develop the script? Just by improv? WB: We started writing in the reality. As a group. We wrote it together, which is the great thing about it. And then, so we knew that when we would, and we did the writing together with a reality timeline of what happened for real. So, we knew when we would do the press release of it, that there would be a lot of reactions. And we wanted to have these reactions in the writing. So we did the press release that we were going to make it. And then we, everything that happened, we used in writing. So, we had characters. And these characters, yeah, they write about their perspective, with the reality of the incident as a background. And then the joke was that they, because nobody comes to Jena, besides theatre critics. There's a lot of times we don't get a lot of critics, because it's in the province. In the story, there's only one newspaper following us. It's the local Thuringer Zeitung. And they, it's very hard to get attention from other newspapers. And then we thought if we do this topic, that's the storyline. The actors think, hey, when we make a piece with this topic, maybe more press will come. So let me ask you though, before we go forward. ES: So, who are the actors? Are they playing themselves as actors, inviting the press? Or who are they? WB: They are the actors from the theater. Actors from the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, they play themselves. But they play themselves. Because what they play is, they develop characters out of this. And they just decide to, as a group, they decide to take this on as a project. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And in the fiction, I'm not part of the fiction. So there is, in the fiction, there's no director. Okay. So they develop it as a collective. Okay. Because we thought it was more interesting. Not to have the dynamic of it. Not to have the director in it. But that's also how we work, in a way. Because all the material you would make. Because everybody is the director, in a way. Yeah, exactly. ES: Are you in the show? WB: No, I'm not. But that's what, Wunderbaum and my collective, we all direct. And we are all directors. So, there's no hierarchy. Maybe you, I don't know if it's... ES: No, I understand fully. I know groups like this. Yeah, it's like... And sometimes that's the best way to work. WB: But sometimes... it sucks. (laughs) But sometimes it's more efficient. You direct it. Everybody does this. We got three weeks. Shut up and listen to him. Or whatever. You do whatever. Exactly. That's exactly how we work. Exactly. It's what works best. And then, that was kind of the joke in it. That they don't have a job anymore next year. Because this is the last production they make here. Oh, I saw that in the script. Okay, this is gonna be our last show here. Yeah, so this is the last show. It's not really, it's not totally true. Because now they rehearse for another. There's gonna be one more summer production. But... We play, it's the last season. Next year they are all jobless. So, they don't have work next year. ES: Really? WB: Yes, that's the truth. So, they are all jobless next year. And that's why we thought it might be good to get as much press as possible for this thing. ES: Well, getting in the Theatertreffen is a good gig. WB: Exactly. So that's also playing with it. They also try in the script, they also say maybe if we make this, the Theatertreffen will come. So, the Theatertreffen is even part of the script. So we were kind of... And then it kind of like, how it developed. So how it developed, it developed in the best possible way. Reality. So yeah, that's it. And then we decided to dance. So there is like a dance part in it. Because it's also about the dance world. Because it's of course about a choreographer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there's a dance sequence, okay. We worked with a choreographer. And he taught us how to dance. Modern dance, and in their rehearsals, they dance. They work on a dancing show. And in the end of the emails, they present this dance material they rehearsed. That you will see. So, it's first emails, reading, and then dancing. And it's the idea that the dance is bad, so the critic also says, this sucks, you know, so they all want to... Well, they tried to really dance, so we worked with a real choreographer. We tried to make the dance not ironical. But of course, it's a really bad dance. I mean, to the standards of modern dance, it's not good. But they worked hard on it. And in the characters, they try to... In the dances, they also try to tell the story with dance. The story of what happened. The story of the incident. The story of the incident they try to tell in the dance. Is told in the dance. And it was good because it's way more abstract. Because of course, there's a lot of like... You cannot... The incident itself on stage would be very... I don't know, not that interesting. And also not tasteful. I mean, for the critic, it's a lot about taste as well. What words do you use if you want to... And of course, there's a lot of discussion also in German theater about reproducing things. So, you would reproduce a violent act. Do you want to do that? No. ES: Why do you think this work is important? WB: Oh, God, I really don't know. ES: Well, do you think the questions about the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press... WB: No, not totally. But I think it's very much about... Or what can the theater express? No, I think it's about the periphery and the center. So, it's like where the center is. It's in a theatre in Berlin, in Germany. And what's the periphery? How do you call it? Is that a word? What's outside the center? The work is about where the center of everything is, right? Yeah, I think that's it. And they try to get... And these actors, they are very aware that they are not in the center. ES: And they try to become the center? Okay, I understand. WB: Yeah, they try. They know that we need... And in that way, it's... Yeah, it's about where is the center and what's important and what do we think as actors or as theater makers is important. And that's, I think, the main question and how we function in this media is also a big topic because we found out when we did it that we're like... You have this DPA, Meldung , it's called in Germany. And I know it's... I think you will have it in America as well that when you do like a press thing and then it goes to all media. So, you have like, you write something, and it goes to all news channels. ES: A press release? WB: Yeah. Yeah, but then a press release... normally when we do a press release with theater it doesn't end on the front page of all newspapers. But now it did. Okay. So we got like... And then we found out how this media works. And they... Because the word dogshit is in it, people click on it because they are interested in the story of the dogshit. So people want to read that. So it's also a lot about how media functions and how attention works. It's pretty inevitable to talk about. It's like so much... about how these media function. They have this clickbait thing so that journalists also get paid for how many clicks they have. Of course, I mean, it's also this... I think it's this Trump thing. Of course, the drama. Every article where there is Trump in it, people click on it. ES: Really? People are that... You think people outside of the USA are interested to know what's going on with Trump? WB: Totally. Yeah. That's fascinating. It's like... But it's like a real-life show. It's like the biggest entertainment there is. Like the president... Wow. The porn star. It's like better than The Bachelor . I thought it was only... USA late-night talk hosts. They always talk about Trump. I'm like, what are they going to do when he's gone? Because that's where they get all their material. They're talking about Trump. ES: Yeah, yeah. I think they're happy that he's back. Because now they know what to talk about again. WB: Yeah. I mean... I mean, how are they going to talk about... I don't know. About migrants at the Mexican border. But then... Without Trump. Exactly. That's... That's the whole... I mean, you know... Because you see it here. You see a little bit in Germany. Of the migration. References References About the author(s) Steve Earnest is a Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University . He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nanjing, China during the 2019 – 2020 academic year where he taught and directed works in Shakespeare and Musical Theatre. A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, he has worked professionally as an actor with Performance Riverside, The Burt Reynolds Theatre, The Jupiter Theatre, Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Summerfest and the Riverside Theatre of Vero Beach, among others. Film credits include Bloody Homecoming , Suicide Note and Miami Vice . His professional directing credits include Big River , Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, Musicale at Whitehall 06 at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and Much Ado About Nothing with the Mountain Brook Shakespeare Festival. Numer ous publications include a book, The State Acting Academy of East Berlin , published in 1999 by Mellen Press, a book chapter in Performer Training, published by Harwood Press, and a number of articles and reviews in academic journals and periodicals including Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Western European Stages, The Journal of Beckett Studies and Backstage West . He has taught Acting, Movement, Dance, and Theatre History/Literature at California State University, San Bernardino, the University of West Georgia , the University of Montevallo and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Miami, FL. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Jared Strange Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 35 2 Visit Journal Homepage Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area Jared Strange By Published on May 11, 2023 Download Article as PDF For most Americans, the mere mention of “the DMV” summons nightmares of bureaucratic deadlock. For residents of the DC-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area such as myself, it means something like home—though living a few Metro stops away from the seat of the federal government means deadlock is never far from mind. Apart from residing in the shadow of the Capitol, our DMV is characterized by a curiously disconnected sense of place. For my part, much of that has to do with the University of Maryland, my institutional home in a DC pseudo-suburb otherwise known for housing the local IKEA. Some of it has to do with the peculiarities of the District, which has outgrown its exclusively federal designation and stubbornly progressed through stages of self-rule, though not to the point where it is always clear who is in charge. As in most places, the pandemic affected this DMV in unique ways, and as in most places, theatre artists responded in turn. One of the signature issues artists faced was how to meet people where they are—a troublesome prospect in the DMV even before the advent of the pandemic. In the autumn of 2019, a group of artists came together at the urging of playwrights Jennifer Barclay and Tim J. Lord to address that challenge by leveraging the area’s significant but disparate new play development faculties. The new collective, later to be known as District Dramatists, gathered under auspicious signs at the REACH, a sparkling new space at the Kennedy Center. Optimism ran high, though the challenge of serving artists through decentralized leadership without overburdening volunteers quickly proved an obstacle. The arrival of lockdown, coupled with the furlough of our Kennedy Center advocates, brought that obstacle into especially stark relief, and ended our experiment prematurely. The dissolution of District Dramatists foreshadowed aspects of new play development, and our very artform itself, that would demand consideration over the coming years: the dynamics of space in the time of social distancing and the material needs of artists in a time of social reckoning. Unsurprisingly, the opportunities and limitations of digital space were a significant factor in navigating the first two years of the pandemic. The University of Maryland became a trailblazer in this regard when it transitioned an in-person production of Qui Nguyen’s D&D-centric play She Kills Monsters to the Zoom room under the guidance of media specialist and digital champion Jared Mezzocchi and co-director Lisa Nathans. The move quickly established and tested the rules of Zoom theatre. Over time, many artists adopted similar models, producing everything from daring new works such as FakeFriends’ Circle Jerk to small companies such as Theatre in Quarantine. The DMV also became a hive for new play development programming that sought to recreate the rehearsal space in the Zoom room, often with mixed results. In my own developmental work with Rorschach Theatre Company and UMD’s Fearless New Play Festival, I found myself contending with both the actual expectations of the Zoom rehearsal space and the imagined expectations of the “real” rehearsal space. Crucially, the shift online did suggest positive adaptations for “post-COVID” development, which has so far included making readings on Zoom, solely or in a hybrid format, something like the norm, and allowing artists to participate in initial developmental work from afar. To what degree these accessible arrangements will become standard remains to be seen. While online spaces should continue to bolster new play development through mixed modes of production, other projects speak to the enduring power of the physical. After having its original season stymied, Rorschach Theatre Company, under the leadership of co-artistic directors Randy Baker and Jenny McConnell Frederick, joined with associate artists to develop an immersive, site-specific, mail-in project titled Psychogeographies . Now in its third iteration, Psychogeographies tells epic stories of science-fiction and fantasy through boxes of letters and artifacts mailed out to subscribers monthly. Subscribers are then invited to explore the contents of each box at a corresponding location in the DMV. Each story beat draws inspiration from the location, evoking both its geographical particulars and the power dynamics that have shaped and reshaped that geography over time. The story concludes with a live, immersive performance at a venue in DC, echoing Rorschach’s long-running commitment to exploring the way space informs narrative and experience. While criss-crossing the DMV via bike, train, and car for the project’s second installment, Chemical Exile , I became especially mindful of how embracing location as the primary connective thread of a narrative resonates both with the histories of each site and the renewed appreciation for public spaces that emerged during the early days of the pandemic, when there was hardly anywhere else to go. It helped that Chemical Exile , co-developed with associate artists Kylos Brannon, Doug Robinson, Shayla Roland, and Jonelle Walker, centered on a scientist who returns to the United States to find her material world an eerie mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The resulting sense of disorientation chimed with my efforts to grasp the region’s unique terrain and refined my attention to the ways many residents—particularly Black residents, like the play’s heroine—have had to grapple with the forces of gentrification transforming their homes into places that are strange and even hostile. As I alluded in my review of the piece for Washington City Paper , one of the challenges of “bingeing” Chemical Exile in one day—which, to be very clear, is not what Rorschach recommends—is that it made my transition from a self-driven, exploratory process into a delimited immersive performance especially jarring. Even in a space as beautifully rendered by Rorschach’s cadre of set designers (Nadir Bey, Sarah Beth Hall, and Grace Trudeau), I found myself longing for the freedom to explore the tension between the real world and the play’s world on my own. Thankfully, even as the District returns to something like the old “normal,” Baker and Frederick remain committed to producing new iterations of the project and introducing new audiences to the area’s psychogeography. For all the technological innovations and spatial rearrangements that the pandemic has forced new playmakers to adopt, one of the most significant pushes has been to empower audience members and theatre-makers who are often excluded from the head table. For my part, that push is most evident in education. When the pandemic set in, my chief side-gig at The National Theatre in DC shifted online, leading to an expansive website project aimed at documenting the institution’s history, a significant portion of which has been taken up by hosting pre-Broadway tryouts for future classics such as Fiddler on the Roof and M. Butterfly , and integrating them with DC-area high school curricula. More significant, however, was my time as a teaching artist with Young Playwrights’ Theater, an organization that specializes in in-school and after-school playwriting classes for students of all ages, including adults. One of my assignments was at Chelsea School, a small campus stuffed into a commercial building near the Mall at Prince George’s Plaza in Hyattsville, Maryland. The school specializes in helping students with language and learning difficulties, many of whom benefit from a suite of Google tools that include screen-readers and other language-processing technologies. In recognition of their needs, Young Playwrights’ Theater brought me on with license to riff on their usual curricula alongside my Chelsea co-teacher, who just so happened to be the school’s director. I initially took my freedom to experiment as an exciting opportunity to decenter the individual writing in our course and adopt something closer to a devised or writers’ room model. Instead of beginning with Freytag’s pyramid, I urged the students to build worlds based on the stories that moved them, taking note of everything from themes to characters to settings. Instead of drafting dialogue, I encouraged them to fill a Google Slides document with notes, images, ideas, or anything that would evoke what their collective imagination conjured. I wanted to prove that they already knew what made a good story and that we could create one of our own if we worked together. The actual writing would come later in the form of individual monologues set in the world of their design. As it happened, the plan for what we would produce changed over the course of the semester to eventually become a play that was conceived by the group, drafted by me, and presented semi-privately in the classroom. Nearly all those changes were programmatically driven; for example, the initial plan to rotate in new groups was discarded, meaning I effectively had to extend my curriculum by half a semester. Even with that shift in mind, progress was slow-going and sometimes frustrating, though that had more to do with larger issues than with the students. The two groups, one made up of middle-school girls and one of the high-school boys, were like any random sample of teenagers: active and engaged somedays, moody and distant others; some of them eager to bring the text to their feet, others petrified of making a fool of themselves. It was only later that I learned their teachers had brought me and a litany of other arts partners into their classrooms because the effects of pandemic pivots, staff departures, and the usual pressures of adolescent life had simply worn everybody out. My role as a teaching artist had less to do with generating new scripts or even helping the students advance their language facilities (a task I was not suited for on my own) and more to do with helping them release some of the steam that had built up during the past two years of their young lives spent tossing and turning on the waves of unrest. What I had treated as a pedagogical sandbox was really a chance to engage with one of the core values of storytelling: imagining other worlds that help us handle this one. Bearing that in mind, I think we can be happy with the results, even if I still came away with a long list of things to try differently next time. For example, I would take greater initiative to educate myself about pedagogical approaches suited to the environment, rather than referring solely to my already over-worked co-teacher. I also would not be so quick to shove the building blocks of dramatic action and character development to the back; if anything, understanding that a story depends much more on what a character does than what they say could be especially helpful to students for whom language is often a barrier. While my experience at Chelsea was immensely informative, it was also a prime reminder that meeting people where they are often has less to do with “producing” art than connecting with someone else’s reality. In that sense, it highlighted all the ways in which space can, and should, shape new play development. The screen-reading technology that helps some students process text is like the Zoom technology that kept professional read-throughs together: it’s a way to help bridge the gap of access and expand the reach of our room. Chelsea itself, shunted into an office floor above a clinic and a gym, illustrates how young people who are already on the fringes can be pushed even further from the center by physical and institutional architecture. My very presence, summoned by an exhausted administration’s cry for help, proves that no matter the method, what so often dictates the development of new stories is what the participants bring with them. Art does not arise out of a vacuum: it arises out of human beings meeting each other where they are. For all the ways that our new technologies and our old streets have changed new play development, that fact is effectively the same. References Footnotes About The Author(s) JARED STRANGE , Ph.D., MFA, is the Education Programs Manager at The National Theatre, as well as a writer, dramaturg, educator, and scholar based in Washington, DC. His scholarship and reviews can be found in Theatre Research International , Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , Comparative Drama , Theatre Journal , American Theatre magazine, 3Views on Theater , Washington City Paper , and DC Theater Arts . His plays have been workshopped and produced at the MeetFactory in Prague, DC Source Festival, Rorschach Theatre Company, WildWind Performance Lab, Bath Fringe Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, and the William Inge Theatre Festival. As a dramaturg, Jared specializes in new play development, audience engagement, and education. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship The Heart/Roots Project and a Pandemic Pivot From Safe to Brave—Developing A Model for Interrogating Race, Racism and the Black Lives Matter Movement Using Devised Theater The Front Porch Plays: Socially-Distanced, Covid-Safe, Micro-Theatre Making Up for Lost Time: New Play Development in Academia Post COVID 19 Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area México (Expropriated): Reappropriation and Rechoreography of Ballet Folklórico Effing Robots Online: The Digital Dramaturgy of Translating In-Person Theatre to Online Streaming Emergent Strategy Abolitionist Pedagogy in Pandemic Time How to Make a Site-Specific Theatrical Homage to a Film Icon Without Drowning in Your Ocean of Consciousness; or, The Saga of Red Lodge, Montana Playing Global (re)Entry: Migration, Surveillance, and Digital Artmaking Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi : How Collaboration is Dramaturgy Between Playwright and Multimedia Creator (Re)Generation: Creating Situational Urban Theatre During COVID and Beyond Starting with the Space: An Interview with Patrick Gabridge Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times: Edited by Kendra Capece, Patrick Scorese. New York: Routledge, 2023; Pp. 188 The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945: Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; Pp. 273. Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past. Ariel Nereson. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 290. Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre. Cecilia Josephine Aragόn. New York: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 158. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age. Duška Radosavljević. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 224. Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances. Jill Stevenson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 243. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL presents Going Beige at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Going Beige LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL 5:30-6:20 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Performing artists Leslie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel sit down for the first time to speak about their experiences, forming the start of a collaboration of a potential project. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Photo: Maria Baranova Karen Kandel is a cultural worker, mentor, performer, writer, and a co-Artistic Director of NYC based theater company, Mabou Mines. Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. More information at lesliecuyjet.com Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF By Klára Madunická Image Credits: Article For thirty-two years the city of Pilsen has hosted the largest international festival in the Czech Republic. In the course of three decades, from an originally smaller cultural event, show-casing theatrical works of the countries of the so-called Visegrad Four, it has developed into a festival that presents the best of theatre from all over the world - from Britain and France, through Germany, the Netherlands, Italy to America, Iceland and Israel. The year 2024 was no exception, with ensembles from all over Europe gathering in Pilsen. From 11th to 19th September, on the new and old stages of the J. K. Tyl Theatre, Alfa Theatre and Moving Station a total of thirty-one productions were presented. And although the 32nd edition of the festival had no specific overarching title, the dramaturgy’s prevalent focus on socially critical themes was evident. The main leitmotif of all the productions included in the main program was the human being's confrontation with their past - be it in personal, national, or generational terms. The Human Being as a Social Construct Human beings as social creatures and their destiny are largely co-shaped by the society in which they live – by its history, its present and the future it heads toward. And certain archetypes can be perceived on the basis of ingrained patterns of behavior that recur in society across the centuries. This was the theme raised by the opening performance of the festival - Hecuba, not Hecuba of the Paris Comédie-Française (discussed in more detail in essays on Avignon and Epidauros in this issue). The author and director of the production is the Portuguese actor, director, playwright and producer Tiag o Rodrigues - a world-renowned theatre-maker. His work blurs the boundaries between theatre and reality, questioning the viewer's perception of social and historical phenomena, finding intersections between them and presenting them as a new reality to the audience. Hecuba, not Hecuba. Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage Hecuba, not Hecuba is a tragedy born between the lines of another tragedy. The author wrote it directly "on the body" of the actors. The story is about a small theatre company that has just begun rehearsing Euripides' ancient drama about Hecuba, who, as the wife of a Trojan ruler, has lost everything after the fall of Troy - her husband, her property, her power and her children - and is desperate for justice. The fictional tragedy is mixed with the painful fate of the play's protagonist Nadia. She has an autistic son who has been the victim of abuse and mistreatment in a nursing home. As a mother she rebels and, in parallel with rehearsals at the theatre, pursues a lawsuit against the institution on her son's behalf. Through the gradual culmination of the plot, a synthesis transpires, a painful encounter between the world of the fictional and the real. Nadia represents the archetype of the mother who defends her children, their honour, life and rights. She invokes justice in the same way as the ancient Hecuba and achieves catharsis only when her enemies suffer. The unequal, exhausting struggle, however, must necessarily take its toll on the warrior. Tiago Rodrigues is famous for his ability to look at difficult subjects from a detached perspective and with a sensitive humor that underlines the seriousness of the topic. The affectionate humor that accompanies the uneasy fates of the individual characters from the beginning to the end of the production is interspersed with emotionally tense, dramatic scenes in dynamic pacing and abrupt interludes. Such a directorial approach places high demands especially on the acting, which dominates this production. The simple, somber set, designed by Fernando Ribeiro, is dominated only by a large, antic sculpture of a dog, which forms one of the essential elements linking the text of Euripides' play and Rodrigues' play. Basic furnishings such as a table and chairs provide only minimal support for the actors, who do not leave the stage space for a moment. Despite the complicated plot, however, the viewer is not lost - the creators punctuate the intersections between present and past, reality and fiction by multiple means. The first, most striking of these is via light: warm hues for reality and cold white light for the upcoming play. The second, perhaps even more important element, is the manner of acting. The latter teeters on a spectrum from natural civility to absolute movement and vocal stylization. The Comédie-Française had, thus, provided a unique experience for the festival visitors. This success was confirmed by their guest appearance at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava a few days later, where two performances of Hecuba, not Hecuba in a sold-out hall were an unprecedented success with both professional and lay audiences. The Comédie-Française production remains for me one of the highlights of this year's Pilsen festival. Dealing with the Past The theme of coming to terms with the past at different levels of human existence was subsequently developed in several other productions. The German-French co-production of the internationally acclaimed French director Julien Gosselin, Extinction , certainly deserves the title of "the most challenging performance" of all this year's productions. Extinction . Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage In three closed, yet interconnected parts, this five-hour long saga focuses on the search for one's own self, one's own voice in today's world, as well as on family or partnership relationships, interpersonal communication, the dreams and worldviews of an individual or an entire society and, ultimately, the direction of the world in the 21st century. The director starts the whole performance in a rather irritating way: with a forty-minute techno party, during which the audience freely comes on stage, drinks beer and has fun. Through a screen on which just-shot details of the onstage action are projected live, the audience learns about the fate of Elsa, a teacher who has abandoned her home. She does not share the views and way of life of her parents and siblings, and lives in Vienna, where she enjoys herself with her friend, the actress Aurelie. She has a film project in the making, which the audience witnesses in the second part of the production. The third part is a telling, hour-long monologue by Elsa, who has just learned that her parents have died. Gosselin looks at the exuberant artistic and intellectual life in Vienna, yet not from the perspective of a historian of the middle of the 20th century, but rather than that from the perspective of a contemporary, giving the audience on stage and in the auditorium a glimpse of its "merry apocalypse," From the party, we go straight into a house as if cut out of the Viennese underbelly of early 20th century Vienna. The engagement party, which transpires there and which degenerates into a sexual orgy, incest, rape, prostitution and anti-Semitic talk, and ends in a murderous massacre, is watched via live cinema from a house built on the stage. It is only at the end of that second, almost three-hour-long, section that Gosselin learns that this is a film set in the 1930s. The entire production is an adaptation of Thomas Bernhard's novel Extinction , which is interwoven with texts by Hugo von Hofmannstahl and plays or novels by Arthur Schnitzler. Despite the diametrically different stage treatment and semantic language of the individual parts, at the end of the production the viewer receives a coherent point formulated in an hour-long monologue by Rosa Lembeck in a close-up on the screen above the stage, paraphrasing Thomas Bernhard's text about the transience of time, the stereotypical patterns of social and human existence, or the need to find one's own way through life. The production stands between theatre, film, site-specific theatre and performance, with each of the three parts employing diametrically opposite means of artistic expression. Gosselin lets the viewer experience a five-hour journey towards the final punch-line, which ultimately turns the entire responsibility for the issues raised and the socio-critical dimension of the work onto the viewer himself. The direction that the 'merry apocalypse' is to take in the 21st century is up to each and every one of us. The Hungarian ensemble Őrkény Színház from Budapest, which performed Ibsen's drama Solness at the festival, also reported on the personal coping not only with the past, but especially with the future (See also the essay Where Comes the Sun in this issue.) The dramaturgically abbreviated text about an architect who is afraid of being replaced by younger and more talented colleagues gradually revealed the personal and family tragedies that, in a tangle of events and long years of silence, have remained embedded in the conscience of a man and which, through the influence of an innocent event, have surfaced. Solness . Photo © Judit Horvath Director Ildikó Gáspár's production took place in an arena-like space in which the boundaries between auditorium and stage were blurred. The actors entered the centre of the arena from the auditorium itself and exited it again among the audience. The chamber character of the production further underlined the heavy, psychoanalytic atmosphere of Ibsen's play, which in the Hungarian ensemble's conception took on the features of a movement and music production. Yet, it was the very text of Norway's most important playwright that became the biggest stumbling block. The narrative nature of this drama largely predetermined both the form of the production and its outcome. This Solness , thus, ranked among the weaker entries in the festival program, especially with its over-dimensioned conclusion, which seemed, in the context of the rest of this rather classic drama production, like a film about Count Dracula. National History as a Topic The Czech Republic and Slovakia seem to have a constant need to revisit their national past, its ups and downs. The Goose on a String Theatre presented a dramatization of Juan Goytisolo's novel The Marx Family Saga, directed by Jan Mikulášek. The plot intertwines the historical perspective of the 19th century with the present day, with the family portrait of the Marx family being the main subject of the confrontation of the two periods. The Marx Family Saga. Photo © Narodni divadlo Brno Mikulášek opens the production with a farce surrounding the installation of a statue of Marx, which subsequently comes to life and tries to approach or defend the meaning of its own existence. The production has a collage-like character in which the viewer meets not only Marx and Engels, but also their wives, getting to know both the light and dark sides of their personalities, worldview and politics. The past is juxtaposed with the socialist world of the second half of the 20th century and then with the present, where the phenomenon of the cult of Marx's personality is beginning to emerge under the influence of a resurgent capitalism. Mikulášek's stage composition stands on the borderline between psychological drama, comedy, metaphorical stage stylization and reportorial inquiry. On stage we see not only actors and actresses, but also footage from a street reportage on the topics like "Who was Marx? Does he deserve a statue in the city? Is communism an acceptable form of ordering society in the 21st century?" The production, thus, brought to the festival a format featuring both artistical and documentary means of expression that ultimately looks at history with both critical detachment and sarcastic humor. The Alfa Theatre in Pilsen also presented a production for which it had turned to the past: Čáslavská - Tokyo – 1964. In it they theatrically processed the memorable event when Věra Čáslavská won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. In the resulting fictional story based on real events, the creators present the Czechoslovak gymnast as the embodiment of the best national qualities: Čáslavská is honest, good-hearted, modest and fair. The production, which is primarily intended for children’s audience, not only brought humour, but director Jakub Vašíček also managed to achieve a truly realistic atmosphere of the Olympic Games in the 1960s through the colours, costumes, props and music. Its premiere was in Tokyo in 2024 and was created by a Czech-Japanese team of actors and creators. The authenticity with which the Alfa Theatre treated this important moment in the sporting and cultural history of Czechoslovakia captivated both young and old audiences alike. The theme of national history was also presented by the ensemble of the Slovak National Theatre with a dramatization of Pavel Vilikovský's short story Dog on the Road . This production touched me the most, but not in a generally positive sense. As a Slovak, I was sensitive to the political and social themes that are revealed in the short story. The four protagonists basically spend the whole time explaining to the audience that they are "just" Slovaks and therefore will never culturally reach the level of Germany, Austria or Scandinavia. From this starting point, the episodic etudes subsequently present various tragicomic, grotesque or downright irritating situations that reflect the history of the Slovak nation after 1989. The references to political figures, specific journalists and writers, however, took on a monstrously topical dimension after the performance, when the protagonists read the manifesto of the Open Culture movement, which is currently read by all state-established and independent theatres in Slovakia after all performances. The parallel with Vilikovsky's short story, written after the fall of the communist regime, acquired special strength at a time when the Minister of Culture is making mass personnel changes in the management of key cultural institutions in Slovakia without giving any reason and without appointing an adequate replacement. So the production Dog on the Road became a gesture of protest. It is an example of how a mediocre production in a new social and political context can become an important landmark of international significance. Dog on the Road. Photo © Slovak National Theatre The Pilsen Festival in 2024 brought forward a number of thought-provoking themes. Both the organization and the artistic level have traditionally been of a higeh standard. For me this edition of the Festival has been the best possible start of the 2024/25 theatre season, which will hopefully be full of similarly stimulating and inspiring artistic experiences. The creation of the review supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. References References About the author(s) Klára Madunická, AICT, Slovakia. Klára Madunická graduated in theatre studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. She successfully completed her PhD in Aesthetics and as a researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences she has been working on theatre theory, history and criticism for a long time. She has been a member of AICT since 2024, serves on several committees and editorial boards, is editor of the peer-reviewed professional journal Theatrica and is the author of several national and international studies. In 2025 she will publish two monographs on musical theatre in Slovakia. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Encounter Richard Move / MoveOpolis!'s work Devrai (Sacred Grove) in Manhattan, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Devrai (Sacred Grove) Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Dance Friday, June 7, 2024 @ 6pm and 6:30pm Riverside Park, Manhattan Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event "Devrai (Sacred Grove)” calls attention to our local ecosystems and landscapes. The Indian word “Devrai” is a compound of Dev meaning 'God' and 'Rai' meaning forest. A prehistoric tradition of nature conservation, sacred groves have long been revered as sacrosanct and imbued with the belief that no creature may be harmed within its boundaries. This performance of Devrai (Sacred Grove) is a section of Richard Move’s Herstory of the Universe series commissioned by the Trust for Governors Island as part of Herstory of the Universe@Governors Island, named “Best Dance of 2021” by The New York Times. Devrai (Sacred Grove) will be performed by Aristotle Luna (Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Richard Move / MoveOpolis!) at 6:00pm and again at 6:30pm. Featured Image Credits: Akua Noni Parker in "Devrai (Sacred Grove)" by Ben DeFlorio. Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Richard Move, Ph.D., M.F.A. is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, TED Global Oxford Fellow, New York Public Library Dance Research Fellow, Artistic Director of MoveOpolis! and Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Dance. Move's choreographic commissions include productions for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project, two works for the Martha Graham Dance Company, a solo for New York City Ballet Principal, Heléne Alexopoulos, and a trio for PARADIGM - Carmen De Lavallade, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Dudley Williams. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Summer on the Hudson is NYC Parks' annual outdoor arts and culture festival that takes place in Riverside Park from 59th Street to 153rd Street. With a mix of music concerts, dance performances, movies under the stars, DJ dance parties, kids shows, special events, wellness activities, and more there is something for everyone! All programs and events are free to the public and registration is not required unless specifically stated in event information. The mission of the Riverside Park Conservancy is to restore, maintain, and improve Riverside Park in partnership with the City of New York for the enjoyment and benefit of all New Yorkers. We support the preservation of the park’s historic landscape, structures, and monuments, engage the community in active stewardship of the park, and provide a wide range of public programs. Visit Partner Website

Johan Callens, Guest Editor Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Johan Callens, Guest Editor By Published on May 30, 2018 Download Article as PDF For a good understanding, the Spring 2018 American Theatre and Drama Society issue of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre is best considered as an initiative that follows up the BELSPO sponsored international research project, “Literature and Media Innovation: The Question of Genre Transformations.” Running from 2012-2017, it brought together six research teams, four of which hailed from Belgian institutions—two Flemish (KULeuven & VUB) and two Walloon ones (Louvain-la-Neuve and Liège)—besides one from Canada (UQAM) and one from the US (OSU). [1] Among the many genres analyzed and fields explored in light of the increasing mediatization of the arts and society at large, theatre and performance fell to the Center for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) at the Free University of Brussels. On March 17, 2016, this Center organized a conference already devoted to the theme of the present journal issue, even if the ATDS contributions zoom-in on specifically American inflections of the topic. Still, in a globalized world, the mobility and mixed roots of artists, besides the constant need to find sponsors, renders the characterization of projects in national terms perhaps questionable and their mediaturgical interests seldom exclusive. As Jacob Gallagher-Ross, one of the speakers at the Belgian conference, in the meantime has argued, it is somewhat ironical that the first installment of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s media-enabled Life and Times project, “singing the sorrows and pleasures of a very American childhood, was featured in Berlin’s Theatertreffen festival as one of the ten best German productions of the year.” [2] Aside from the ironies of international funding, and scholarship, we may add, I here want to mention, as a preliminary, some of the more general issues that the March 2016 VUB conference tackled. [3] Thus, Matthew Cornish (Ohio U) dealt with the reliance on diagrammatic scripts by the English-German theatre collective Gob Squad to support their improvised encounters with people on the streets, synchronously relayed into heavily mediatized stage productions. Bernadette Cochrane (U of Queensland) discussed the destabilization of the spatio-temporal locators of productions and audiences in global but not necessarily democratizing “livecasts,” whether from New York’s Metropolitan Opera or London’s National Theatre. Dries Vandorpe (UGent) returned to mediaturgical theatre’s related deconstruction of the vexed ontological distinction between live and techno-mediated performance on the grounds of diverse arguments (spatiotemporal co-presence and spectatorial agency, affective impact and authenticity, contingency and risk, unicity and variability…)—arguments all flawed because of logically defective classification systems. With the aid of some intermedial choreographic work by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, I myself queried the reciprocity between technology’s invitation to appropriation and adaptations’ increasing hybridization because of that very technology, a process challenging the logical discreteness, self-presence or self-sufficiency, as well as hierarchical character of generic, media, and gender identities, both, much like traditional authorship, making for an empowering yet disenfranchising exclusiveness. [4] The themes of the Brussels conference and present ATDS issue also adhere closely to the remit of the doctoral project conducted by CLIC member Claire Swyzen, here represented by an essay on the Hungarian-American Edit Kaldor and New Yorker Annie Dorsen. Kaldor’s Or Press Escape (2002) and Web of Trust (2016) are shown to open up the theatre stage to the social media, converting it into a more apparently than actually co-authored media-activist site, joining physically present and tele-present audience members. As a result, the authorship here already signaled towards Michel Foucault’s more discursive author function. Dorsen’s Hello Hi There (2010) in fact consisted of a staged conversation between two chatbots mouthing text bits partly culled by computer algorithms from an interview between Foucault and Noam Chomsky on whether language creates consciousness or vice versa. [5] As indicated by Dorsen’s post-human talk show, whose textual database was expanded with material from the Western humanist tradition, the scope of Swyzen’s research and of postdramatic mediaturgies obviously exceeds the American context, reaching out to the very processes of cognition. The term and concept of the “postdramatic” were nevertheless popularized by German scholars like Gerda Poschmann and Hans-Thies Lehmann who theorized the notion with the aid of the varied theatre practice in Germany and surrounding countries during the late 20th century. [6] As recently as 2015, Marvin Carlson still argued the relative absence of postdramatic theatre from the North American mainstream, despite important contributions from experimentalists like the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and Robert Wilson. [7] On both sides of the Atlantic, however, there have been misconceptions regarding the precise nature of the postdramatic, leading to confusions with collective, interdisciplinary, and devised theatre productions. [8] After all, these just as easily allow for the contribution of independently active playwrights with a lingering dramatic bent as for the more broadly defined writing integral to postdramatic mediaturgies. Central features of postdramatic theatre are the reconfiguration, if not abandonment, of Aristotelian dramatic concepts and traditional theatrical notions such as character, action and plot, proscenium stage and set, normative temporality and spatiality, etc. As a corollary, conventional drama’s underlying mimetic premise is challenged, too, though illusionistic effects, whether aestheticizing, activist, or media-critical, remain common, as Swyzen demonstrates with regard to Kaldor’s Web of Trust . These illusionistic effects are also hard to resist, as when critics interpreted the fragmentation of Spalding Gray’s recollections in India and After (America) (1979) as reflections of his cultural alienation and psychological breakdown, as argued by Ira S. Murfin in his contribution to the present ATDS issue. Mimesis possibly survives the postdramatic mediaturgical turn in the guise of reenactments which problematize any arguable paradigm shift, insofar as the “post-dramatic” signals both continuities and discontinuities. Reenactments therefore could be said to limit dramatic theatre’s creation of a “fictive cosmos” [9] to the overt recreation of a “reality,” whether artistic or not, often with the help of advanced technology, as in the scrupulously reproduced everyday speech, at times verging on uncanny nonsense, in the productions of Nature Theater of Oklahoma. This invites comparison with what Dorsen calls the occasional “near-sense” of the chatbots’ dialogue foregrounding the thingness and materiality of language, undermining dramatic theater’s logocentrism as well as infusing postdramatic theatre like Dorsen’s with an unexpected lyricism. As Gallagher-Ross argued at the Brussels conference and in his subsequently published study on Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage (2018), the technology-based practice of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, besides documenting an extant reality, touches on the very processes of perception and thought, struggling to achieve verbal expression prior to any artificially imposed aesthetic or (post)dramatic form, given that in the different installments of their epic Life and Times they also experiment with extant genres and media forms. Reenactments do not, for that matter, automatically reclaim realist art’s function as illusionistic slice of life. To the extent that this function indeed depends on maintaining the fourth wall, it actually staves off everyday reality to the benefit of some Platonist ideal controlled by the dramatist. Gallagher-Ross traces the roots of America’s theaters of the everyday, like that of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, to American Transcendentalism but this democratic homebred tradition represented by Emerson and Thoreau, revalorizes the aesthetic value of daily life as personally experienced. Quite surprisingly, a similar impulse may be at work in Kaldor’s work, insofar as it seems to share characteristics with the Slow Media movement, as argued by Swyzen. This reflective, contemplative impulse should be distinguished from European idealist aesthetics permeating the continental dramatic tradition via Hegel’s abstract moralism up to the late 19th century and beyond, which is not to say, as Gallagher-Ross argues, that there is no ethical-critical dimension to an enhanced awareness of our everyday experiences, be they technological or not. [10] In Swimming to Cambodia (1985), one of Spalding Gray’s “talk performances” discussed in the present JADT issue by Murfin, the manner in which Gray incessantly and obstinately pursues an idealized yet heavily mediatized “Perfect Moment” makes him oblivious to the everyday beauty Emerson advocated. On Karon Beach in the Gulf of Siam Gray apparently found his “Shangri-La,” evocative both of perfect Kodachrome color spreads for luxury resorts and of Robert Wilson’s mediaturgical theatre of images. [11] Emerson is explicitly referenced by Gray when he mentions his own studies at Emerson College and in his moment of “Cosmic Consciousness” echoes the philosopher’s famous “transparent eye-ball”-passage from his essay on “Nature.” The eventual shift to a non-contigent idealism making timeless abstraction of the evanescent everyday could be seen as evidence of Murfin’s claim that Gray’s early talk performances solidified in later productions under the influence of the very technologies he initially played off to preserve his monologues’ freshness. Put differently, Gray’s talk performances, as here argued, moved away from a more postdramatic authorship deflected by “intermedial contingency,” to a more self-authored dramatic literary model. Lehmann in this regard speaks of realist drama’s and the dramatic form’s “catharsis” of the real, [12] supplementing tragedy’s much debated abreaction of pity and fear (or the negative features of these emotions) in the course of a dramatic action thereby completed and closed off. Postdramatic theatre, by contrast, tends to reduce the dramatist’s control, it opens up the stage to the everyday, and redistributes authorial power. This happened partly under the influence of technology, partly by promoting the performer-audience relation or so-called theatron axis, [13] thus releasing a social activist potential in the joint “creation” of text and performance. What is eventually lost in terms of illusionistic representation, aesthetic pleasure and entertainment value may be gained in terms of political awareness, as the physical embodiment and exposure of, and to the mediation returns a sense of agency in a mediascape obfuscating its operations, material and immaterial, for whatever reasons (sheer complexity, profit, ideology…). The media’s prominence in contemporary dramaturgies has led Bonnie Marranca to coin the term “mediaturgy” for those productions where the technology is integral to the composition of the theatrical performance rather than a surface phenomenon. [14] Cases in point she provided at the time were Super Vision (2005-2006) by The Builders Association and Firefall (2007-2009) by John Jesurun. This is one of the reasons why the Brussels conference on postdramatic mediaturgies featured Shannon Jackson (UC Berkeley) as keynote speaker, with a talk on “The Relational Construction of Form and Authorship in Cross-Arts Collaboration.” In that talk, she explored a variety of institutional settings—museums, theaters, festivals, installations—and considered how conceptions of form and authorial signature change accordingly. Depending, in part, upon the curatorial conventions of the venue, a performer may be a collaborator, a subordinate, or a form of material. Similarly, moving work across institutional venues may shift the stance taken towards artistic contributions, whether by the artists-creators or spectators-consumers. Work discussed included that of The Builders Association, on which Jackson and Marianne Weems published the first lavishly illustrated monograph, and which Marranca deemed exemplary of postdramatic mediaturgies. [15] That Weems, the director of The Builders Association, together with several company members, should have co-authored this critical-genetic study which is partly archive, partly (auto)biography, marks the extent of her creative practice and possibly the postdramatic remediation of a retrograde seeming, paper-based platform, all too easily lending itself to linear single-authored stories. [16] The meticulous crediting of each and every one involved in each of the Builders Association productions is further evidence of the dispersion of traditional authorship, which may well have been the default of theatrical creation. To quote from the book’s intro: “Early pieces such as Master Builder , Imperial Motel (Faust) , and JUMP CUT (Faust) restaged and rearranged classic tales across unorthodox architectural assemblies of screens and bodies, a practice of postdramatic retelling to which The Builders returned in their recent restaging of House/Divided .” [17] The epilogue, too, in a conversation between Weems and Eleanor Bishop, extensively dwells on the mediaturgical aspect of The Builders Association’s work at large, more in particular the prominence of computer-aided media design as dramaturgy and the medial creation of meaning and implementation of media-related ideas, like the networked constitution of self by such a mediascape. [18] Thus the media become material and metaphor. This reciprocity gets reflected in Jackson’s critical vocabulary when she speaks of the company’s “theatrical operating systems” and “storyboard” phases—terms derived from computer science and cinema to designate the mediaturgical postdramatic (re)assembly process, “that may or may not be post-narrative as well.” [19] The resulting “smart” productions are directly addressed to a “smart” audience perhaps too much at ease with “smart” technologies [20] to fully fathom or question their implications. Hence these technologies have become the means and object of theatricalization, as in Super Vision , dealing with the economics and politics of “dataveillance,” or Continuous City (2007-2010), exploring global social networking technologies and their impact on how we inhabit local geographies. John Jesurun, that other exemplar of postdramatic mediaturgies Marranca singled out, has been at the center of the scholarship which Christophe Collard generated in the context of the inter-university research project on genre transformations and the new media. Like the predoctoral work of Swyzen, some of his wide-ranging postdoctoral work is here sampled, albeit with a more programmatic contribution in which Jesurun’s “ecological,” i.e. organic and holistic interrelational interpretation of the mediaturgical concept allows for a brief survey of his creative output. In the course of his playwriting career, Jesurun has collaborated with Weems’s Builders Association, as well as with Ron Vawter, founding member of the Wooster Group, on scripts that were subsequently produced by other companies, too. [21] But Jesurun is also reputed to reduce his live performers to language-machines, as here argued by Collard. This again attests to the lingering tension between the loosening and tightening of authorial control, equally evident in Dorsen’s algorithmic theater, where the options for the chatbots’ conversation in Hello Hi There have been preprogrammed and are thus contained by Dorsen and her collaborator, the chatbot designer Robby Garner. Even in Kaldor’s Web of Trust , the seemingly co-authored protocol in retrospect was prescripted, as Swyzen discovered. Whereas Kaldor herself may have obfuscated the “rehearsal” of the protocol for her Web of Trust prior to its live performance, Gray’s critics were the ones who tended to miss or neglect the reliance on media of reproduction in his low-tech monologues. [22] At first sight, his early “talk performances” seem diametrically opposed to Dorsen’s chatbot and Kaldor’s computer desktop performances. Yet Murfin in his discussion of Gray’s monologues demonstrates their postdramatic mediaturgical stance by foregrounding his deliberate extemporaneous use of language as material and process rather than narrative content, in reaction to medial fixity and dramatic linearity. This resonates with the aleatory artistic tradition in which Dorsen also inscribes her work partly because of the manner in which freedom is generated by constraints, just as for Jesurun language provides an enabling limit for his performers and technology, even if he opposes his actors’ improvisation. Contrary to his later reputation as unassisted “solo” performer, Gray’s monologues were heavily determined by media objects. During the creation and performance of his early work these were used as found or documentary material triggering improvisation rather than as support of a fixed script, whether the taped interviews with family members, slides, and vinyl recording of The Cocktail Party in Rumstick Road (1977), a dictionary in India and After (America) (1979), or his journal entries on a West Coast tour, framed by contemporaneous newspaper, magazine and book excerpts in The Great Crossing (1980). However, Gray’s reliance on the same media (writing, print, audio and video recordings) for the development and circulation of his monologues, in a sort of feedback loop fixed them, whereas the human recall and extemporization earlier on made for fragmentation and discontinuity, at the expense of an authoritative voice and story. What may have accelerated this process, Murfin argues, is the artist’s need for a commodifiable format or comedy act. By doing without the diary entries in Nobody Wanted to Sit Behind a Desk (1980) Gray very much resolved the dilemma in favor of the dramatic lineage and replication, but at the expense of intermedial contingency. Gray’s autobiographical talk performances, dependent on predominantly analogue media, form a radical contrast with the collective identity performance of in-groups by means of social media and the web, dealt with by Ellen Gillooly-Kress. This hybridized live and digital identity construction through visual signposts, insiders’ language and performative gestures, rather than solidify in the course of time, as argued by Murfin for Gray, keeps changing, as the markers of identity are appropriated by opposite parties, like anti-fascists and white supremacists. The hazards of the social media are indeed such that any meme can be co-opted and abused in ideological conflicts. This recalls Roland Barthes’s claim that the only way to outwit myths is to remythify them in turn, the more since myths in his definition exchange a physical reality with a pseudo-reality, much like the internet may be said to do. The partly arbitrary choice of a meme as vehicle for a new ideological content also fits Barthes’s myths, though in both kinds of appropriation, the original content is still needed as support of the new signification. [23] The initiative for these appropriated identity memes and their ideological reinscription may have been taken by individuals or be limited to the policy-makers of the ingroup. Yet, the memes’ viral spread on the social media and imageboard websites like 4chan and Reddit collectivizes authorship, short of exploding it altogether. Through its antagonistic rhetoric, making for a war-like scenario, the digital and discursive performance, when picked up by the traditional media, also risks spilling over from the internet back into the physical world and actual violence. This was the case with #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS , an unmoderated live stream participatory performance, set up by Nastja Säde Rönkkö, Luke Turner, and Shia LaBeouf on the occasion of Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017. Apart from traveling from New York to Albuquerque, Liverpool and Nantes, this installation and its reception provide a more disconcerting, inflammable hybridized “theater of the everyday” unlike those with which I started this introduction, in a space where physical and digital identity formations merge to end up forming what Gillooly-Kress calls a “hypermediated haunted stage” with all too dangerous consequences. By way of conclusion, I want to thank Cheryl Black and Dorothy Chansky, the former and current ATDS Presidents, for offering another forum next to the 2016 VUB conference platform; the ATDS members who submitted their work to this Spring issue of the JADT ; and last but not least, the ATDS members who acted as anonymous peer-reviewers. All generously contributed to the scholarship here presented, offering what I hope is an exciting and thought-provoking sample of American postdramatic mediaturgies in which authorship is variously modulated along different spectra, operating between the human and the non-human, the analogue and the digital, the individual and the collective, the distributed and the delegated. References [1] For a brief presentation of the overall project see Jan Baetens, Johan Callens, Michel Delville, Heidi Peeters, Myriam Watthee-Delmotte, Robyn Warhol, and Bertrand Gervais, “Literature and Media Innovation: A Brief Research Update on a Genre/Medium Project,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 64, no. 4 (2014): 485-492. [2] Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 152, original emphasis. [3] The VUB theatre conference program can be found online at http://www.vub.ac.be/en/events/2016/mediations-of-authorship-in-postdramatic-mediaturgies-conference . The March 17 event was matched the following day by a second series of talks, presented at Leuven University (UCL) under the title, “Intermediality, or, the Delicate Art of World-Layering” dealing with non-dramatic genres. See http://research.vub.ac.be/sites/default/files/uploads/clic-cri_confer_flyer_final.pdf . [4] Johan Callens,”Rosas: Reappropriation as Afterlife,” in Routledge Companion to Adaptation Studies , eds. Dennis Cutchins, Katja Krebs, and Eckart Voigts (London: Routledge, 2018), 117-127. [5] The Chomsky-Foucault debate was moderated by Fons Elders and broadcast in 1971 by Dutch television as part of a series. Elders first included the transcript in a collection of three interviews he edited, Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind (London: Souvenir Press, 1974). He reprinted it separately as Human Nature: Justice vs Power. The Chomsky-Foucault Debate (London: Souvenir Press, 2011), though by then A.I. Davidson had already released the text in Foucault and His Interlocutors (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1997), 107-145. Elders’s 2011 edition consists of an introduction, followed by the two-part transcript. The first part tackles the question of human nature, knowledge, and science, the second deals more with politics. [6] See Gerda Poschmann, Der nicht mehr dramatische Theatertext. Aktuelle Bühnenstücke und ihre dramaturgische Analyse (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1997) and Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , trans. and introd. Karen Jürs-Munby (London: Routledge, 2006). [7] Marvin Carlson, “Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance,” Brazilian Review of Presence Studies / Revista Brasileira de Etudos da Prescença 5, No. 3 (Sept.- Dec. 2015), 579. [8] Carlson, “Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance,” 582. [9] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theater , 22. [10] The gap between European idealism and Emerson’s Transcendentalism is somewhat diminished in his theory of visuality, holding that sight, like language, is a way of inhabiting a visual field and integrating its objects, at the cost of distorting both by the idealizing operations of language and perspective, the visual distortions of the one and the other’s fixations by figures of speech and generic conventions, and we might add medium specificities. See Branka Arsić, On Leaving: A Reading in Emerson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 55, 68, as discussed by Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday , 50-51, 68. [11] See Johan Callens, “Auto/Biography in American Performance,” in Auto/Biography and Mediation , ed. Alfred Hornung (Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag, 2010), 287-303. [12] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , 2006: 43; rptd by Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday , 18. [13] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , 128. [14] Bonnie Marranca, “Performance as Design: The Mediaturgy of John Jesurun’s Firefall ,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 96 (2010), 16. [15] See also chapter 5, “Tech Support: Labor in the Global Theatres of The Builders Association and Rimini Protokoll,” of Jackson’s Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (London: Routledge, 2011), 144-181. [16] In fact, Weems has always combined creative with critical work, whether as a founding member of the V-Girls and Builders Association or as dramaturg for the Wooster Group, also co-directing Art Matters and lecturing at different universities. [17] Shannon Jackson and Marianne Weems, The Builders Association: Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 2015), 3. [18] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , xiii, 384-385. [19] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , 17. [20] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , 8, 393. [21] Faust/How I Rose , which The Builders Association used for Imperial Motel (Faust) (1996) and JUMP CUT (Faust) (1997-1998), received major runs at the National Theater of Mexico, while his Philoktetes , after featuring in Philoktetes Variations , as directed by Jan Ritsema in 1994, was revived in October 2007 by Jesurun himself at the SoHo Rep with a cast featuring Will Badgett (Odysseus), Louis Cancelmi (Philoktetes), and Jason Lew (Neoptolemus). See Johan Callens, “The Builders Association: S/he Do the Police in Different Voices,” in The Wooster Group and Its Traditions , ed. and introd. Johan Callens, Dramaturgies Series: Texts, Cultures, and Performances vol. 13 (Brussels & Bern: Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes-Peter Lang, 2004), 247-261; Johan Callens, “The Volatile Value of Suffering: Jan Ritsema’s PhiloktetesVariations,” in The Trojan Wars and the Making of the Modern World , ed. and introd. Adam J. Goldwyn, Studia Graeca Upsaliensia vol. 22 (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2015), 223-244. 2015; and Christophe Collard, “Processual Passing: Ron Vawter Performs Philoktetes,” Somatechnics 3, No.1 (2013), 119-132. [22] See also Claire Swyzen, “‘The world as a list of items’: Database Dramaturgy in Low-Tech Theatre by Tim Etchells and De Tijd, Using Textual Data by Etchells, Handke and Shakespeare.” etum: E-Journal for Theatre and Media 2, No. 2 (2015), 59–84, accessed May 15, 2018, https://cris.vub.be/en/searchall.html?searchall=swyzen , for an interpretation of one British and two Flemish low-tech postdramatic mediaturgical productions: Broadcast/Looping Pieces (2014), Peter Handke en de wolf (2005) and Elk wat wils. Iets van Shakespeare (2007). [23] Roland Barthes, “Le mythe, aujourd’hui,”Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957), 191-247; “Myth Today,” Mythologies , ed. and trans. Annette Lavers, Noonday Press (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972), 109-164. Footnotes About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Cheryl Black Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 36 1 Visit Journal Homepage Decommissioning the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field and Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline Cheryl Black By Published on November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF “I believe that art can inspire action.” —Anna Deavere Smith, Notes from the Field In 2010, Civil Rights advocate and attorney Michelle Alexander's groundbreaking The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness explicitly analyzed the ways in which racism “infected” the US justice system, disproportionately devastating the lives of young people of color. More than a decade later, the continuing stream of ethnic minority victims of police brutality and the continuing evidence of gross overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in prisons keeps Alexander’s findings relevant. ( [2] ) One of the particularly heinous aspects of the “new Jim Crow” is the “school to prison pipeline” or “nexus,” a system whereby school policies (along with other racist policies and practices) are pushing students out of schools and into the criminal justice system. Because the students in the “pipeline” are disproportionately poor students of color, this practice offers a striking example of how institutional racism operates within America's educational and criminal justice systems as well as how institutional racism has perpetuated cycles of poverty. ( [3] ) Recently, and within a few years of each other, notable African American playwrights Anna Deavere Smith and Dominique Morisseau produced dramatic works indicting America’s school-to-prison pipeline. Both playwrights are recipients of MacArthur (“genius grant”) Fellowships; both are noted for integrating art and activism in works that address social issues of race, class, and gender; and both have dramatized historical events involving racial violence and discrimination. Their dramaturgical styles, however, are distinct. Borrowing from documentary, historiographic, ethnographic, and journalistic methods, Smith creates scripts consisting of verbatim quotations from interviews. ( [4] ) Morisseau employs a dramatic structure that might be described as “selective Realism.” ( [5] ) Given the different approaches each playwright employs to address the same subject, looking at them in relation to each other is a fruitful way to investigate how these artistic forms function as anti-racist activism, what solutions these playwrights put forward as ways to challenge injustices, and how their different strategies might “read” to different audiences. Alongside Alexander's groundbreaking publication and these plays, a number of recent documentary films have explored the impact of racism on America's justice system, including Maya Ben-Shahar and Cedric B. Theus’s JustUs (2021), Tommy Oliver’s 40 Years a Prisoner (2020), Destin Cretton’s Just Mercy (2019), and Ava Duvernay’s 13 (2016). Fictional precursors that portrayed the insidious nexus of racism, gendered social roles, segregation, and poverty that has supported the new Jim Crow in all its manifestations range from John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991) and Higher Learning (1995) to Season 4 (2006) of HBO’s The Wire . Although it is outside the scope of this article to offer an in-depth examination of the relationship between Smith and Morisseau’s dramatic works and these films, the proximity of their creation and their obviously shared motivation to raise awareness about these injustices highlights the urgency of the subject and the significant role that the arts may play in effecting social change. ([6]) Although, arguably, all art has this power, live theatrical performance, with its ability to illuminate the human condition within a specifically human and interactive context, can be particularly effective. As a theatre historian, actor, and director, I am a believer in the theatre’s power not only to reflect but also to shape the world we live in. It is this conviction that has led me to the current exploration. It is an exploration that contributes to our understanding of these two artist/activists and these two works in particular. Remarkably, neither work has received extensive attention, but interest in both is growing. Minou Arjomand’s Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment (2018) includes brief observations on Anna Deavere Smith’s projects, including an earlier version of Notes from the Field during which Smith stopped after Act 1 to facilitate small group discussions among audience members. ([7]) More recently, Amal Dahy has also focused significantly on this version, in which he identifies Smith’s engagement with the audiences as Boalian “Forum Theatre” techniques. ([8]) In 2022, Deborah Geis included brief comments on Smith’s Notes within a broader survey of plays she terms “Black Lives Matter drama . . . a significant new subgenre also characterized as a type of ‘crossroad’ with earlier works.” ([9]) In 2023, both Amanda Stuart Fisher and Ryan Claycomb included a discussion of Notes in their wide-ranging and diverse studies of testimonial and verbatim dramaturgies. ([10]) Jonathan Taylor has recently looked at Morisseau’s Pipeline as a model for future activist theatre, with special attention to her use of magical realism and other imaginative staging techniques that he credits with enhancing the play’s political power. ([11]) With great appreciation for these insights (some of which I will revisit in my conclusion), my analysis complements without duplicating existing discussions of these works and extends them through its comparative analysis of both works. To conduct my analysis, I rely on close readings of the texts, published interviews with the playwrights, and audience and critical response to the plays in performance. I also draw upon a range of critical race and performance theories, including Ibram X. Kendi’s succinct explication of racism as the conception that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group;([12]) I further consider Kendi’s thoughts about the efficacy of various anti-racist strategies alongside Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality as discrimination and oppression stemming from the intersections of various aspects of a person’s social or political identity. ([13]) In her introduction to the published version of Notes , Anna Deavere Smith identifies this play as the “most recent installment” in her life’s work: a series of plays that “bear witness to particular historical moments” in the hopes of “sparking a conversation, of making change possible.” ([14]) She specifies that her subject is social injustice, that she intends for her artistry to lead to action, and that the first step in redressive action is listening to the voices of those who have been historically discounted. To create the script, Smith interviewed 250 individuals in four geographic areas of the US and abroad—including students, teachers, administrators, mentors, advocates, judges, inmates and former inmates, and government officials—from which she selected seventeen interviews. All spoken dialogue in the play is composed of verbatim excerpts from these interviews. A number of scholars have explored the relationship between Smith’s socially conscious aesthetic and that of Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht. ([15]) It was Brecht’s aim to reveal the social factors that influence human thought and action, to show “reality” as constructed and, therefore, changeable, and to encourage critical thinking, rather than emotional identification, in his audiences. Brechtian theatre eschews the illusionistic strategies associated with realism that attempt to convince an audience they are observing “real life” in favor of “distancing” reminders to an audience that they are watching a theatrical performance. Typical distancing techniques include narrative interruptions, direct address, use of multimedia, musical interludes, and a performance style that maintains an aesthetic distance between performer and character. Primary among the distancing strategies in Notes is the fact that Smith performs all seventeen roles, embodying a range of genders, races, ethnicities, and ages, a strategy that calls attention to identity as constructed and performed. Smith values this method as one by which the person she is portraying “will, despite her impression, retain his or her individual character and speech.” ([16]) Her character transformations are accomplished in full view of the audience by the addition or removal of a costume piece or prop. Nonspeaking stagehands, also in full view of the audience, aid character and location changes. Smith’s use of multimedia reveals the social factors behind the individual stories she performs. Preshow digital projections provide the audience with statistics regarding disenfranchisement related to felony convictions and the disproportionate school punishments, incarcerations, and deaths at the hands of police for young persons of color. Every story is introduced through projections providing the person’s name, occupation, or position. Each story is also accompanied by projected news footage and cell phone videos of the events described and/or video or still images that locate the action. Examples include Freddie Gray being hauled into a police car in Baltimore; a police officer straddling a fourteen-year-old Black girl in Texas; a student being thrown across a classroom by a police officer in South Carolina. Original music is performed live onstage by jazz bassist Marcus Shelby who occasionally interacts with Smith. All characters directly address the audience. The first monologue, from President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill, exhorts the audience to consider the investment our nation has made in the criminal justice system at the expense of education. Ifill later delivers a reprise in which she articulates even more explicitly the problems (the end of serious investment in our public school system and mass incarceration) and possible solutions (body-worn cameras and other reforms around policing and a massive investment in education). Ifill stresses the importance of recognizing our current moment as crucial—a moment when change can happen—and the need to confront ourselves before we can move toward that change. Three testimonies describe active resistance to the death of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray under police custody in Baltimore in 2015. Kevin Moore, a young Black man wearing a “Copwatch” hoodie, filmed the arrest on his cell phone, which he then distributed widely. Eighteen-year-old Allen Bullock smashed a city police car in protest. Projected footage of Gray’s actual funeral reveals a packed megachurch and cries from the congregation of “No Justice, No Peace!” Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant delivers an impassioned call to action: “Get up! Get your Black self up and change this city! . . . Don’t expect nobody to open the door for you! If they don’t open the door, kick that sucker down and get what you need! GIT UP!!!” ( [17] ) Two segments come from the Yurok community. Former inmate and Yurok fisherman Taos Proctor shares his odyssey from multiple school expulsions beginning when he was eight (“they said I hit the teacher.... I just pulled away from her, and it hurt her arm or something”) to California Youth Authority to San Quentin. Proctor bluntly recounts the brutality he experienced in prison: “Prison don’t do nothing but make you a worser person. . . . Everyone’s bad in there . . ..” ( [18] ) His ability to overcome his past (at the time of the interview he was married with a son and making a success of his fishing business) are a testament to his humanity and self-respect in the face of determined effort to eradicate both. In a later interview, Yurok Tribal Court Chief Judge Abby Abinanti reports having to prevent an eight-year-old child from being handcuffed. Judge Abinanti’s verdict: “the country’s broken.” ( [19] ) As Ibram X. Kendi and others have observed, people of color are not immune to deeply entrenched racist ideas. Salvadoran American Steven Campos reports that he, his brother, and all his mother’s brothers have served time in prison. Campos seems to believe that individuals hold full responsibility for their actions: “you dumb enough to get caught for it. You Fuck! It’s yo’ bad.” ( [20] ) African American “student concerns specialist” Tony Eady, who previously worked in a prison, seems to view his students as potential criminals and his current position as “similar” to working in a maximum-security prison. His description of school policies makes the high school sound like a training ground for prison, including in-school suspension: “I call it school jail. . . . And then if you act up in here, they send you to ‘Twilight.’ And I call that ‘penitentiary’. . . ‘cause you in there all day, every day, for months.” ( [21] ) Although Eady may aim to help these students with some kind of tough love, he puts the responsibility for avoiding the pipeline squarely on their shoulders, admonishing them to learn to deal with authority figures. He uses military imagery in his solution: “I need police officers in the school. . . . He’s my— our last line of defense.” Eady also highlights the struggle between teachers and students over cell phones, declaring “They would rather go to jail than give up their cell phones!” ( [22] ) This statement resonates with the assertion from Kevin Moore, videographer of the Freddie Gray arrest, that “the camera is the only weapon we have that can actually protect us.” ( [23] ) The story of Shakara, a Black Columbia SC high school student who was thrown across the room by a school resource officer in 2015, is related by white journalist Amanda Ripley and Shakara’s classmate Niya Kenny, who is also Black. Shakara got in trouble for not giving up her cell phone, and then refusing to leave the classroom with the assistant principal (a Black man) who brought in the (white) police officer. As Niya tells her story, her cell phone video of the event plays in the background. Kenny, who was eighteen, was arrested but released when her video made national news. Kenny had a clear message for those who told her to mind her own business: “How can you mind your business? Like, that’s somethin’ you need to make your business.” ( [24] ) A teacher from Finland provides a rare perspective on the event from a white person outside of the US. Her shock at viewing the video of Shakara’s encounter with the police or the idea that police officers would ever be needed in a classroom illuminates the contrast between American educational values and those of some other nations. As Finland is about 1/30 the size of the US and has a distinctly homogeneous population, it seems an odd comparison, but possibly Deavere included this interview to goad American audiences into imagining a culture like Finland’s in which “the teacher was always a candle in the village.” ( [25] ) Testimony from Denise Dodson, a woman convicted of a murder her boyfriend committed, and emotional support teacher Stephanie Williams highlighted the urgent need for overhauling the educational system. Dodson linked education to survival and regretted not getting the attention she needed from teachers: “I think if I had gotten that attention, I could have moved forward. . . . They [teachers] have to see ‘em [students] as people. They [teachers] have to see them [students] as the future.” ( [26] ) Williams poured out the difficulties of her job at Philadelphia’s Huey Elementary School, working with “the most needy children . . . kids that need food. Shelter. Clothes. Love , like . . . an education. They just need so much.” She admitted to feeling “hopeless” and compared her work to “running a jail without a gun.” She shared stories of student rage and violent reactions to being bullied or abused, concluding with the story of stopping a raging ten-year-old by grabbing him “in the tightest hug. . . . And I just held him until his body just collapsed. And he just started crying and crying and crying and crying on me. ” ( [27] ) In a departure from current events, Smith performs a brief interlude from James Baldwin’s 1971 interview with Margaret Mead in which Baldwin delivers a wake-up call still resonant with twenty-first-century experiences. Baldwin ponders how, if he were fifteen, he would find any respect for human life or any sense of history or hope. He provides a possible answer to his question by bringing up a book of poetry by children, compiled by a teacher who “respected them. And he dealt with them as if they were—as in fact all children are. As a fact, all human beings are . . . some kind of miracle!” ( [28] ) A larger context for the school-to-prison pipeline is provided by Equal Justice activist Bryan Stevenson, who asserts that “we are a post-genocide society,” a reference to the slaughter of “Native people.” For Stevenson, the “great evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude. . . . It was this ideology of white supremacy, this idea that Black people are not fully human.” Stevenson echoes Judge Abinanti’s use of the term “broken” to describe his legal clients, the [legal] system in which he works, and himself. Stevenson, however, finds hope in this realization: I actually think it’s in brokenness that we understand our need for grace, our need for mercy. It’s actually brokenness that helps us appreciate justice. . . . It’s the broken among us that actually can teach us what it means to be human. Because if you don’t understand the ways in which you can be broken by poverty or neglect or abuse or violence or suffering or bigotry, then you don’t recognize the urgency in overcoming poverty and abuse and neglect and—and bigotry. Stevenson rejects the notion that one should learn to live “silently” with one's brokenness: “I don't think that's the way forward. I’m looking for ways to—to not be silent.” ( [29] ) Although poverty is rarely directly referenced, in virtually all the stories of abuse, arrest, and incarceration, class, as well as race, is a factor, a circumstance that supports the irrefutable fact that our criminal justice system punishes poverty in myriad ways, including disproportionate rates of incarceration. ( [30] ) These testimonies are also further illustration of the disproportionate rates of poverty within ethnic minority communities. According to the most recent federal data, Blacks have the highest poverty rate (19.5%), with Hispanics at 17.1%. ( [31] ) Lest anyone in Smith’s audience fails to recognize racism and racist institutions as the underlying cause of these conditions, Dr. Victor Carrion identifies social factors surrounding slavery and the history of slavery as an explanation for the current, disproportionate poverty rates in African American communities: “it's a way of maintaining that enslavement. . . . through poverty.” ( [32] ) Some critics have deemed the play’s concluding stories, featuring activist Bree Newsome and Congressman John Lewis, as digressions from the specific topic of school-to-prison pipeline. ( [33] ) These stories, however, specifically address the white supremacist system, the “nexus” that fosters the “pipeline.” Newsome narrates how she scaled the South Carolina State House flagpole to remove the Confederate flag in 2015, and the late Congressman John Lewis’s story reminds us of the struggles an earlier generation endured to challenge the “old” Jim Crow. In juxtaposing news footage of Newsome’s recent climb with one of Lewis’s arrests (and Lewis’s recounting of being asked for and freely giving forgiveness to one of his abusers decades later), Smith links these acts of resistance and suggests the ongoing nature of civil rights movements. Alisa Solomon, who served as dramaturg for this play, has reported that “ the more she spoke to Americans across the country, the more Smith was convinced that solutions will take a new civil rights movement, one that brings healing to struggling communities as well as equality and justice.” ( [34] ) If these last two incidents portrayed had not actually happened, it would seem an impossibly sentimental ending. In fact, one reviewer observed, in reference to both the Newsome and Lewis stories: “ It’s only a feel-good ending if you haven’t been paying attention for the previous two hours.” ( [35] ) After a two-month run Off-Broadway in fall 2016, the Obie-winning Notes premiered on HBO in 2018, where it has presumably reached a wider and more diverse audience. The HBO performance also included one notable added episode that reinforces Smith’s belief in the significance of “healing” for “struggling communities”: footage from the 2017 trial of white nationalist Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine African American congregants at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. During the recording, voices from the Black community are heard crying out that they forgive him: “We are the family love built.” ( [36] ) Critics responding to Notes universally applaud Smith’s virtuosity as a performer and her commitment to exploring worthy and timely subjects. Perceived weaknesses in the script include a certain lack of cohesion (several episodes considered tangentially related to the central theme), a lack of differing opinions, and an ambiguity regarding the ultimate message. The Guardian’s Alexis Soloski reached her own ambiguous conclusion that although Smith’s “call to empathy” was too “simple a solution,” Smith’s “hortatory force” deemed it “worth a try.” ( [37] ) Several critics perceived a message of hope and uplift despite the grim subject matter. ( [38] ) In 2017, Dominique Morisseau shared that she had “learned to embrace” the “idea of being a political writer. . . . I’m not trying to push a political agenda, per se, or tell people what politics to embrace, but I am looking at how politics, in a certain light, impact people. . . . I have a very strong social justice call to my work.” ( [39] ) Pipeline demonstrates Morisseau’s signature ability to integrate the political and the personal, and to blur the distinctions between the two. The play is dedicated to her mother, who taught public school in Highland Park, Michigan (according to Morisseau, an economically stressed city) for forty years. She has also drawn from her own experience as a teacher in New York City for fifteen years and other personal connections: I had been reading Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow , which talks about mass incarceration and mass incarceration being the new Jim Crow. But I really believe education is also the new Jim Crow right now because there is so much segregation in education, and there’s an excessive system of have and have-nots. So I was first and foremost interested in exploring the school-to-prison pipeline because of how personally it affected some people in my life. ( [40] ) Morisseau has reported that the character of Omari in Pipeline was inspired by her “surrogate nephew” who had a “bad incident at school and was criminalized online and in the press,” and by the death of Michael Brown, the Black teenager shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson Missouri in 2014. ( ) Pipeline, which debuted at Lincoln Center in 2017, offers a microcosmic view of the school-to-prison pipeline, zeroing in on the experience of one Black teenager named Omari. Omari is expelled and threatened with criminal charges after shoving a teacher who attempted to prevent him from leaving a classroom. The play is particularly concerned with how Omari’s trouble affects those who love him: his girlfriend Jasmine, his mother Nya, and his father Xavier. Jasmine is an inner-city native who attends the same private and predominantly white school as Omari. His mother teaches English in an inner city public high school and is described by Morisseau as a “struggling parent doing her damnedest.” ( [41] ) His father Xavier, Nya’s ex-husband, is a marketing executive. Context is provided by the two remaining characters, both Nya’s colleagues: Laurie is a tough, white middle-aged teacher who gets into trouble for using physical force to break up a fight in her classroom; and Dun is a Black security guard who is overworked but forbearing. As New York Times critic Ben Brantley noted, they both “seem to regard their jobs as mostly a matter of keeping a tenuous peace in a combat zone.” ( [42] ) Although fictional, Nya, Laurie, and Dun call to mind actual individuals portrayed in Notes from the Field , like Stephanie Williams and Tony Eady, who compared working in US schools to working in prisons. Although realistically drawn, these six characters (only three are given a last name) may be seen as symbols with specifically meaningful names. In naming Omari, Morisseau honors his African heritage: “Omari” i n Swahili means “flourishing.” “Nya” is of Swahili and Gaelic origin and means “purpose.” It also intriguingly evokes Niya Kenny, the student activist featured in Notes from the Field. “Xavier” has Spanish, Basque, and Arabic origins, meaning “new house” (perhaps a nod to his departure from the inner city). And lastly, “Jasmine” is of Persian origin, meaning “gift of God.” Although Morisseau tells an individual story, she situates it within a larger social context. At the opening of Pipeline , as Nya leaves a voicemail for Xavier about Omari’s trouble, smartphone camera footage of school fights gradually morphs into shadows behind her. The smartphone footage reminds us of its deployment by young Black activists, and its transformation into shadows provides an expressionistic image of Nya’s mental state. A voice from her school’s PA system establishes an authoritarian and antagonistic environment, commanding students to take off their hats, hand over their smartphones, and to face automatic suspension if caught with any non-approved electronic device. “We have the city government behind us. You cannot win. I repeat YOU CANNOT WIN!” ( [43] ) A scene between Omari and Jasmine in her dorm room follows. Although she believes the smartphone video of his school fight will make him a “celebrity,” Omari fears he’ll be seen as “a monster” and plans to run away. The next scene in the teachers’ lounge reinforces the image of this school as a dangerous environment. When Dun enters, he reports that “they” have been “jackin’ cars” despite the addition of extra security cameras. Laurie deepens the image by referring to her students as “hooligans” and the teachers’ lounge as her “den.” ( [44] ) In another departure from realism, Omari appears in “undefined space” as Nya discusses with her students Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool.” He repeats and embodies the words of the poem, expressionistically communicating Nya’s psychic state of fear that her son will “die soon.” Published in 1959, “We Real Cool” does not specifically speak to a school-to-prison pipeline; it does, however, speak to a “nexus” of limited opportunities and foreshortened lives of young Black men. The class discussion about the Broadside printing of the poem highlights the poet’s rejection of Eurocentric aesthetic standards in favor of what Nya describes as graffiti, or street writing—writing that “reps the hood” and anticipates the aesthetic adopted decades later by playwrights Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, among others. ( [45] ) Morisseau critiques private as well as public school education, challenging the assumption that private, predominantly white schools, are “better” than public schools with more diverse student populations. In the play, during a phone call to an unnamed friend, Jasmine explains her parents’ choice to send her to this PWI “cuz they're so damn spooked I'll get pregnant or shot or some shit.” Jasmine is profoundly unhappy in this environment as she is experiencing class and race-based bias from students: “Stuck up girls in my dorm acting like I’m gonna steal their fabric softener or grab their granny panties out of the laundry cuz I don’t have my own or whatever.” She rejects the “false god of this freakin’ Fernbrook Academy that somehow it produces better people,” asserting someone like me would actually survive better in an environment in which I am COMFORTABLE instead of being the token poor girl of color that everyone thinks is trying to sleep with their pussy-ass boyfriend or take their gotdamn cocaine or crystal meth or whatever . . . . ( [46] ) Speaking with Nya about Omari's incident, Jasmine explains how racist assumptions may motivate violent responses: “Sometimes people push you too far. Make you feel like an animal from another jungle. Like you don't belong even when you're here. Cuz they got expectations that you of the wild. So you become the expectation.” ( [47] ) In turn, Nya pours out her fears as the mother of a Black son: You have no idea if one day someone will try to expire them because they are too young. Or too Black. Or too threatening. Or too loud. Or too uninformed. Or too angry. Or too quiet. Or too everyday. Or too cool. Or too uncomposed. Or too mysterious. Or just too TOO. ( [48] ) The experiences of Jasmine and Omari mirror findings from a 2012 study of the experiences of Black students in predominantly white institutions. “Most students felt that they were stereotyped as the ‘angry black’ person and felt intimidated when in the racial, social class, and gender minority.” Black students also reported feeling “strong emotion” when teachers used material depicting Black people as criminal or violent. ( [49] ) Omari shares that he “went blind for a second” during a class discussion of Richard Wright's Native Son in which the teacher expected Omari to respond to his questions about what motivated Bigger Thomas to kill a woman. “Like I’m Bigger Thomas. Like I’m predisposed or some shit to knowing what it’s like to be an animal.” ( [50] ) During this scene, Nya herself succumbs to racist language, an inadvertent slip that her son quickly picks up on: Nya: You don’t just walk out in the middle of a lesson as if you are some sort of king or god that no one can tame. Omari: Tame? Nya: Damnit, Omari. Omari: Tame. Nya: Do not do that. Do not twist and remodel this convo and change the meaning. Omari: I'm not changing anything. I’m repeating. Verbatim. ( [51] ) Although Omari is possibly headed for some form of incarceration, it is his mother whose physical and psychological deterioration is most vividly portrayed for the audience. Nya stands in for all the mothers of Black sons who have borne the loss of a son to racist violence. At the play’s opening, she is described as “holding together by a thread” and throughout the play we witness that thread’s unraveling. ( [52] ) Morisseau evokes one of the most familiar Black Lives Matter mantras in her call for breathlessness as an indication of Nya’s increasing distress, including stage directions repeatedly calling for Nya to take “strange,” “revealing,” “deep” inhalations or “gasps.” ( [53] ) Ultimately, Nya physically collapses and is rushed to the hospital after uttering “I can’t—breathe—.” ( [54] ) For audiences in 2017, the moment almost certainly evoked the final words of Eric Garner, who uttered them moments before his death during his arrest in 2014; for present-day audiences, they would also the death of George Floyd under police custody in 2020. ( [55] ) Morisseau critiques constructed masculinity as well as capitalism in her creation of Xavier, described as “financially stable” and “emotionally impoverished.” ( [56] ) Although it is revealed that Nya had an affair with Dun, which presumably ended her marriage, Omari places the blame squarely on his father's shoulders: “. . . you were mean. Cold. Making her feel like shit every day. You was never happy living over here.” ( [57] ) “Over here” seems to suggest an urban, possibly lower-income neighborhood which Xavier has abandoned for a bougier lifestyle. Xavier relates fatherhood primarily to financial provision: “I took good care of you. Never missed a payment. Never missed a birthday or first day of school. You never went hungry. Always had a shirt on your back. Money in your pocket. Didn’t I do that?” ( [58] ) Xavier is also paying for Omari’s private school education, but Omari does not equate financial support with love, informing Xavier that they are “miles apart” and implicating Xavier in his emotional outburst at school: “It was my teacher. But I wished it was you. . . . And I don't know if that is hate or love or somethin’ else I was feelin’. But I know why Bigger Thomas did what he did and I hate that I know. But you I hate more. You I hate most of all.” ( [59] ) After this revelation, Xavier also finds himself unable to breathe. Utterly defeated as a father, he is not without sympathy as he walks away “dumbfounded.” ( [60] ) In a discussion about the play, Morisseau declared, “Hypermasculinity is just as problematic to me [as is racial stereotyping] . . . It doesn't give men the space to be emotional, to acknowledge their own pain or that they seek love. It’s like it’s too socially expensive to be fragile.” ( [61] ) In her final scene, Jasmine leaves a long phone message for Omari, assuring him that despite her love for him, she is glad that he is leaving this school, “[b]ecause this place can’t hold you. This place can't hold none of us.” This dialogue is followed by video images of school fights, kids going through metal detectors, police handcuffing teenage boys. ( [62] ) The PA system comes on again, but this time it is a student’s voice reading “We Real Cool” intercut with Nya addressing the private school board to prevent their pressing charges against her son. Omari's actions aren’t his bag alone. They’re mine. All of ours. We didn’t carve out enough space. He doesn’t belong anywhere. . . . No land he can travel without being under suspicion and doubt. No emotion he can carry without being silenced or disciplined. . . . I want my son to have another chance. Be born again with a slate clean of the baggage. Our baggage. MY baggage. . . . He's not an animal. Nor more than the rest of us are. And if so, we built the jungle. . . . This rage is not his sin. It was never his sin. . . . It is his inheritance. ( [63] ) We do not learn of the board’s decision, but Omari has the last word, fulfilling Nya’s request for “instructions” about how to “save him.” ( [64] ) Along with Nya’s recognition of “all of our” complicity in the struggles faced by young people of color in America today, Omari’s “instructions” seem to be Morisseau’s recommendation for positive action to begin to address the problem: “Hear me out. Let me chill sometimes. Know when to back off. Know when to keep pushing. Let me have some space. Don’t assume me for the worst. Show up. In person. Be fair. Forgive that I’m not perfect.” ( [65] ) The final image of the play is an embrace between Nya and Omari. The focus on familial relationships and the awareness that Omari’s “instructions” might be those of any adolescent to a parent could distract from the intersecting conditions of race and poverty that are crucial to addressing the school-to-prison pipeline. Some reviewers perceived a lack of social context. Bill Marx, for example, objected that Morisseau “does not look outside ‘broken family dynamics’ or the ‘comfortable confines of realism’ that would seem to be required for serious social critique.” ( [66] ) Then again, strategies like projecting smartphone footage and allusions to Black artist/activists of an earlier generation (like Brooks and Wright) render Omari’s race and race-based discrimination specific. Although, as the child of well-educated professionals Omari is relatively privileged, it is part of Morisseau’s message that other forms of cultural capital are poor defenses against the juggernaut of racism in America. Although he found the play “frustratingly unresolved,” Ben Brantley nevertheless affirmed, “the concerns of its heroine, Nya, about her teenage son, Omari, have everything to do with his being a Black youth in the United States in the 21st century.” Brantley also directly compared Pipeline to Notes without expressing a clear preference for either Notes ’ “cleareyed overview” or Pipeline ’s “more emotionally immersive approach.” ( [67] ) As with Smith, Morisseau’s virtuosity was widely recognized, with critics lauding her dramaturgical power and eloquence. She was awarded the 2018 OBIE for writing Pipeline , and it was one of the top ten most produced plays in the 2019/20 season. It seems evident that these playwrights are politically motivated to write these plays, and that their aims are to raise awareness about a particular form of social injustice that is manifestly rooted in racism and to offer possible solutions. Art, and especially live theatrical performance, is never just a purveyor of facts. Live theatre presents facts in a particularly human context. Despite Brecht’s best efforts, even the most “distanced” performance style, as exemplified by Anna Deavere Smith’s approach, evokes emotional and empathic identification, an identification underscored in Morisseau’s “more emotionally immersive approach.” ( [68] ) Morisseau has repeatedly expressed her desire to create community through interaction and engagement from audiences: “ I feel like if I ask the important questions that I have around it [social injustice], maybe, collectively, as a society, we will start to have the kind of conversation that can find a solution.” ( [69] ) Throughout Pipeline’s run, the theatre held several talkbacks and panels with experts and activists. Morisseau also spearheaded a fundraising effort at Lincoln Center that raised approximately $10,000 to fund free tickets to groups of students. ( [70] ) The value of “raising awareness”—of providing Americans with facts about racism—has been challenged by Ibram X. Kendi, who has argued that political and economic self-interest, rather than any moral or intellectual awakening, have led to anti-racist policies. “They [those with power to make policy changes] have also conceded to Antiracist change as a better alternative than the disruptive, disordered, politically harmful, and/or unprofitable conditions that anti-racist protestors created.” ( [71] ) The shortcomings of empathy as a change agent have also been explored by scholar Sadiya Hartman, ( [72] ) and Georgetown law professor Paul Butler has been even more explicit in his critique: “The problem is, love and forgiveness are not productive in American politics. That’s not how social change is achieved.” ( [73] ) Among theatre scholars, there is disagreement over the efficacy of theatrical performance for social change. In 2023, Ryan Claycomb, partially prompted by the writings of Lauren Berlant and Jodi Dean, described his former optimism in the power of verbatim theatre—and more broadly, democratic deliberation— as “cruel, prompting us to hope for something that binds us,” and “often a passive replacement for radical egalitarian action.” ( [74] ) Although Kendi, Hartman, Butler, Claycomb, and others make compelling arguments, given America’s history, centuries of theatrical artivism provide a counterargument. Years of experience in creating theatre that addresses urgent political issues have led Smith to her conviction that “art inspires action” and Morisseau to her belief that “asking the important questions” is the first step toward finding solutions to social problems. In her recent study, Amanda Stuart Fisher argues that “testimonial theatre, which aims to expose and interrogate the kinds of truths that are being re-authored or erased by today's politicians, can play a central role [in challenging political domination].” ( [75] ) The activist Bree Newsome, whose removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State house is portrayed in Notes, has affirmed that “artists telling the truth about the world is itself a form of activism.” ( [76] ) Both plays advocate a prerequisite mindset of optimism and hope—the belief that political action is not likely to happen without a certain degree of faith that change is possible. This is a belief shared by one of America’s most notable anti-racist activists, Angela Davis: “No change is possible without hope.” ( [77] ) Recently, Michelle Alexander expressed her belief in the necessity of a “moral and spiritual revolution” dependent upon treating “all people of all colors with dignity, humanity, compassion, and concern. . . . True progress depends on us caring and demonstrating care, compassion, and concern for poor people, and people of color, and being willing to invest in their well-being and their health and their education and their thriving rather than simply in their punishment and in their control. . . . ( [78] ) The point that awareness, hope, and empathy alone are insufficient to effect social change is, however, well-taken. In the oil and gas industry, decommissioning (safely removing) a pipeline requires “a series of properly planned and executed actions.” ( [79] ) These plays offer both/and strategies, building empathy and community as well as engaging in radical, direct action. Both these plays demonstrate (or perhaps advocate for) a range of resistant actions, most of which involve disorderly or illegal conduct. Militant language abounds in both plays, leaving audiences with a sense of America as a war zone, and neither leaves any doubt about which is the right side. Both plays highlight the deployment of smartphone cameras, which have become pivotal weapons in the Black Lives Matter movement . ( [80] ) In his comments on a production of Morisseau’s Pipeline that he witnessed in March 2020, Harvey Young reminded readers that the play featured images of Civil Rights era activism, “possibly to inspire audiences to speak out and to take to the streets.” Young concludes: “I remember leaving the theatre less feeling anxious about a looming pandemic, than grateful for the ways theatre can be a catalyst for change.” ( [81] ) Smith's inclusion of “off-topic” episodes in Notes is strategic and in keeping with the school to prison “nexus” concept. At Freddie Gray’s funeral, Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant’s oration is an exhortation to action. Bree Newsome defied the law and risked her life to remove a symbol of injustice, an action that ultimately effected its permanent removal. Congressman Lewis’s story reminds us of the achievements wrought during the 1960s through strategic anti-racist activism and also provides an example of a moral awakening by one who formerly engaged in racist violence. In Pipeline , Omari’s refusal to accept the role of racial spokesperson, his refusal to be constrained by the white “authority figure” in his classroom, provides another example of anti-racist resistance. Kendi has also deemed as a “false construction” the idea that “ignorance and hate” lead to racist ideas and racist policies . ( [82] ) Although apparently in agreement that hatred is a manifestation, rather than a cause, of racism, Smith and Morisseau advance the notion that its eradication is prerequisite for meaningful social change and, moreover, that its eradication is possible. An oft-quoted musical theatre lyric from South Pacific avers that hate must be “carefully taught.” Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that love also can and must be taught. Granted, “love” is a variously defined term, but in this context, perhaps best understood as encompassing agape (selfless, universal love for humankind) and phlautia (self-love). Smith’s inclusion of a story about redemption and forgiveness between a former white supremacist and a Black civil rights activist, and Morisseau’s request, on the behalf of Omari, for understanding and forgiveness, are vital to this message. Smith has given serious consideration to the cultivation of the capacity to love, sharing with Richard Schechner in 2018 that “the revolution can begin with love, hospitality, and grace,” an assertion she expanded on in an article about the pipeline project: Could you ever imagine The Graduate School of Empathy and Love? I know that sounds ridiculous. But I also know that some individuals have a special aptitude for these core elements of our humanity. Those gifts should be honed, nourished, refined, and celebrated in the same way we cultivate athletic prowess, intellectual productivity, and business acumen. We need a generation of leaders who are as loving as they are strategic. We need such leaders to help us find ways to imagine ourselves as beings who could extend our concern beyond the boundaries of our front doors, our fences, our perceived self-interests, our skins. ( [83] ) Both Notes From the Field and Pipeline appeal to the hearts as well as the minds of their audiences; both portray personal stories within specific political contexts; both celebrate acts of civil disobedience; both valorize compassion, empathy, and love; and both feature embraces between human beings as personal actions with profound political implications . Although the ultimate goal or the desired effect of this raised awareness, heightened empathy, and commitment to active resistances to decommission—to safely remove from activity—the school-to-prison pipeline, the implications for more wide-ranging anti-racist activism, are profound. References 1. I would like to express my appreciation to JADT’s editors and anonymous readers for their support and valuable feedback. 2. African Americans make up 13.6% of the total US population and 38.5% of the prison population; Latinos or Hispanic, 18.9% of the general population and 30.2% of the prison population; Native Americans, 1.3% of the general population and 2.6% of the prison population. (2021 statistics). See https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 ; https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp ; https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_ethnicity.jsp , accessed 1 March 2023. 3. See Lauren Camera, “Study Confirms School to Prison Pipeline,” US News and World Report, July 27, 2021, https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2021-07-27/study-confirms-school-to-prison-pipeline . Recently scholars have begun to favor the term “nexus” as a way to highlight the complex connections between educational, justice, and other social systems “ which condition us to see people of color as inherently dangerous and in need of constant monitoring.” See https://westwinded.com/blog/understanding-the-school-to-prison-nexus/ , 19 October 2019, accessed 1 March 2023. Although I believe both terms, and concepts, are relevant to the works analyzed in this article, I see the term “pipeline” as a useful metaphor and in keeping with the terminology within the plays and author interviews. 4. Smith’s works are frequently described as “documentary theatre” or “verbatim theatre.” 5 . For an interesting discussion of ways in which Morisseau veers from realism in this play, see Jonathon W. Taylor, “Revolutionary Spaces: Julia Kristeva Gwendolyn Brooks, and a Post-Pandemic Path Ahead in Dominique Morisseau's Pipeline,” Theatre Symposium 30 (2023), 40-54. 6. A student at Brock University has produced an interesting study comparing the representation of black youth (and especially the trope of the absent father) in Singleton's Boyz N the Hood and Morisseau’s Pipeline . See Linda Eronmhonsele, "Representation of Black Youth in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood and Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline ,” Sept. 9, 2022, https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/16619?show=full , accessed 18 August 2023. Interestingly, Morisseau includes an allusion to Season 4 of The Wire in Pipeline (p. 20). 7. Minou Arjomand, Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment . New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 8. Dahy, Amal Saad Abu El-Leil. “Notes from the Field: Challenging the American Justice System and the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Anna Deavere Smith’s Verbatim Theater,” fjhj.journals.ekb.eg , no. 2 (2022): 1-23, Accessed 5 September 2023. Smith discusses the earlier version of this performance in an interview with Richard Schechner. After the first act, she stopped the show, divided the audience into groups of 20, and asked them to talk about the problem and to make commitments about solutions. See Richard Schechner, “There’s a Lot of Work to Do to Turn this Thing Around,” interview with Anna Deavere Smith, TDR/The Drama Review (2018) 62 (3 (239)): 35–50. 9. Geis, D. R., (2022) “Say Their Names: Drama of the Black Lives Matter Era”, the Black Theatre Review 1(1), 71-80. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/tbtr.4824 , 1. 10. Amanda Stuart Fisher Performing the Testimonial: Rethinking Verbatim Dramaturgies, https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526145758/9781526145758.00011.xml,2020, accessed 3 September 2023. See also Ryan Claycomb, In the Lurch: Verbatim Theater and the Crisis of Democratic Deliberation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023). 11. See Taylor. 12. Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Nation Books, 2016), 5. 13. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizaing the Intersection of Race and Sex: a Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist theory, and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1): 139. 14. Anna Deavere Smith, Notes from the Field (New York: Anchor Books, 2019, xv-xx. 15. See, for example, Carola Hilfrich, “Aesthetics of Unease: a Brechtian Study of Anna Deavere Smith’s Eyewitness Performance in Fires in the Mirror ,” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas (June 2009): 299-318; Charles R. Lyons and James C. Lyons, “Anna Deavere Smith: Perspectives on Her Performance Within the Context of Critical Theory,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (Fall 1994): 43-66. 16. Quoted in Alison Stolpa, “Anna Deveare Smith: Voices from the Gaps,” Retrieved from University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, 2005, 2, https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166329/Smith,%20Anna%20Deavere.pdf;sequence= , accessed 30 May 2022. 17. Ibid., 27. 18. Ibid., 42, 44. 19. Ibid., 52. 20. Ibid., 105. 21. Ibid., 60-61. 22. Ibid., 62-63. 23. Ibid., 13. 24. Ibid., 76. 25. Ibid., 84. 26. Ibid., 91-92. 27. Ibid., 108-9, 112. 28. Ibid., 116-17. 29. Ibid., 125, 127, 128-29. 30. See Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice (London: Pearson 2012); Randall G. Shelden and Pavel V. Vasiliev, Controlling the Dangerous Classes: A History of Criminal Justice in America , 3rd ed. (Long Grove IL: Waveland Press, 2017); Maggie Germano, “How the US has Criminalized Poverty and How to Change That Now,” Forbes , August 4, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiegermano/2020/08/04/how-the-united-states-has-criminalized-poverty-and-how-to-change-that-now/?sh=55a21d913281 , accessed July 1 2023. 31.U.S. Poverty Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, released September 13, 2022, https://federalsafetynet.com/poverty-statistics/#:~:text=Blacks%20have%20the%20highest%20poverty,have%20the%20lowest%20at%208.1%25 , accessed July 6, 2023. 32. Ibid., 99. 33. See, for example, Ben Brantley, “Anna Deavere Smith’s ‘Notes From the Field’ Delivers Voices of Despair and Hope,” New York Times , 2 Nov. 2016, www.proquest.com/usnews/docview/1835203616/fulltext/8433760FB1C44EBFPQ/8?accountid=14576 , accessed 15 May 2022. 34. Alisa Solomon, “Digging Up the Pipeline,” https://www.annadeaveresmith.org/digging-up-the-pipeline-by-alisa-solomon-2/ ), accessed 15 May 2022. 35. Zachary Stewart, “Notes From the Field,” theatremania, November 02, 2016, https://www.theatermania.com/off-broadway/reviews/notes-from-the-field_78996.html , accessed 15 May 2022. 36. Notes From the Field, HBO-TV movie, directed by Kristi Zea. 2018. Now streaming on HULU, www.hulu.com/movie/notes-from-the-field-dfb792f7-37f2-4b8e-8bc7-51576f0ad71d 37. Alexis Soloski, “Notes from the Field Review—a One-Woman Study of Incarceration,” The Guardian, 2 November 2016, www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/02/notes-from-the-field-anna-deavere-smith , accessed 16 May 2022. 38. Ben Brantley, “Voices of Despair and Hope” ; Helen Shaw, “Many Voices Unite in Anna Deavere Smith’s New Documentary Play,” Village Voice, 8 Nov. 2016, www.villagevoice.com/2016/11/08/many-voices-unite-in-anna-deavere-smiths-new-documentary-play/ ; Zachary Stewart, “Notes From the Field,” accessed 15 May 2022. 39. Victoria Myers, “An Interview with Dominique Morisseau,” The Interval , 25 July 2017, www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2017/07/an-interview-with-dominique-morisseau/ , accessed 12 May 2022. 40. Ibid. 41. Dominique Morisseau, Pipeline (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2018), 5. 42. Ben Brantley, “Review: A Mother Fervently Tries to Protect Her Son in Pipeline,” New York Times , 10 July 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/theater/pipeline-review.html , accessed 18 May 2022. 43. Morisseau, Pipeline , 11. 44. Ibid., 24. 45. Ibid., 28-9. 46. Ibid., 35-6. 47. Ibid., 38. 48. Ibid., 41. 49. Mahajoy A. Laufer, “Black Students' Silence in Predominantly White Institutions of Higher Learning,” ( Smith Scholar Works 2012), 2, 16, scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1716&context=theses , accessed 15 May 2022. 50. Morisseau, Pipeline , 49. 51. Ibid., 52. 52. Ibid., 5. 53. Ibid., 24, 26, 32, 39, 43, 52, 58, 64, 65, 73, 74. 54. Ibid., 74. 55. The phrase “I Can't Breathe” is now widely used to protest police brutality and racial inequality. According to the New York Times , the phrase has been used by over 70 people who died in police custody. Mike Baker et al, “Three Words: 70 Cases. The Tragic History of ‘I Can’t Breathe,’” New York Times 29 June 2020, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/28/us/i-cant-breathe-police-arrest.html , accessed 16 May 2022. 56. Morisseau, Pipeline , 5. 57. Ibid., 79. 58. Ibid., 79. 59. Ibid., 82. 60. Ibid., 83. 61. Rohan Preston, “‘ Being Human is Not Conditional’: Playwright Dominique Morisseau Seeks to Expand Ideas around Black Kids in Pipeline,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 29 Sept. 2019: E.5. l 62. Morisseau, Pipeline, 86. 63. Ibid., 89. 64. Ibid., 55. 65. Ibid., 90. 66. Bill Marx, “Pipeline a Didactic Excursion,” Artsfuse, 11 May 2020, artsfuse.org/tag/nora-theatre-company/ , accessed 19 May 2022. 67. Ben Brantley, “Race, Schooling and Inequality: Let’s Watch ‘Pipeline,’”  New York Times, 20 May 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/theater/pipeline-play-stream.html , accessed 18 May 2022. 68. Recent sociological research has affirmed these beliefs. See, for example, Steve Rathje, Leor Hacket and Jamil Zaki, "Attending live theatre improves empathy, changes attitudes, and leads to pro-social behavior," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Vol. 95 July 2021, 104138, ScienceDirect.com . 69. Dominique Morisseau, “Rules of Engagement,” www.centralsquaretheater.org/2019-20-season/articles/from-the-playwright-dominque-morisseaus-rules-of-engagement/ , accessed 11 May 2022. 70. Myers Interview. 71. Kendi, Stamped, 506-09. 72. Sadiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-making in Nineteenth- Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 20-21. 73. Paul Butler, interview on “All In with Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, 25 June 2015, www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/i-have-no-respect-for-your-ancestors-471529027890 , accessed 18 May 2022. 74. Claycomb, 123. 75. Fisher, 179. 76. Biography.com Editors, “Biography of Bree Newsome,” A&E Television Networks, 26 January 2021, www.biography.com/activist/bree-newsome , accessed 20 June 2022. Newsome herself integrates art and activism in her work as a musician/songwriter. 77. Angela Davis Interview, CBS Sunday Morning , 29 May 2022 . See also John Belluso, inspire.redlands.edu/work/sc/c831d110-5886-42a1-857c-ca69cd7e8738 ; Guillermo del Toro, time.com/5520554/guillermo-del-toro-radicaloptimism/#:~:text=No%20hope%20is%20ever%20too,rebellious%20and%20daring%20and%20vital ; Junot Díaz, www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/education/2018/01/22/junot-diaz-preaches-optimism-during/16028788007/ ; and Ava Duvernay, time.com/optimists-2019/ , accessed 30 May 2022. 78. David Remnick, “Ten Years After the New Jim Crow,” an interview with Michelle Alexander, New Yorker, January 17 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/ten-years-after-the-new-jim-crow , accessed 8 March 2023. [1] NiGen, “Pipeline Decomissioning Process in Oil and Gas,” 29 January 2021, nigen.com/pipeline-decommissioning-process-in-oil-and-gas/ , accessed 15 June 2022. 80. Ed Siegel, " Pipeline Tries To Find Space For The Anger Of Young Black Men At Central Square Theater," WBUR News , www.wbur.org/news/2020/03/11/pipeline-nora-central-square-theater-review 11 March 2020, accessed 14 May 2022. 81. Harvey Young, "Pipeline: Central Square Theater," Performing Arts Journal 129 (2021):44. 82. Kendi, Stamped , 506. 83. Anna Deavere Smith, "Toward Empathetic Imagination and Action, www.annadeaveresmith.org/toward-empathetic-imagination-and-action-2/ , accessed 1 June 2022. See also Schechner, 44. Smith's ideas regarding the transformative power of love resonate with those of the late, celebrated feminist author/activist bell hooks; see especially hooks’s Love Song to the Nation trilogy: All About Love: New Visions (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2018); Salvation: Black People and Love (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2001); Communion: the Female Search for Love (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2002) Footnotes About The Author(s) Cheryl Black is a Curators Distinguished Professor Emerita from the University of Missouri, a Fellow in the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, a Fellow of the Mid-America Theatre Conference, a former president of ATDS, and the author/editor of four books and numerous book chapters and articles. She is also an actor/director/playwright whose current project is directing her Patriot Acts: A Suffrage Pageant for Our Times at Union College, where she holds a visiting position for AY 2023-24. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Community Circles and Love Triangles: Gun Violence and Belonging in Oklahoma! and West Side Story Decommissioning the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field and Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline More than a Props List: Redefining Material Culture as Survival and Pleasure in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined The Politics of Trance: Victoria Woodhull and the Radical Reform of Platform Mediumship Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900 Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theatre Made Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Read The Natural Landscape of Native Puppetry by Opalanietet Ryan Pierce . Opalanietet is a PhD candidate in Theatre & Performance Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and has been a teacher of Contemporary Indigenous Theatre & Performance at The New School in New York City and SUNY Purchase. He also has taught Classical Theatre at Boston University and World Theatre at Pace University. In addition, Opalanietet holds a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a theatre practitioner in New York City, including being the founder and artistic director of Eagle Project, http://www.eagleprojectarts.org. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Indigenous Stages tah-kōx Visit Journal Homepage 1 Volume The Natural Landscape of Native Puppetry By Opalanietet Ryan Pierce Published: June 10, 2026 Download Article as PDF "Puppetry is already there, in cultural dances, trees.” (Defoe 2025, 1:12:32) This quotation from Anishinaabe theatre artist, Ty Defoe (also called Giizhig in his Indigenous language), encapsulates the organic energy exhibited in the natural world around us that is intrinsic in the craft of puppetry. Yet how does one harness that raw organic energy from the natural world and distill it into what we would consider Native puppet theatre? The first, and perhaps most important, step would be to “Indigenize” the puppets. This is exactly what Ty Defoe demonstrates for us in his puppet theatre play, Skeleton Canoe , created with All My Relations Collective [1] and the Great Lakes Life Ways Institute. Skeleton Canoe is a journey of awakening for the character of Nawbin, a young seeker, who meets and befriends Jimaan, a birchbark canoe who has been buried beneath the water for a very long time. Together, Nawbin and Jimaan, arouse stories accompanying the river, pilot through turbulent weather, and relish each other’s company. Theirs is a relationship that assists in resurrecting a healthy equilibrium with all our relatives of the Earth, evoking within us the sentiment that convalescence is achieved through recollection, relationship, and reciprocity. Before we go any further, however, we must unpack what it means to “Indigenize” something. One way to consider Indigenous, or Indigeneity, is under the guise of the people originally from a place and their right to self-government, or sovereignty. Dennis Claude discusses this in his book, We Are Not You: First Nations and Canadian Modernity , where he appears to prefer the term, “First Nations,” as opposed to “Indigenous” or “Native.” Claude simply states: “First Nations occupied this land first and therefore were sovereign self-governing societies, and that they never gave up their sovereignty” (Claude 1997, 20). With Claude’s emphasis in mind, one way to think of “to Indigenize” something would be to bring it under the influence, or control, of the sovereign government of the people who were there on that land first. I believe that to be true, yet, cultural, what is it about the sovereign government of the people who were on that land first that makes "to Indigenize" something noteworthy? It is not necessarily about the government per se, but a value system and epistemology that cosmologically brings Indigeneity to the forefront. For this, I turn to Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill, who, through their book, Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways , talk about other aspects of Indigeneity when discussing the process of research. They express that “some approaches (to research) are grounded in Anishinabe ways of doing and knowing and emphasize the importance of respect, reciprocity, relationship, protocol, holistic knowing, relevancy, story, interpretive knowing, and the experiential related to place, language, and kinship systems” (2022, 101). (I use the spelling, “Anishinaabe,” at the request of Defoe, as it assists with the correct pronunciation.) In this article, I will focus on how Defoe uses Anishinaabe ontologies and epistemologies of relationality to inform the specificity of materiality in Skeleton Canoe . This materiality Indigenizes the puppets and enhances the anthropomorphization of the characters, a process that is a cornerstone of contemporary Native puppet theatre; and I will explore this Indigenizing materiality through three distinct characters in the play whose function and movement directly relate to the essence of life that is water: Rainbow Trout, Turtle Activist Grandma, and the River itself. To anthropomorphize, according to Merriam-Webster, means “To attribute human form or personality to things not human” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2025). Gary Steiner implements this definition into his exploration of the Western, [2] or Eurocentric, judgement of the status of non-human animals in his book, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy . Insinuating it as a more “animal-friendly philosophy,” Steiner explains: “Moved by the desire to establish a more edified view of the moral status of animals than the sense that has prevailed in the Western philosophical tradition, an increasing number of ethologists and philosophers have marshaled insights concerning the evolutionary continuity and physiological similarity between animals and human beings to argue that many animals are conscious, sentient beings that deserve substantial moral consideration” (Steiner 2005, 3). According to Steiner, utilizing the pronoun “who” is a method by which to anthropomorphize the puppets, which thus brings forth the familial attributes that are understood to be inherent (not merely philosophical) in all living things, according to Anishinaabe and many other Indigenous communities. I lean on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s explanation of this belief system as I feel she best contextualizes this worldview in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants . Kimmerer references the fact that in the English-speaking world, we typically do not refer to a member of our family with the pronoun “it.” That would be considered an insult and a sign of disrespect. Kimmerer takes that social rule and demonstrates how and why many Indigenous communities extend that respect to include members of the natural world. Kimmerer says, “ It robs a person of selfhood and kinship, reducing a person to a mere thing. So it is that in Potawatomi and most other indigenous languages, we use the same words to address the living world as we use for our family. Because they are our family” (2013, 55). Yet what constitutes “the living world,” one may ask? The living world is even more expansive than one may initially imagine. Kimmerer explains: In Potawatomi 101, rocks are animate, as are mountains and water and fire and places. Beings that are imbued with spirit, our sacred medicines, our songs, drums, and even stories, are all animate. The list of the inanimate seems to be smaller, filled with objects that are made by people. Of an inanimate being, like a table, we say ‘ What is it?’ And we answer Dopwen yewe . Table it is. But of apple, we must say, ‘ Who is that being?’ And reply Mshimin yawe . Apple that being is. Yawe – the animate to be . (2013, 55–56) The materiality in Skeleton Canoe is a mixture of materials, some of which, like birchbark and porcupine quills, Kimmerer would consider animate, and others, such as plastic bags or recycled materials, that would fall into the inanimate category. Either way, however, given how the materiality is utilized within the play, human form and personality (i.e. anthropomorphization) is endowed onto the puppets, thus enabling them to effectively and respectfully represent some of our non-human family members to a human audience. Relationality is the essential concept that must be developed when discussing contemporary Native performing arts, whether it be engaging in anthropomorphization with one’s puppets and objects, or developing a dance piece as Jacqueline Shea Murphy theoretically describes in her book, Dancing Indigenous Worlds: Choreographies of Relation . While she focuses on the transformational process in Indigenous dance, I believe both the ideological and performative epistemology she discusses directly relates to the foundations of contemporary Native puppet theatre. Murphy states: “the Indigenous dance artists discussed in this book, as I have come to perceive, create dance works that manifest out of ways of being in which relationality undergirds everything. They create these dance works physically and experientially, via human bodies coming and being and moving together in interconnection and exchange” (2022, 1). It is essential, I would argue, to first establish this relationality with one’s own species, fellow human beings. If we cannot establish and experience the agency within our neighboring humans, how can we begin to be interconnected with other living organisms and objects? I believe this is the first step in hosting and utilizing a counter ideology that doesn’t look at our fellow humans as competitors or instruments through which we can obtain something or achieve an objective, but as collaborators in creation and stewardship. Once this concept is developed and accepted, it may then be possible to expand this creational capacity beyond our species. Murphy continues: “it happens in relational interconnections with human as well as with more-than-human beings, like plants and water and ancestors” (2022, 1). Returning to Kimmerer, she assists in crystalizing this relationality when referencing our pronouns for our more-than-human kin: “Saying it makes a living land into ‘natural resources.’ If a maple is an it , we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her , we think twice” (2013, 57). This relational interconnectedness with our fellow non-human beings and entities is foundational for all the characters in Skeleton Canoe . Defoe achieves this transformation to relational interconnectedness through what he calls, “Western puppetry and Anishinaabe values and ways of being” (Defoe 2025: 1:18:30). What exactly could be meant by “Western puppetry”? To start, Stephen Kaplin’s 1999 article, “A Puppet Tree,” provides a basic definition of a puppet: Unlike actors, puppets are objects, defined by Frank Proschan as ‘material images of humans, animals or spirits that are created, displayed, or manipulated.’ These material images reflect an ‘iconicity […] between a material object (sign vehicle) and the animate being for which it stands” (1983:4). But while actors animate a sign vehicle from the inside out, using their own feelings, bodies, and voices, puppet performers must learn to inhabit the sign vehicle from the outside in. (1999, 29) There is a lot to unpack here. Yes, most of the puppets in Skeleton Canoe are, as Kaplin refers to, material images of animals that reflect an iconicity between a material object and the animate being, but the specific materiality used in Skeleton Canoe (for example, the birchbark used for Jimaan or the fan used for Rainbow Trout) that in many ways reflect Anishinaabe values and ways of being, make the puppet itself iconic, not just a reflective image. In addition, it is the specific materiality of the puppets in Skeleton Canoe that comes from embedded and transferred knowledge from one’s community and ancestors that I argue complicates the binary of the “inside out” and “outside in” that Kaplin refers to. One example is birchbark, used for the character, Turtle Activist Grandma, which I will explore in further detail later. While the operating of the puppets may be “outside in,” the creation of the puppet is inspired from the “inside out.” When speaking about puppetry from a potentially more “Western” perspective, I turn to Edward Gordon Craig’s essay, “The Actor and the Übermarionette,” as referenced by Victoria Nelson. Here, Craig gives a description of what we conventionally think of puppets in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Craig explains: “To speak of a puppet with most men and women is to cause them to giggle. They think at once of the wires; they think of the stiff hands and the jerky movements; they tell me it is ‘a funny little doll’” (quoted in Nelson 2001, 24). Since Craig originally made that statement in 1908, one may believe that it is a diachronic perception of a puppet that ceases to exist a century later. Steve Tillis appears to disagree with the sentiment that Craig’s statement has ceased to exist in his book, Towards an Aesthetics of the Puppet: Puppetry as a Theatrical Art . Tillis reminds us, “the signs deployed by the puppet are as intentional as theatrical signs can be; their intent, whether or not this is acknowledged by the puppet-artist, is to lead the audience to imagine life while it perceives an object” (1992, 115). The object may not be “a funny little doll” as Craig states, but it is still “an object,” according to Tillis, by which we, the audience, “imagines” life. Yes, the puppets in Skeleton Canoe may contain wires and are operated through manipulation, but through the specific materiality from which the puppets are made, they become not just images, or even “Images” in the likeness of the Creator, they are manifestations of our non-human kin here on Turtle Island. We do not have to imagine life based on the signs presented by the materiality, for in Native puppet theatre, the materiality often is life; and even in the instances when the materiality itself is not alive, it is specifically utilized to accentuate a life-like characteristic that is critical in an Indigenous story or life lesson. In Skeleton Canoe , these non-human kin guide Nawbin, a young seeker, on a transformational adventure. On this journey, Nawbin encounters Jiimaan, a birchbark canoe long embedded under the water. The two bond in friendship as they uncover stories along the river, weather storms, and enjoy each other’s company. As Defoe says: “Together, they restore balance with the beings of the Earth, reminding us that healing comes through remembering, relationship, and reciprocity” (personal communication, July 29, 2025). The emphasis is not on conflict, as is often presupposed in Western storytelling, but on a life journey. We start our journey with the river, as it is the most crucial element in Skeleton Canoe . There is no story and there is no performance without River. While one can certainly argue with legitimacy that rivers provide the essentials for life for civilizations throughout the world, rivers are looked upon as living, breathing relations for many Native/Indigenous communities, including my own. Yet, how does one transform the Western, colonial, Euro/American concept of a river as primarily a watery avenue used to transport products and further commerce into a sentient relative capable of sharing cosmological knowledge with us? The relational interconnectedness that we have discussed is the foundation through which a river can be looked upon as a living, breathing relative and not a mere tool used to achieve an end. Figure 1. Nawbin, Jiimaan, and characters in stories arise along the river. (Photo: Alex U. Griffin, courtesy of Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival) River is not what we (and Kaplin) typically refer to as a human, animal or spirit. But they are alive, have agency, and are a crucial part of our community. In the show, the materiality of River consists of recycled materials, such as plastic bags and aluminum cans, as an example, which both acknowledges the importance of our climate crisis and the urgency to protect River, while also permitting River to flow, ripple, and provide a home for the other puppets. The craft of puppetry in Skeleton Canoe , including River, may be informed by what Americans consider to be Western. But it is the Native values, in this case Anishinaabe, that inform the materiality of River, and thus enable River to ontologically function in a way that makes the audience a vessel for River’s stories rather than the other way around. We fundamentally need River more than River needs us, and it is this humble understanding that allows a reciprocal relationship that is critical in Native puppet theatre to exist. This reciprocal relationship becomes visceral when we see different characters in the play, like Nawbin and Turtle Activist Grandma, each attempting to engage in one of the most fundamental activities regarding water: taking a drink from River. When Nawbin goes to River’s edge to have a drink towards the beginning of the play, they let out a cry as they pull a plastic bag from River. They exclaim it is gross and announce that they will attempt to take out every plastic bag from the river. Nawbin proclaims themselves as a water protector, and thus, the relational interconnectedness that Murphy speaks of is implemented by Defoe and endowed onto what otherwise would be deemed as inanimate objects. Figure 2. Turtle Activist Grandma engaging with River. (Photo: Alex U. Griffin, courtesy of Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival) Rainbow Trout is one of those other puppets who has a home in River. A colorful fan forms the foundation of Rainbow Trout, providing both the aesthetic and functionality of the puppet. The spectrum of color emanating from Rainbow Trout gives authenticity to its name, while the flexibility of the fan enables the fish to swim, flutter, and dance convincingly. The colors of the rainbow and the ease and freedom of movement assist in making Rainbow Trout a character who serves as a metaphor reminding us of the role of Two-Spirit members in Indigenous communities: bringing love, light, joy, and gratitude to our culture. VK Preston’s reference, in “Queer and Indigenous Art: Performing Ice Times in Climate Crisis,” to the symbolic importance of a map in a performance centering familial locations combined with music from a Two-Spirit composer, and the way in which those elements solidify the emotional attachment to place, remind me of Rainbow Trout’s power in Skeleton Canoe . Preston states: “participatory conversation on place inaugurates an epistemic shift of placemaking. This centers and genders pluralism, reclaiming nonbinary gender, partnering, and community’s solidarity in queer Indigenous activism” (2020, 150). According to Preston, the reclamation of geography and gender from binary, colonial classification liberates a plurality of meaning, learning, and kinship. Rainbow Trout, having their home in the river, enhances River as an important place of epistemic knowledge. Rainbow Trout swimming and dancing with a rainbow fan representing Two-Spirit members of Indigenous community centers’ “gender pluralism,” and even though it may be subliminal to some and not so subliminal to others, fosters solidarity within queer Indigenous wisdom. The human artifact that is the colorful fan anthropomorphizes the puppet of Rainbow Trout, thus allowing the character to foster Two-Spirit wisdom, and thereby furthering the interspecies communication that is essential to this Native story. As Claudia Orenstein writes in Reading the Puppet Stage: Reflections on the Dramaturgy of Performing Objects : “objects and materiality can have their own emotional trajectories constructed into them, and we can experience these physically” (2024, 38). We experience the beauty of Rainbow Trout through the vivid brightness of the colorful fan, and freedom through its movement as it appears to swim and dance effortlessly. Swimming and dancing appear synonymous as the stick that initially permits Defoe to control Rainbow Trout’s movement changes to a string that liberates Rainbow Trout to make much of the stage their dance floor as Defoe circles the string around his body and over his head. The puppet’s movement allows us to experience both a watery environment and a dancing stage, even when it is not in physical water or a disco. Rainbow Trout’s freedom of movement enables interspecies communication by allowing the other swimming puppets and air-breathing mammals, such as a human actor, to speak with Rainbow Trout directly. When interspecies communication does take place, endowing the puppet with Anishinaabe language reinforces the concept of the puppet being alive through anthropomorphization, also referred to as “breathing spirit into the object” (personal communication, April 15, 2025). The combination of Anishinaabe language along with materiality, such as jingles from a jingle dress [3] placed inside Rainbow Trout, collaborate to Indigenize the puppet with the ability to relay Anishinaabe lifeways and ideology onto a captivated audience, whether they be Native or not. Returning to Preston, they say “that settlers’ interest in interpreting Indigenous practice as performance fails to apprehend songs’ or dances’ ontologies otherwise, as law, being, or medicine, erasing and thereby also doing epistemological violence” (2020, 148). The jingles inside Rainbow Trout are an antidote to the epistemological violence that Preston is talking about. They represent medicine and restoration. By placing the jingles inside Rainbow Trout, Indigenizes the puppet in one of the most fundamental ways, one that is not just entertainment, education, or even resistance, but one that is restorative in the transferring of cosmological and epistemological knowledge. Birchbark, however, is the most important aspect of materiality in Skeleton Canoe . It is the material from which the main character in the play, Jiimaan, a canoe, is made. Birchbark serves as a tool to make food and supply transportation, in addition to being the material that would support etchings and writing, which makes it a foundation for communication. Thus, having Jiimaan be made from birchbark is imperative for the play. Birchbark from the tree, in and of itself, contains much knowledge and many stories. Constructing the canoe with birchbark endows Jiimaan with that same knowledge. Defoe says that Jiimaan can be buried and spend as long as four hundred years in the ground. Many stories and much knowledge can be accumulated during that time for living beings, including humans, who are willing to listen and learn. Theresa May, in Salmon is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed , describes the significance of these transferred stories when sharing her experience creating a theatre project with local Indigenous communities. May talks about how theatres serve as “forums where stories, and the wisdom and knowledge they carry, are given authority. Stories preserve and disseminate wisdom, provide historical context, and transmit feelings that have the power to change the listener, easing long-standing social and political polarization” (2018, 7). That is the influence that these stories possess, and it is the materiality that represents the manifestation of the stories in a tangible and sensorial fashion. It is with this knowledge and storytelling ability in mind that the birchbark is seen to contain its own agency. Megan De Roover discusses agency with trees in her 2019 article, “Beyond the Scenic: Trees as Participants in Theatre and Performance.” De Roover begins by unpacking Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory,” which exposes the moment when “objects” become “things.” De Roover states: “Brown’s ‘Thing Theory’ illustrates this invitation, as he argues that when objects cease to function in predictable manners, they become things , asserting a peculiar kind of power into our interactions with them. In the same way, when trees no longer function as objects (which conform easily to our desires), they shift into things (which can resist)” (2019, 333). I am not insinuating that the birchbark of Jiimaan is “resisting” in any particular fashion, but that the birchbark, through its symbolic and dramaturgical usage, is becoming, according to De Roover and Brown, a “thing.” De Roover elaborates further: “Our relationship to the tree as an object-now-thing transforms from one of control to one of participatory exchange – a transformation that has the potential to alter (however slightly) the norm of unilateral engagement” (2019, 333). The multi-usage and significance of the birchbark to the Anishinaabe people, which then forms the materiality of Jiimaan in Skeleton Canoe , transforms the birchbark, according to De Roover, into a “thing” that defines the relationship with the birchbark into “one of participatory exchange,” not only between the Anishinaabe and the birchbark, but also between Jiimaan and the audience. De Roover concludes “that meaningful encounters with trees as things enables [ sic ] a relationship with trees , rather than a relationship with stories about trees ” (2019, 345). This describes a cornerstone of Native puppet theatre, one in which the materiality of the natural world is being granted its full agency and one where an equal reciprocal relationship is manifested. Thus, when the materiality is granted its full agency, so is the puppet which is constructed from that materiality. That reciprocity can only happen when the interaction with the natural world is as a “thing” with agency and not an “object.” Once our relationship with the natural world is as a “thing” with agency, we then possess the ideology that they are our fellow “kin” with a proper pronoun (as Kimmerer suggests) and not an “it,” an object ripe for exploitation at our whim. The monumental material of birchbark represents so much to the Anishinaabe people that, in the show, it also forms a basket that serves as a shell for the elder character, Turtle Activist Grandma. For many Native communities, including my own, Lenape, as well as Anishinaabe, what Americans frequently refer to as the continent of North America is actually Turtle Island, a vast tract of land that sits on the back of a giant turtle. I, personally, am a member of a Lenape Turtle Clan. The cosmological importance of the turtle and its shell is imperative to many Native creation stories. Thus, having the turtle shell be a basket made out of birchbark Indigenizes the puppet of Turtle Activist Grandma in a way that nothing else would or could. This makes it an ideal material for a puppet who, as Defoe, articulates, is “Creating an environmental movement for a connection between humans and nature” (personal communication, March 12, 2025). While cleaning the water in the play, Turtle Activist Grandma reminds us of one of the most important realities of existence by pulling out a flag that communicates, “Water is life.” Through utilizing her birchbark shell to remove trash and waste from the water and River’s shore, Turtle Activist Grandma represents the significance of environmental stewardship, and that the well-being of the people is synonymous with that of the environment. Having both Turtle Activist Grandma and Jiimaan be associated with the materiality of birchbark (recycled birchbark in the case of Jiimaan), they remind us of the importance of sustainability and the interconnectedness of our shared destiny. Figure 3. Water is Life. (Photo: Alex U. Griffin, courtesy of Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival) The use of birchbark as materiality for Turtle Activist Grandma is a prime example of dramaturgical methodology put into practice in order to bring awareness to the current climate crisis. It is an example of Lisa Woynarski’s urgent call for ecologically relevant dramaturgical practice in her book, Ecodramaturgies: theatre, performance and climate change . Woynarski writes: “Intersectional ecologies analyses [ sic ] the ideologies of conquest, colonialism, accumulation and individualism that shape capitalist patriarchy and ecological exploitation” (2020, 35). Woynarski continues with how ecodramaturgy, a product of intersectional ecology, can be an antidote to the separatist individualism of colonialism. She continues: “Ecodramaturgies can counter the abstraction and reduction of these issues (power relations that create injustice) by locating them in potent stories, missing histories, forgotten people and places, and human and more-than-human bodies” (2020, 38). Turtle Activist Grandma wearing a shell made out of birchbark, which is substantive and symbolic for the Anishinaabe people, and having that be juxtaposed with her performing the act of cleaning a river made out of recycled materials, both anthropomorphizes the puppet and includes the dramaturgical intersectionality Woynarski is referring to. A Western style puppet consisting of Anishinaabe materiality with Indigenous storytelling is intersectional in a way that reaches a diverse audience, while at the same time enabling the climate crisis to be an issue that is both universal and relatable. It is also an example of what Peter Eckersall, in Dramaturgy to Make Visible: The Legacies of New Dramaturgy for Politics and Performance in Our Times , calls slow dramaturgy, as “a way to describe how the theatrical forms themselves, as dramaturgical agents made from interactive systems, make visible to spectators the experience of ecological crisis” (2024, 13). Denise Varney, in “Caught in the Anthropocene: Theatres of Trees, Place and Politics,” succinctly summarizes Eckersall’s slow dramaturgy: “a dramaturgy that ‘foregrounds time’ and ‘reorients perceptions’ towards a materialist or political consciousness of non-human agency” (2022, 10). I argue that the sequences with Turtle Activist Grandma harmonize with both descriptions of slow dramaturgy in that the sequences are timeless in regard to the Anishinaabe tradition of birchbark that goes back centuries, as well as current when referencing the critical status of human-induced climate change. The anthropomorphization of the puppets, enabled by the specific material dramaturgical choices, such as Turtle Activist Grandma using her birchbark shell in order to assist in cleaning up River, makes the present ecological crisis both visible and visceral. It also, to channel Varney, “reorients our perception toward a political consciousness of nonhuman agency” by having a turtle clean River up after us. River may be Turtle Activist Grandma’s home, but having her clean her home after human irresponsibility endows this non-human with agency that one would typically assume that we, as humans, would have. This actually implicates the human audience and makes them question whether we as a human race have agency to modify our priorities and fundamentally alter our behavior for a more climate-responsive value system. In this way, the birchbark transfers conventional anthropomorphization from the human audience to the turtle. In order for Native puppet theatre to create an environmental movement for a connection between humans and nature, the relationship between humans and the natural world must go beyond mere transactional reciprocity. Its potential, to quote Varney, can “be a model for non-human-centered ecological theatre, one that features the environment as the foundation of human life and creativity” (2022, 11). By centering the environment, Native puppet theatre can reach into the essence of our identities as living organisms, through the specific materiality of its characters. The materiality of the puppets in Skeleton Canoe is a mixture of items that are symbolic to us as contemporary Americans as well as essential to the traditional culture of Anishinaabe people, all the while centering the environment and its ecological relationality in their usage. This blend of materiality specifically crafted for certain characters anthropomorphizes the puppets in a way that intrinsically makes them a part of us, while simultaneously, through our wonderment at seeing the natural world alive through our creations, makes us a part of them. Notes [1] “All My Relations is a profound concept and artistic collective that I (Ty Defoe) co-created. All My Relations is rooted in Indigenous worldviews. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of all human and non-human beings and underscores a reciprocal responsibility to the land, ancestors, and future generations. This philosophy is central to various Indigenous-led arts collectives that aim to foster community, healing, and cultural revitalization through creative expression.” Ty Defoe, email message to author, April 15, 2025. [2] I use the term, “Western,” in this article to connotate the cultural paradigm that typically refers to anything thought of as colonial and Euro/American. [3] “The Jingle Dress originates from the Anishinaabe people and is rooted in stories of healing. According to tradition, the dress was first created for a young girl in the North who was gravely ill. A vision came to her family instructing them to sew a dress adorned with 365 metal cones—one for each day of the year—and as she danced in it, the sound of the jingles would offer healing. Each cone represents a prayer, an intention, a step toward restoration. Today, jingle dress dancers continue to appear at powwows, community gatherings, protests, and ceremonies—dancing not just in regalia, but in remembrance, resistance, and restoration. The Jingle Dress Dance embodies healing—physical, emotional, and spiritual—and stands as a testament to cultural resilience, the endurance of language and tradition, and the power of community. This is not just performance; it is a ceremony guided by protocol, responsibility, and prayer. Jingle dancers often carry the prayers of those who cannot dance themselves, offering their movement as a gift of collective strength.” (Defoe, personal communication, April 17, 2025.) Image Credits: Alex U. Griffin, courtesy of Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival Article References Defoe, Ty. 2025. “The Puppet that Brings Us Together: Thought on Intercultural Puppetry Arts.” The 2025 Ellen Van Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium series, Chicago, IL, January. Video, 1 hour, 53 min. 35sec. https://howlround.com/happenings/ellen-van-volkenburg-puppetry-symposium-1 . Dennis, Claude. 1997. We Are Not You: First Nations and Canadian Modernity . University of Toronto. De Roover, Megan. 2019. “Beyond the Scenic: Trees as Participants in Theatre and Performance.” Theatre Journal 71 (3): 327–346. Eckersall, Peter. 2024. Dramaturgy to Make Visible: The Legacies of New Dramaturgy for Politics and Performance in Our Times . Routledge. Fontaine, Jerry, and Don McCaskill. 2022. Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways . Dundurn Press. Kaplin, Stephen. 1999. “A Puppet Tree: A Model for the Field of Puppet Theatre.” TDR: The Drama Review 43 (3): 28–35. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants . Milkweed Editions. May, Theresa. 2018. Salmon is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed , 2nd ed. Oregon State University Press. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/book71513 . Merriam-Webster Dictionary. n.d. “Anthropomorphize.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anthropomorphize , accessed June 29, 2025. Murphy, Jacqueline Shea. 2022. Dancing Indigenous Worlds: Choreographies of Relation . University of Minnesota Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/99484 . Nelson, Victoria. 2001. The Secret Life of Puppets . Harvard University Press. Orenstein, Claudia. 2024. Reading the Puppet Stage: Reflections on the Dramaturgy of Performing Objects . Routledge. Preston, VK. 2020. “Queer and Indigenous Art: Performing Ice Times in Climate Crisis.” Theatre Journal 72 (2): 143–162. Steiner, Gary. 2005. Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy . University of Pittsburgh Press. Tillis, Steve. 1992. Toward an Aesthetics of the Puppet: Puppetry as a Theatrical Art, Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies Number 47 . Greenwood Press. Varney, Denise. 2022. “Caught in the Anthropocene: Theatres of Trees, Place and Politics.” Theatre Research International 47 (1): 7–27. Woynarski, Lisa. 2020. Ecodramaturgies: theatre, performance and climate change . Palgrave Macmillan. References About the author(s) Opalanietet is a PhD candidate in Theatre & Performance Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and has been a teacher of Contemporary Indigenous Theatre & Performance at The New School in New York City and SUNY Purchase. He also has taught Classical Theatre at Boston University and World Theatre at Pace University. In addition, Opalanietet holds a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a theatre practitioner in New York City, including being the founder and artistic director of Eagle Project, http://www.eagleprojectarts.org . Indigenous Stages tah-kōx INDIGENOUS STAGES is the world’s first interdisciplinary academic journal dedicated solely to the theatrical and cultural performance of Indigenous artists and communities from across the globe. Published by The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center at CUNY, the mission of INDIGENOUS STAGES is to foster, survey, and publish the contemporary and historical theoretical discourse surrounding the field. Peer-reviewed articles as well as critical book and performance reviews will contribute to further strengthen Indigenous studies as an academic discipline within theatre and performance studies. Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Indigenous Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The Natural Landscape of Native Puppetry Previous Next Attribution: Table of Contents for this volume

Angela Sweigart-Gallagher St. Lawrence University Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 37 1 Visit Journal Homepage Vermont Stage. Burlington, Vermont, 2023-24 Angela Sweigart-Gallagher St. Lawrence University By Published on December 16, 2024 Download Article as PDF Vermont Stage’s production of Cadillac Crew featuring Ashley Nicole Baptiste, Angella Katherine, Monica Leigh Rosenblatt, and Starnubia. Photo: Dan Gallagher. Talley’s Folley Lanford Wilson (26 Jul.- 26 Aug.) at Isham Family Farm Cadillac Crew Tori Sampson (27 Sept.-15 Oct.) And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank James Still (11-12 Nov.) at Temple Sinai and subsequent school tours Winter Tales conceived by Mark Nash (13-15 Dec.) Breakfalls Gina Stevensen (20 Mar.- 7 Apr.) tick, tick…BOOM! Jonathan Larson (book and lyrics) (1-26 May) The Bakeoff 2024: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune Terrence McNally (12- 16 Jun.) Vermont Stage’s 2023-2024 season represented a subtle change in the company’s focus. Previously, the company’s website described itself as Northern Vermont’s home for “contemporary theatre,” but now it reads home for “exceptional theatre.” This small change may explain why this season felt like a shift in programming. The 2023-2024 season opened in July with Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folley produced at Isham Family Farm, a picturesque outdoor location that offered the company a lifeline after audiences proved wary to return to indoor theatre following the pandemic; this now appears to be a feature of Vermont Stage’s early season programming. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning two-hander, which was first produced in 1979 and set in1944, is ostensibly a romantic comedy wherein one of the impediments to the lovers’ courtship is their Jewish/Protestant identities. While not a contemporary play in any sense, the show proved to be well-chosen for the idyllic setting. Scenic Designer Chuck Padula’s boathouse provided just enough space for Patrik Chow’s stage compositions to maintain tension between Matt and Sally, played by Connor Kendall and Leila Teitelman, while still allowing patrons to enjoy the Isham’s gardens. Connor Kendall’s performance of the play’s metatheatrical welcome speech charmed from the start. I saw the production on a particularly warm evening and couldn’t help but feel anxious for the actors as they sweat through Jess Nguyen’s simple yet effective period costumes in the oppressive humidity and blistering early evening sun. I was impressed with the energy of their performances; somehow Matt and Sally managed to convincingly argue, banter, and rekindle their love affair even in the withering heat. In the fall, Vermont Stage returned to Main Street Landing with Tori Sampson’s Cadillac Crew . Sampson’s play spends much of the first two acts focused on the lives and stories of the Black women (and, to a lesser extent, white women) at the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement. The play celebrates the legacy and power of their organizing and mobilization and acknowledges their corollaries in the Black Lives Matter movement. While the two first acts of the play are theatrically stronger than the third act, in which Sampson introduces figures from BLM, the dramaturgical purpose of the time and character shifts is clear. Director Jammie Patton helped craft lovely performances by an ensemble cast comprised of four actors making their Vermont Stage debuts. Ashley Nicole Babtiste as Rachel, Angella Katherine as Abby, Monica Leigh Rosenblatt as Sarah, and Starnubia as Dee each had standout moments and managed to create characters that spanned the play’s two timelines effectively. Sarah Sophia Lidz’s costumes captured not only the two time periods (1960s and today), but also the personalities of the characters. Jess Wilson’s sound design and Dan Gallagher’s lighting both beautifully created a sense of time and place. Gallagher’s lighting in Act 2 was particularly effective at capturing the eerie danger faced by four women driving the backroads of Mississippi. Vermont Stage had already programmed And Then They Came for Me before the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, but the show undoubtedly took on greater relevance to the local community when it was presented in November. Vermont Stage described the piece as a “multimedia reading performance , combining videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Éva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from their lives during World War II. ” Directed by Wendi Stein, the show had a limited run at a local temple before being made available for tours at local schools. The production was produced in partnership with the Stop Hate Campaign and was followed by a talkback on the rise of anti-Semitism led by a local Rabbi. Vermont Stage’s website included the following: “Please note: there will be a security presence on-site at each performance.” Gina Stevensen’s new play Breakfalls, perhaps the most experimental piece of Vermont Stage’s season, premiered at Main Street Landing in March. Set in a Vermont karate dojo, Stevensen’s play takes its name from a karate technique that allows participants to fall safely. The production was a moving meditation on the mental and physical strategies people use to create a sense of safety which heavily relied on the artistic interplay of Director Delanté Keys and fight coordinator José Pérez IV. Local critic Alex Brown reported that director Keys used the “space elegantly, expressing the meaning of distance visually and, for the characters, sometimes viscerally.” Artistic Director Cristina Alicea directed Vermont Stage’s final production of the season, Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…BOOM! The musical, which Alicea described as Larson’s “most personal,” featured strong performances by the small ensemble. Coleman Cummings, who played Jonathan, somehow managed to rise above the cloying earnestness of the role. Kianna Bromley as Susan and Connor Kendall as Michael rounded out the cast. Unfortunately, the day I saw the production, it was plagued by technical errors. There were out of sync light cues in which the actors found themselves out of their spotlights, and Kendall’s microphone pack shorted out and had to be replaced mid-song by a stagehand during one of the show’s most poignant musical numbers. Although the technical side of this production was not as effective as the actors’ performances,Padula’s set provided opportunities for Alicea’s inventive staging. A bank of lockers against the back wall opened in various ways, allowing the actors to transform the space into Jonathan’s apartment in one scene, and a bodega in another scene. The lockers also allowed the three performers to seamlessly gather and return props without exiting the performance space. Similarly, Alicea utilized two black benches in a variety of ways to create a piano and bench, a desk in Michael’s office, and a conference room. The actor manipulation of props and scenery added a metatheatrical element and helped keep the show moving. Vermont Stage began its 2023-2024 season with a new management structure in place and a season line-up that reflected a subtle shift in its programming with some older plays and a musical breaking up a season of lesser-known, newer work. This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Footnotes About The Author(s) ANGELA SWEIGART-GALLAGHER is an Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts at St. Lawrence University. Her scholarly writing and performance reviews have appeared in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre , New England Theatre Journal , parTake , Performance Matters, Performance Research , Theatre Symposium , Theory in Action, and Youth Theatre Journal . Dr. Sweigart-Gallagher earned her PhD in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Editorial Introduction A Comedy of Sorts: Race, Gender, and Satire in Slave Play Performing Girlhood, Riffing on Lolita: Fornés and Vogel Respond to Nabokov “It’s Cumming yet for a’ that”: Bringing the Scottish Bard to Life in the 21st Century Historiographic Metatheatre and Narrative Closure in Pippin’s Alternate “Theo Ending” “Each One, Teach One”: Interview with Harvey Fierstein Artists as Theorists in Their Craft: Interview with James Ijames The Spectacular Theatre of Frank Joseph Galati: Reshaping American Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Julie Jackson. London: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing. 2022. 215pp. Playing Real: Mimesis, Media, and Mischief. Lindsay Brandon Hunter. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2021; Pp. 192. Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity. Ryan Donovan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023; Pp. 316. Precarious Forms. Performing Utopia in the Neoliberal Americas. Evanston. Candice Amich. Northwestern University Press: 2020; Pp. 232. Queering Drag: Redefining the Discourse of Gender Bending. Meredith Heller. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020; Pp. 236. New England Theatre Journal: A fond farewell 1989-2023 New England Theatre in Review American Repertory Theater . Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2023–2024 Barrington Stage. Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2023 The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm). Warwick, Rhode Island, 2023-24 Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres. 2023-24 Season Hartford Stage. Hartford, Connecticut, 2023-24 The Huntington. Boston, Massachusetts, 2023-24 Long Wharf Theatre. New Haven, Connecticut, 2023-24 Portland Stage Company. Portland, Maine, 2023-24 Shakespeare & Company. Lenox, Massachusetts, 2023 Trinity Repertory Theatre Company. Providence, Rhode Island, 2023-24 Vermont Stage. Burlington, Vermont, 2023-24 Yale Repertory Theatre. New Haven, Connecticut, 2023-24 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

A green city-wide pop-up-park festival of creative, innovative, and inspiring environmental art works in the boroughs of New York City. Free. Outdoors. Off-grid. No electricity. Rain or shine. Bridge Matter / The Reach Bridge Matter / The Reach Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Weather Weather Bridge Matter / The Reach Bridge Matter / The Reach 1/13 Prelude in the Parks performances for the planet SEE SCHEDULE FREE | OUTDOORS | OFF-GRID/NO ELECTRICITY | RAIN OR SHINE A green city-wide pop-up parks festival of creative, innovative, and inspiring environmental art-works by artists addressing environmental & climate change issues. Co-Curated by Frank Hentschker & Robin Schatell / Mov!ngCulture Projects; The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center CUNY. June 7th @ 6pm, June 8th & 9th @ 3pm What's On: Performance I Dance I Music I Theatre I 13 Presentations Where It's Happening: Parks & Gardens City-Wide: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island – all 5 Boroughs Partners: Bronx River Community Garden; Eastside Outside Community Garden; Manhattan , Hunters Point Park Alliance/Queens ; ID Studio Theater/Bronx ; Social Practice CUNY; Newtown Creek Alliance/Brooklyn ; Roc-A-Natural Cultural Foundation/Staten Island ; Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy/Manhattan What's On Performance I Dance I Music I Theatre I 13 Presentations in 5 Boroughs Friday, June 7 - All performances @ 6pm Brooklyn Pliable Futures Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn Manhattan Devrai (Sacred Grove) Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Riverside Park, Manhattan Manhattan Bridge Matter / The Reach Kinesis Project dance theatre Inwood Hill Park, Gaelic Field, Manhattan Queens Guinean Environmental Stewardship Traditions Sidiki Conde and Tokounou Dance Company Hunter’s Point South Park, Queens Saturday, June 8 - All performances @ 3pm Bronx Land Connections: Reflections with Dennis Dennis RedMoon Darkeem Bronx River Community Garden.,The Bronx Manhattan The Heat Will Kill Everything Keith Josef Adkins Riverside Park South, Manhattan Bronx Dance in Connection ID Studio Theater and Daniel Fetecua Barretto Point Park, Viele Avenue, The Bronx Staten Island Mixed Use | Cyn | M.A. Dennis | Manners and Respect | | Thomas Fucaloro | Tappen Park, Staten Island Brooklyn WATER RISES Artichoke Dance Company Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn Manhattan Community Poetry and Tea Tea, Arts & Culture Eastside Outside Community Garden, Manhattan Sunday, June 9 - All performances @ 3pm Brooklyn Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Al Límite Collective Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn Brooklyn Resilience Thinking Walkscape Rafael de Balanzo Joue and Daniel Pravit Fethke Endale Arch, Prospect Park, Brooklyn Brooklyn Weather Anh Vo Brower Park, Prospect Place, Brooklyn Locations City-Wide: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queen Staten Island – all 5 Boroughs Meet The Team Robin Schatell Co-Curator Robin Schatell is a creative producer who works with artists, arts group, cultural and community organizations and city agencies to shape, design, develop, and organize creative visions for activating their public spaces with arts and cultural programming. Co-Founder , Mov!ng Culture Projects, Director of Museum Mile Festival for 20 years, Founder and Artistic Director of Riverside Park’s Summer on the Hudson Festival, Executive Director of River To River Festival, Director of Programming for Madison Square Parks’ Mad Sq Art program, Curator of Public Programs for the Van Alen Institute, Managing Director of Performance Space 122, and Ralph Lemon Company, Founder of The Puffin Room, Manhattan Community Board 3 Member, Contributing Cultural Writer for TheLoDownNYC.com. Gaurav Singh Nijjer Web and Digital Producer Gaurav Singh Nijjer is a theatre-maker, creative technologist and designer whose artistic works explore technology and media in live performance. He is one half of the Indian performing arts collective Kaivalya Plays, and also works as a freelance artist and arts manager with collectives in India and abroad, currently as Digital and Web Producer at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Centre CUNY. He is a former German Chancellor Fellow and a Chevening scholar. He trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Apart from theatre, Gaurav also works as a freelance marketing, design and creative consultant for diverse organizations. Frank Hentschker Co-Curator Frank Hentschker, who holds a Ph.D. in theatre from the now legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany, came to the Graduate Center in 2001 as program director for the Graduate Center’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and was appointed to the central doctoral faculty in theatre in 2009. Currently executive director and director of programs at the Segal Center, Hentschker has transformed the center into the nation’s leading forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies; each year, he curates and produces more than forty events—staged readings, lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress, and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries, and emerging voices in the international, American, and New York theatre scenes. Among the vital events and series he founded at the Segal Center are the World Theatre Performance series; the annual fall PRELUDE festival, which features more than twenty New York–based theatre companies and playwrights; and the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series. Hentschker also led CUNY’s nineteen performing arts centers in founding the CUNY–Performing Arts Consortium (C–PAC), producing the consortium’s first joint festival in 2009. Hentschker edited the MESTC publications Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (2009) and New Plays from Spain (2013), and he served as president of the board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005 to 2009. Before coming to the Graduate Center, Hentschker founded and directed DISCURS, the largest European student theatre festival existing today; he acted as Hamlet in Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine, directed by the playwright; performed in the Robert Wilson play The Forest (music by David Byrne); and worked as an assistant for Robert Wilson for many years. Producer, General Operations Manager Teresa Soraka Next Generation Fellow Nurit Chinn For queries, feedback and any more information get in touch with us at segalcenter@gmail.com

The Segal Centre The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC), The Graduate Center , CUNY , is a non-profit center for theatre, dance, and film affiliated with CUNY’s Ph.D. Program in Theatre . Originally founded in 1979 as the Center for Advanced Studies in Theatre Arts (CASTA), it was renamed in March of 1999 to recognize Martin E. Segal, one of New York City’s outstanding leaders of the arts. At the same time, the multi-purpose performing space in The Graduate Center’s new home in the former B. Altman department store was named the Martin E. Segal Theatre. The New York Times called Mr. Segal “New York’s leading cultural power broker.” An extraordinary figure in the arts and education in New York City, he has played a seminal role in many of the City’s most important cultural initiatives. The Center’s primary focus is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional performing arts communities by providing an open environment for the development of educational, community-driven, and professional projects in the performing arts. As a result, MESTC is home to theatre scholars, students, playwrights, actors, dancers, directors, dramaturgs, and performing arts managers, as well as both the local and international theatre communities. The Center presents staged readings to further the development of new and classic plays, lecture series, televised seminars featuring professional and academic luminaries, and arts in education programs, and maintains its long-standing visiting-scholars-from-abroad program. In addition, the Center publishes a series of highly regarded academic journals, as well as single volumes of importance, including plays in translation, all written and edited by renowned scholars. The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is a longstanding collaborative partner with the Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation where Dr. Frank Hentschker serves as an advisor. This collaboration includes national and international artistic exchanges of archival work, talks, and research regarding the work of Robert Wilson. The Martin E. Segal Theatre is a 70-seat, fully equipped flexible space that provides an intimate venue where both artists and theatre professionals can actively participate with audiences to further the advancement, awareness, and appreciation of the theatrical experience. In addition, the Segal Center presents three annual festivals (PRELUDE, PEN World Voices: International Pay Festival, and The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance) and publishes and maintains three open access online journals (Arab Stages, European Stages, and The Journal of American Drama and Theatre). The Segal Center also publishes many volumes of plays in translation and is the leading publisher of plays from the Arab world. The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC) is a vital component of the Theatre Program’s academic culture and creating in close collaboration a research nexus, focusing on dramaturgy, new media, and global theatre. The Segal Center provides an intimate platform where both artists and theatre professionals can actively participate with audiences to advance awareness and appreciation MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER The CUNY Graduate Center Room 3110 New York, NY10016 ph: 212.817.1860 mestc@gc.cuny.edu

Dan Colson Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 1 Visit Journal Homepage “What Will Be Changed?”: Maxwell Anderson and the Literary Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti Dan Colson By Published on December 9, 2021 Download Article as PDF The stage directions for Clifford Odets’s 1935 Awake and Sing! call for a “picture of Sacco and Vanzetti” to be hung in Jacob’s room. [1] The picture signals the play’s investment in 1930s radical politics and foreshadows Jacob’s role: the aging Marxist who hopes to pass his communism onto his grandson. Placing Sacco and Vanzetti as a physical image that haunts the entire play is, of course, unsurprising for perhaps the most prominent radical dramatist of the period. Even eight years after their deaths, Nicola Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927) stood as symbols for the Left. The two men were arrested for an April 1920 burglary and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts. They spent more than seven years in prison as their trial and appeals played out and were executed in August 1927. The story of these two Italian anarchists captured the world’s attention, sparking widespread outrage. Many believed the men to be innocent and far more believed the guilty verdict emerged from a flawed legal process—in the midst of the era’s anti-radical environment, Sacco and Vanzetti were punished for being anarchists, not for any crime they committed. The two immigrants became a cause célèbre for the literary Left, as their perceived mistreatment intersected with the interwar era’s interest in radical politics. In the late 1910s, radical politics were a dangerous proposition: the First Red Scare—culminating with the infamous Palmer Raids of 1919 and 1920—saw mass arrests and deportations that sent many American socialists, communists, and anarchists to prison or back to their home countries. [2] This anti-radical environment set the stage both for Sacco and Vanzetti’s arrests and for the outrage that followed: as anarchists, they risked being arrested (and sent back to Italy) at any time, so their arrest for a burglary only a few months after the Palmer Raids appeared to many as too convenient. As their trial unfolded and their lives hung in legal limbo for years, the Left saw in these two purportedly innocent anarchists a rallying cry: their prolonged ordeal reinvigorated the Left, as ardent radicals and soft-hearted liberals found common ground. Amongst those drawn to their plight, we find a large number of the period’s well-known writers: Odets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mike Gold, Lucia Trent, Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos and countless others wrote about Sacco and Vanzetti. These writers—from a range of political positions—all cast doubt on the perceived justice of their conviction and eventual execution. While Sacco and Vanzetti were still alive, many writers focused their attention on immediate goals: delaying their execution, winning a reprieve from Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller, calling attention to the trial’s injustice, and swaying public sentiment in ways that might influence the powerful figures who were still in the process of determining the two anarchists’ fate. In short, authors writing up to August 1927 mostly sought to help Sacco and Vanzetti—two men’s lives were at stake. After their deaths, however, writers’ goals shifted. It was too late to save Sacco and Vanzetti, but many Left-leaning writers saw in their ordeal a potent symbol of what was wrong with the United States. This process of interpretation—of establishing the lasting meaning of these events—left us with a number of texts that lament the failures of the American legal system and call for major changes to ensure such a tragic miscarriage of justice would not occur again. None of these works, however, embrace the politics of their subjects. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists; they believed the government was irredeemably broken and that no amount of reform could ever remedy the flaws of American democracy. In fact, they were followers of Luigi Galleani, an Italian anarchist who openly espoused violent anti-government actions. [3] As radical and progressive writers interpreted the significance of Sacco and Vanzetti’s plight, however, their anarchism tended to disappear—sublimated to other political agendas that rejected the extremes of anarchism. Despite the fact that many people believed Sacco and Vanzetti were treated unfairly precisely because they were anarchists, authors writing after their deaths minimized their politics, turning them into symbols for the writers’ political and artistic visions. In this essay, I focus on Maxwell Anderson, who wrote two plays about Sacco and Vanzetti: Gods of the Lightning in 1928, just after their execution, and Winterset in 1935, when the two men’s legacy had been almost entirely sublimated to others’ political agendas. Anderson is an interesting figure within the body of Sacco-Vanzetti literature. On the one hand, scholars have rightly recognized Anderson’s dalliance with radicalism which makes him a natural author to take up the topic. On the other hand, Anderson underwent a dramatic, yet prolonged, political transformation—a significant shift toward the Right. His two Sacco-Vanzetti plays appeared in the midst of this transition, as Anderson—like many Left-leaning authors from the period—responded to the rise of fascism and began to drift away from the more strident forms of American radicalism. The plays, then, were written in moments when Anderson still saw Leftist politics and economic policy as potential answers to social injustice, yet they were subsequently inflected by a playwright who gradually distanced himself from the Left. Interpretation of Gods of the Lightning and Winterset have been complicated by Anderson’s political transformation (and, in fact, by Anderson’s own understandings of the plays vis-à-vis radical politics). In what follows, I argue the plays—while different in key respects—demonstrate a consistent political fatalism that can help us better understand Anderson’s relationship to the radical Left. In them, he finds little hope for radical politics, as the plays’ plots turn away from anarchism to other, more personal matters and, in the process, tend toward hopelessness. These two plays thus portend Anderson’s disillusionment with the Left, which does not offer the answers he seeks and cannot redress the injustice he laments. At the heart of this fatalism, however, are his thinly veiled representations of two executed anarchists. Anderson builds his fatalistic political vision on Sacco and Vanzetti, an ubiquitous symbol of the nation’s failures. Doing so required, to a certain extent, abjuring their radicalism. As anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti rejected the nation outright. To them, there was no remedying legal injustice; the law itself was injustice. Gods of the Lightning and Winterset minimizes this anarchism, offering instead a mélange of vaguely Leftist politics and individualized, largely apolitical, personal strife. According to many, Anderson makes the anarchism that explained Sacco and Vanzetti’s execution impotent, if not irrelevant, in the plays. In this respect, Anderson’s portrayal of the men distills the broader evolution of their literary depictions: stripped of the specificity of their radicalism, Sacco and Vanzetti become generic symbols, manipulated for the political and literary visions of the authors who deploy their image. Ultimately, analysis of anarchism’s appearance in Gods of the Lightning and Winterset reveals a fundamental rejection of their subjects’ politics. Their anarchism is replaced by a sense of hopelessness, and then by a revisioning of the plays’ import: these are not plays about anarchism or anarchist plays; they are plays that happen to be about anarchists. My argument here thus offers us a better understanding of Anderson’s oeuvre (and the role his politics play in it), but also a clearer look at the ways in which Sacco and Vanzetti were deployed by the era’s literary Left as strikingly non-anarchist symbols of the nation’s shortcomings. Anderson’s Uncertain Politics Anderson’s father was a railroad-worker-turned-itinerant-minister, so Anderson’s childhood was marked by frequent moves, an uneven education, and a large dose of Protestantism (which he almost entirely rejected). Though his family often struggled financially and Anderson himself held a number of working-class jobs in his early adulthood, there are no meaningful radical influences in his social sphere during his formative years. He was early drawn to Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, from whom he learned a “distrust for ‘big’ government” and a “sometimes errant individualism.” [4] Then, while at the University of North Dakota, he studied Thorstein Veblen under a socialist professor. [5] In 1912, Anderson, then 23, declared, “I have become a Socialist.” [6] A few years later, in a letter to his life-long friend Upton Sinclair, he describes himself as “Bolshevistic.” [7] During this period, it appeared the “champion of liberty and justice” might embrace the radical Left. [8] Only a few years later, while working for The New Republic , Anderson seemed uninterested in “politics, national or international.” [9] In the 1920s he was a “staunch” liberal “against monopolies and for organized labor.” [10] By the late 1930s, however, he felt forced to choose between “the evils of capitalism” and the “evils of collectivism.” [11] He chose capitalism, and by the beginning of WWII he believed “Communism [was] dangerous,” and a threat to “democratic government.” [12] Eventually, Anderson aligned with Joseph McCarthy and others who contended that “any American member of the Communist Party was a criminal dedicated to overthrowing the government by force.” [13] In Anderson’s authoritative biography, Alfred S. Shivers describes the dramatist as an “individualist and a rebel,” a man with “wide-ranging sympathies.” [14] These sympathies intersected with the Left at moments, but they hardly suggest a man who would write multiple plays about arguably the most famous anarchists in American history. Like many fellow-travelers—individuals who flirted with radicalism, yet never fully embraced the more extreme Leftist politics that largely define “radical literature” from this period—Anderson’s politics transformed as he aged and as his political environment changed. In fact, Anderson’s political journey makes him a paradigmatic example of one type of fellow traveler: he came to socialism early in the twentieth century, when it was the most prevalent brand of American radicalism; he approved of and was drawn to the rise of communism in Russia; he associated with Leftist playwrights such as Odets and the Group Theatre during the 1930s, the heyday of radical literature and theater; he dropped his pacifism during the anti-fascist, pre-WWII era; he turned to American democracy during WWII; [15] and he fully rejected communism during the Cold War. Perhaps predictably then, during the interwar period Anderson’s politics are difficult to define at any given moment. His views were predominantly a mix of American individualism—an anti-institutional, yet malleable distrust for anything that intruded upon one’s “liberty”—and progressive economic ideas (i.e., his prolonged, if incomplete, infatuation with socialism and communism). In some, these dual concerns might combine into an anti-statist, economically egalitarian anarchism (as they did for Sacco and Vanzetti and numerous others from the turn of the century to WWII), but in Anderson, they generated a pendulous politics swinging from radical to reactionary based on the historical moment’s ideological climate. If there is any consistency in Anderson’s political stances, it comes from being “deeply distrustful of all institutional authorities.” [16] At times, this inclination manifests as a belief that the “American government is steadily encroaching on the individual’s rights and independence.” [17] Anderson’s Both Your Houses (1933), for instance, was “intended to be a blast at the Hoover administration.” [18] A critically acclaimed play that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it offers relatively overt commentary on the era’s political milieu—especially the rejection of Hoover’s volunteerism and the increasing sense, amongst radicals and progressives alike, that major changes to the American economy were necessary—even if was not staged until after Hoover left office and the nature of the conversation had changed significantly. Anderson’s anti-authoritarian stance has even led some to label Anderson a “libertarian” and an “anarchist.” [19] But even Anderson’s peers were confused by his politics, with Odets once calling him “‘a damned reactionary, a fascist!” [20] By that time, Anderson himself self-protectively embraced detachment from organized politics, claiming merely, “I vote Democratic or Republican as I please.” [21] To this day, scholars continue to struggle to locate Anderson’s politics. As I detail below, some claim he was a socialist, others an anarchist, while others avoid the question altogether. Russell DiNapoli offers the lengthiest consideration of Anderson’s relationship to anarchism, linking the playwright’s politics to William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and, most strongly, early-twentieth-century American anarchist Benjamin Tucker. [22] In doing so, however, DiNapoli almost entirely distances Anderson from the major threads of American anarchism prevalent during his career. By the 1920s, Tucker’s influence had waned significantly as he turned away from anarchism as a viable political solution. Rather, figures like Galleani, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman held sway in American anarchist circles—they and their followers became the target of anti-radical sentiment because they were the most visible anarchists, and their punishments, in turn, increased their standing within radical circles. This “violent” anarchism, as DiNapoli calls it, achieved ascendency, [23] which is precisely why Sacco and Vanzetti presented such a threat: they were not philosophical anarchists; they advocated for the overthrow of US governance. DiNapoli concludes that anarchism appears in Anderson’s plays more as a “personal philosophy” than an “ideology,” and that “nowhere does the playwright uphold anarchism as it was defined” by prominent anarchists (past or present). [24] In short, Anderson was interested in anarchism, but his politics never reified around it or any other single radical position. Ethan Mordden perhaps sums it up best: “Anderson’s affiliation was anarchist, though he conceded that anarchy [was] out of reach and democracy was flawed but useful.” [25] In keeping with other scholars, Mordden suggests that Anderson was an anarchist who did not really accept the basic premises of anarchism! [26] Ultimately, Anderson is an example of the persistent difficulty in writing about literary radicalism from this period: a dramatist linked to radical and progressive political causes, writing in an era of radical literary politics, but with views detached from the dominant threads of radicalism. Anderson’s plays and his politics embody a not uncommon generic radicalism: though never fully embracing any of the era’s radical ideologies, he was often labeled as radical, and thus is emblematic of intellectuals and writers who drifted left during the period, many of whom were called radical, even when their politics resembled those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt more than Emma Goldman. Like many, the Sacco-Vanzetti affair attracted Anderson, but the motivation for his attraction remains ambiguous. Consequently, scholars who discuss Anderson’s purported radicalism sometimes fall into a type of circular reasoning: they argue that he was drawn to the case because he was a Leftist; therefore, he was a Leftist because he was drawn to the case. His two plays about Sacco and Vanzetti, Gods of the Lightning and Winterset , do not define the complexity of his political journey, nor do they establish him as a staunchly radical playwright. These plays do, however, provide insight into the floating, generic literary radicalism of the 1920s and 1930s. The plays deploy Sacco and Vanzetti as political symbols representative of anarchism, but the nature of these symbols is fragmented and detached from the men’s own lived anarchism. Anderson’s First Anarchists: Gods of the Lightning Gods of the Lightning , which Anderson co-wrote with Harold Hickerson, has been largely forgotten. [27] The play was completed in the spring of 1928, only a few months after Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, staged later that year, and published in early 1929. The play immediately prompted a variety of negative responses to its perceived political transgressions and aesthetic shortcomings: “The Chief of the Licensing Division of the City of Boston, J. M. Case, ruled that [it] was practically ‘anarchist and treasonable’ and should not, therefore, be licensed for presentation in that city”; [28] it was dubbed “a failure” precisely because it was based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case and thus “missed a chance to [be] a decidedly finer play”; [29] and it has since been called “an indignantly one-sided and propagandistic account of social injustice that is practically devoid of literary interest.” [30] Nevertheless, it ran at the Little Theater in New York City for 29 performances in October 1928, and the Group Theatre revived it in 1934, signaling some acceptance from Leftist dramatic circles. Anderson and Hickerson attempt to create a one-to-one corollary to Sacco and Vanzetti in Gods of the Lightning : “Vanzetti becomes Dante Capraro, the gentle and humane Anarchist” while “Sacco is greatly transformed into the native-born American James Macready, a militant International Woodsmen of the World leader.” [31] Jennifer Jones argues that Sacco and Vanzetti “are combined in the character of Capraro, a pacifist organizer,” [32] but Macready clearly also reflects elements of their story and their politics, functioning as a rough amalgam of the two anarchists. While the play does privilege the “American man of action,” [33] Vanzetti’s labor organizing mirrors Macready’s union work, and the similarities between the case and the play favor reading Capraro and Macready as representations of Sacco and Vanzetti, even if their reproduction is inexact and overlapping. The plot similarly veils the Sacco-Vanzetti case in the thinnest veneer, reproducing the Left’s widespread message about the men by depicting the arrest, trial, and execution of Capraro and Macready as a heinous injustice in which the mechanisms of law are distorted and misused to eliminate a radical threat. Certainly, the play attacks the legal system’s failures, but it does not offer a cohesive “left wing message.” [34] Jones and others imagine Anderson set out to write a socialist play—they begin with the assumption that Anderson was a radical. [35] They then analyze the play and find it is not particularly radical in comparison to its radical author. This reading, though, is symptomatic of Anderson’s conflicted politics and his concomitant untidy representation of Sacco and Vanzetti. In addition, these critics’ efforts to evaluate a play about two anarchists by comparing it to the author’s purported socialism, inevitably pushes anarchism to the margins. Gods of the Lightning emerges in the historical moment that Sacco and Vanzetti are transformed from living victims to potent symbols: it marks a politically wavering playwright’s articulation of anarchism to a similarly diffuse, and increasingly generic, vision of radicalism. The unsettled role of anarchism in the play occurs initially through Capraro and Macready who each reject government for different reasons. Macready says “government’s nothing so important. It’s a police system, to protect the wealth of the wealthy.” [36] Though linked to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), his critique of government is purely economic. [37] Macready parrots Vanzetti’s economic ideology without embracing his anti-government stance. Capraro’s political views, on the other hand, are simple anti-state anarchism, as revealed by his testimony during the play’s version of the trial: Salter: Do you believe in capitalism?Capraro: No.Salter: You believe that all property should belong to the workers?Capraro: Property should belong to those who create it.Salter: You are a communist?Capraro: I am an anarchist.Salter: What do you mean by that?Capraro: I mean, government is wrong. It creates trouble.Salter: You would destroy all government?Capraro: It will not be necessary. I would rather wait till it was so rotten it would rot away . . .Salter: You are against this government of ours?Capraro: Against all governments. [38] He denies being a communist, rejects government regardless of its implication in economic oppression, and, elsewhere, eschews all violence: “When you take violence into your hands, you lower yourself to the level of government, which is the origin of crime and evil.” [39] Both Macready and Capraro contain elements of Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s specific lives and political beliefs, yet they “represent the gamut of nonviolent anti-government philosophy and action,” [40] a major deviation from the two Galleanists on which they are based. Perhaps reflecting his own conflicted politics, Anderson juxtaposes non-anarchist Leftism with strict anti-government anarchism (while excluding violence almost entirely), creating a field of indeterminacy. Were the play fully dedicated to a propagandistic retelling of Sacco and Vanzetti’s plight, it likely would end with their execution, or perhaps with a reiteration of the anarchist statements the men (primarily Vanzetti) made as their deaths approached. The play, however, does not end with an execution. Rather, it interprets the events for its audience, recasting the meaning of these purportedly unjust deaths. With the anarchists dead, the play’s final lines are given to Rosalie, Macready’s lover. She expresses the drama’s closing sentiment. The remaining living characters wait in the restaurant while Capraro and Macready are executed. There Rosalie speaks the play’s concluding words: Don’t whisper it! Don’t whisper it! Didn’t you hear me say not to whisper any more? That’s what they’ll want you to do—whisper it—keep quiet about it—say it never happened—it couldn’t happen—two innocent men killed—keep it dark—keep it quiet— No! No! Shout it! They’re killing them . . . Mac—Mac—my dear—they have murdered you—while we stood here trying to think of what to do they murdered you! Just a moment ago you had a minute left—and it was the only minute in the whole world—and now—now this day will never end for you—there will be no more days . . . Shout it! Shout it! Cry out! Run and cry! Only—it won’t do any good—now. [41] All but the last line of Rosalie’s monologue gesture toward martyrdom—a bold call to ensure Macready’s death is not forgotten—but her final sentence turns to fatalism: the deaths have no meaning. “It won’t do any good” to shout of this injustice. Rosalie’s despondency has two ramifications. One is political: if Gods of the Lightning is a propaganda piece, a socialist (or anarchist) play (failed or otherwise), her fatalism contradicts the men’s politics and denies Sacco and Vanzetti any legacy. Contrary to Marxian theory and the lived politics of these two anarchists, nothing can be done; all is hopeless, revolution is impossible. The other is personal: the drama is a tragedy playing out against the backdrop of a politicized trial, not a political tragedy. In this case, sharing the tragedy of their unjust deaths is meaningless, because they are still dead, and Rosalie’s individual sorrow will not be assuaged by any political action. As Michael Schwartz argues, the play evokes “the anger and the fatalism” many felt after Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. [42] This “ultimate grimness,” [43] however, speaks more about those left to process their deaths than about the two anarchists themselves. By doing so, Anderson recast the men’s potential martyrdom as a reason for despair rather than action. And, he ignored Vanzetti’s own words before his execution: “Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man’s understanding of man as how we do by an accident.” [44] Despite his looming death, Vanzetti did not give into fatalism, and Gods of the Lightning need not either—Anderson’s politics recast the meaning of these events. Anderson chose to write about two anarchists, but he creates characters who espouse pacifistic anarchism and those who speak for radical labor. He links these two positions through their placement within a legal system that is subject to the play’s critique, yet he concludes by questioning the meaning and the lasting significance of Sacco and Vanzetti’s martyrdom. Anderson chose Sacco and Vanzetti as subject matter, but by exploring their politics through a pseudo-Leftist play that ends on a note either of political fatalism or apolitical loss, he sublimates anarchism. Though his ambiguous political agenda may be tied tenuously to Leftist ideologies, it is clearly not anarchist—it bears little resemblance to its real-life protagonists’ radicalism. Anderson’s Anarchist Trial: Winterset Unlike Gods of the Lightning , Winterset , written and published in 1955, was an immediate critical success, winning the Drama Critics Circle Award, and it continues to hold a secure position in the Western dramatic canon. [45] This success, though, tends to detach all political content from the play. [46] Anderson conceived of Winterset as “an experiment, an attempt to twist raw, modern reality to the shape and meaning of poetry.” [47] In his introduction to the play, he discusses his yearning for a “great theatre in this country,” one that has “outgrow[n] the phase of journalistic social comment and reache[d] . . . into the upper air of poetic tragedy.” [48] While outlining these ambitions, he fails to mention Sacco and Vanzetti. Setting out to write a tragic verse play and thus “establish a new [dramatic] convention, Anderson imagine[d] himself to be participating in a purely literary endeavor with little political import.” [49] According to DiNapoli, Anderson saw the Sacco-Vanzetti subject matter as a sure way to receive publicity in the politically charged 1930s, “and he judged that if he handled the subject in a way that did not infuse the potentially explosive event with newfound political life, a financial success might be achieved.” [50] Steven Richman more generously suggests, “Anderson, long a champion of individual liberties [was] clearly offended” by Sacco and Vanzetti’s plight. [51] Regardless of Anderson’s intent, the notion that Winterset is not a political play has retained remarkable traction: in the seventy-five years since it was written, scholars have focused on the play’s dramatic sources, conventions, and innovations, while frequently minimizing the historical event at its center. [52] It seems that when writing “propagandistic” plays, Anderson established a reputation for “Leftism” that was suspended temporarily when he wrote “pure literature.” [53] Put differently, when considered in the context of dramatic innovation, Winterset is granted a reprieve from the taint of radicalism, but given the overall context of Anderson’s work (including Gods of the Lightning and Both Your Houses ), it is strange to ignore the obvious political overtones in the play. [54] In 1935, Anderson had not yet fully rejected radical politics and he still associated with and was produced by Left-leaning theatre groups. Despite its subsequent sterilization, Winterset no more directly addressed the Sacco-Vanzetti affair and radicalism than did Gods of the Lightning . [55] In Winterset , Anderson again thinly veils his characters. Mio, the play’s protagonist, is the son of Bartolomeo Romagna, a radical fish peddler. Romagna is a conflated image of Sacco and Vanzetti, combining Vanzetti’s vocation (fishmonger) with Sacco’s fatherhood (Vanzetti had no children.). Notably, Romagna never appears in the play’s action: he haunts the text’s dialogue but is not a character; he establishes the link to Sacco and Vanzetti yet is a generic amalgam of both men’s anarchism. Winterset also includes Judge Gaunt, an obvious analog to Webster Thayer, the judge who presided over Sacco and Vanzetti’s trial, rejected several appeals and regularly defended the verdict, and, thus, was subject to particular ire from those who saw the entire ordeal as an injustice. In addition, Garth, Trock, and Shadow represent the real-life Morelli gang who may well have committed the crime for which Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted. [56] Set thirteen years after Romagna’s execution, the play depicts Mio’s search for the truth: he refuses to believe his father capable of murder and having sought the guilty parties for years, he eventually learns of and seeks out Garth, who witnessed Trock kill Romagna. This quest is paralleled by Trock’s efforts to kill anyone who might implicate him in the crime and by Judge Gaunt’s aimless, insane wanderings as he attempts to justify his court’s verdict. These three paths converge on the night of the play’s action, the same night on which Mio meets Miriamne and falls in love, providing a romantic plot which Anderson privileges over the Sacco-Vanzetti backdrop. Radicalism appears early in the play. Trock has come to see Garth, worried that continued interest in the case will lead Garth to confess and implicate him. Garth asks: who wants to go to trial againexcept the radicals? . . .Let the radicals go on howlingabout getting a dirty deal. They always howland nobody gives a damn. [57] Here, Garth gestures toward the continued interest in the Sacco-Vanzetti case but reduces this interest to the “radical” element; many may still take a voyeuristic interest in the case, but only the radicals are still interested in pursuing justice. Mio is aligned with this sustained “radical” interest because he too seeks the truth: No other love,time passing, nor the spaced light-years of sunsshall blur your voice, or tempt me from the paththat clears your name. [58] He seeks the truth because he must: Will you tell me how a man’sto live, and face his life, if he can’t believethat truth’s like a fire,and will burn through and be seenthough it takes all the years there are? [59] Mio does not believe the legal system’s findings, so he rejects them and seeks truth elsewhere; he wants to clear his father’s name, which is all that can be accomplished since Romagna is already dead. At the same time, the judge roams the streets, defending the legal system: Judge Gaunt’s gone off his nut. He’s gotthat damn trial on his mind, and been going roundproving to everybody he was right all the timeand the radicals were guilty—stopping peoplein the street to prove it—and now he’s nuts entirelyand nobody knows where he is. [60] The combination of Mio’s quest for truth contrary to the one produced by the legal system and Gaunt’s insane defense of the trial resemble Gods of the Lightning , suggests a substantive critique of the system that convicted Sacco and Vanzetti. Thirteen years after Romagna’s death (and eight years after Sacco and Vanzetti’s), however, Anderson suspends this critique, reducing it to context for the burgeoning romance between Mio and Miriamne (Garth’s sister), who meet and immediately fall in love. At this point, Winterset ’s attack on the legal system fades as Anderson redirects the action: [61] the play shifts from a pursuit of truth to an establishment of truth secondary to the pursuit of love. Suddenly, the Judge is no longer described as insane and he begins to sound cruel, yet reasonable in his defense of the verdict: I know and have knownwhat bitterness can rise against a courtwhen it must say, putting aside all weakness,that a man’s to die. I can forgive you that,for you are your father’s son, and you think of himas a son thinks of his father. Certain lawsseem cruel in their operation; it’s necessarythat we be cruel to uphold them. [62] As Mio, Garth, Trock, and Judge Gaunt interact, critique of the trial comes to the fore, with the tenement turning into a courtroom: Gaunt slips into his role as judge, calling for Order, gentlemen, order! The witness will rememberthat a certain decorum is essential in the court-room. [63] The fictive Judge Thayer, Morelli gang, and Sacco-Vanzetti family all reenter the legal system, and in this surreal recreation of the courtroom, Mio finds the truth he seeks. Romagna’s innocence and Gaunt’s complicity in the legal injustice are revealed, yet Gaunt still defends the verdict: [64] Suppose it known,but there are things a judge must not believethough they should head and fester underneathand press in on his brain. Justice once renderedin a clear burst of anger, righteously,upon a very common laborer,confessed an anarchist, the verdict foundand the precise machinery of lawinvoked to know him guilty—think what furorwould rock the state if the court then flatly said;all this was lies—must be reversed? It’s better,as any judge can tell you, in such cases,holding the common good to be worth morethan small injustice, to let the record stand,let one man die. For justice, in the main,is governed by opinion. Communitieswill have what they will have, and it’s quite as well,after all, to be rid of anarchists. Our rightsas citizens can be maintained as rightsonly while we are held to be the peersof those who live about us. [65] The romantic plot requires the resolution of critique, so Anderson dramatically retries the case. In the seemingly obvious climax of Mio’s life story, he confirms his father’s innocence, learning that the legal system failed him by succeeding in its main goal, the maintenance of social order. As in Gods of the Lightning , Anderson takes aim at the legal system and finds it corrupt. Mio’s beliefs are confirmed, and he can now spread word of Romagna’s innocence: Wherever menstill breathe and think, and know what’s done to themby the powers above, they’ll know. [66] Just like Rosalie in Gods of the Lightning , Mio calls for the truth to be spread—again dissemination momentarily appears to be the necessary step for redressing legal injustice. Yet Mio does no such thing. From the time he learns the “truth” until the end of the play, Mio’s love for Miramne triumphs over his pursuit for the truth, and the fatalism of Gods of the Lightning reemerges. Winterset ’s fatalism operates on two levels. First, after Mio learns the truth, the value of this truth—and its dissemination—are called into question. Miriamne’s and Garth’s father Edras questions the value of pursuing the issue: What will be changedif it comes to trial again? More blood poured outto a mythical justice, but your father lying stillwhere he lies now. [67] He then fundamentally denies the value of what Mio has learned: “there is no truth.” [68] This dismissal of the play’s revelation intersects with Miriamne’s desire that Mio not reveal Garth’s guilt. She asks Mio to keep their secret and he agrees: I tried to say itand it strangled my throat. I might have knownyou’d win in the end. [69] Second, Mio’s choice of Mariamne over his life-long goal of clearing his father’s name proves meaningless when both characters die at the play’s end. Mio abnegates the hope of “learn[ing] to live like a man . . . to live and forget to hate” and the “truth” for Mariamne, only to lose his life at Trock’s hand. [70] In Winterset , Anderson attacks the American legal system much as he does in Gods of the Lightning , but once again closes on a dual note of personal tragedy and political hopelessness. Any radicalism is sublimated to other concerns. In the earlier play—with its gossamer radicalism mirroring Anderson’s shifting, indeterminate politics—anarchism becomes pacifist, irrelevant, and impotent. In the later one, Sacco and Vanzetti linger as the nearly invisible background for dramatic innovation and poetic tragedy. In both cases, Anderson deploys the anarchists as neutered symbols of injustice: anarchism is sublimated, which in itself is not surprising, nor profound, but in the context of other literature from this period, Anderson’s choices resonate more powerfully. Twice he structured a play around Sacco and Vanzetti; twice he tentatively attacked the legal system’s failures; and twice he minimized the significance of this critique by ending with fatalism. The mere appearance of anarchists in Anderson’s plays does not make him an anarchist. He may have found some aspects of anarchism appealing, but neither of these plays nor his statements about politics suggest that Anderson aligned with the more radical forms of the era’s Left. Rather, he appears as another fellow traveler: someone who flirted with radical politics, yet ultimately sublimated them to his personal, political, and literary vision. Ultimately, Gods of the Lightning and Winterset distill the transformation of Sacco and Vanzetti into potent, yet disarticulated symbols: they continued to signify well after their deaths, but their signification was fully separated from their politics. Their appearance in literature functioned as radical bona fides : touching on the Sacco-Vanzetti affair’s injustice (even briefly) signified attachment to the broadly Leftist movement of the late 1920s and 1930s. Anderson’s plays, though—like much of the literature that shaped the meaning of Sacco and Vanzetti’s legacy—essentially strip anarchism of its power and specificity. Their image is no longer meaningfully anarchist; it simply marks a pseudo-radical shell that could be filled with literary and political content. References [1] . Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays , ed. Harold Clurman (New York: Grove Press, 1993), 40. [2] . For a brief history of anti-radical sentiment and laws from this period (with particular focus on anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti), see Dan Colson, “Erasing Anarchism: Sacco and Vanzetti and the Logic of Representation,” American Quarterly 66, no. 4 (2014): 179-196. [3] . For a detailed analysis of Sacco and Vanzetti’s politics see Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1991). Avrich convincingly argues the two men were Galleanists. Even amongst radicals, Galleani stood out as particularly extreme, so Sacco and Vanzetti were neither the naïfs some have claimed nor merely philosophical anarchists—they were aggressively opposed to all state governance and believed violence was justified to achieve an anarchist society. [4] . Alfred S. Shivers, The Life of Maxwell Anderson (New York: Stein and Day, 1983), 26. [5] . Ibid., 39. [6] . Anderson to John M. Gillette, 15 September 1912, in Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958 , ed. Laurence G. Avery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 3. [7] . Anderson to Upton Sinclair, June 1919, in Dramatist in America , 13. [8] . Shivers, The Life , 111. [9] . Ibid., 61. [10] . Ibid., 63. [11] . Anderson to Brooks Atkinson, 21 August 1939, Dramatist in America , 90-91. [12] . Anderson to Donald Ogden Stewart, 11 March 1941, Dramatist in America , 110. [13] . Shivers, The Life , 238. [14] . Ibid., 56, 1. [15] . Shivers argues that “Anderson . . . believe[d] that under any conditions except wartime, government was the natural enemy of the average citizen” ( The Life , 198). According to Shivers, “[t]he exigencies of total war had compelled him to reach a truce within his own democratic government” ( The Life , 198). Note the rejection of pacifism linked to the anti-fascism: Anderson was willing to accept both government and war to fight fascism. Like many radicals and progressives from the era, he appears to have accepted the Popular Front logic that moderates, liberals, and radicals must all come together to fight the immediate enemy: the fascists. [16] . Shivers, The Life , 7. [17] . Shivers, Maxwell Anderson (Boston: Twayne, 1976), 137. [18] . Shivers, The Life , 125. [19] Russell DiNapoli, “Fragile Currency of the Last Anarchist: The Plays of Maxwell Anderson,” New Theatre Quarterly 18, no. 3 (2002): 277, 282. [20] . Hal Cantor, “Anderson and Odets and the Group Theater,” in Maxwell Anderson and the New York Stage , eds. Nancy J. Doran Hazelton and Kenneth Krauss (Monroe, NY: Library Research Assoc., 1991), 34. [21] . Anderson to the editor, November 1944, Dramatist in America , 192. [22] . Russell DiNapoli, The Elusive Prominence of Maxwell Anderson in the American Theater (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2002), 56. [23] . Ibid., 53 [24] . Ibid., 54. [25] . Ethan Mordden, Sing for Your Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s (New York: St. Marten’s Press, 2005), 230. [26] . Turning to Mordden, who does not write extensively about Anderson, captures the ubiquity of this seemingly contradictory view: the notion that Anderson was an anarchist—but one who did not really embrace anarchist views—saturates much scholarship on his plays. [27] . Calling the play “minor,” Shivers’s biography of Anderson almost entirely ignores Gods of the Lightning , and—in a suggestion of how scholars have struggled to deal with the appearance of Sacco and Vanzetti in Anderson’s plays—notes merely that it was “based on an internationally famous legal trial” (Shivers, The Life , 112). [28] . Shivers, Maxwell Anderso n, 106. [29] . Barrett H. Clark, Maxwell Anderson: The Man and His Plays (Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1976), 17-18. [30] . Shivers, Maxwell Anderso n, 106. [31] . Ibid. The play also includes Celestino Medeiros, a convicted murder who confessed to the Braintree crime and claimed Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. Medeiros’s execution was delayed while Governor Fuller and the Lowell Commission considered his confession alongside other evidence, but ultimately they did not believe his story and he was executed the same night as Sacco and Vanzetti. In the play, “Madeiros [ sic ] is changed into the bleak-minded and fatalistic restaurant owner Suvorin” (Shivers, Maxwell Anderson , 106). [32] . Jennifer Jones, “A Fictitious Injustice: The Politics of Conversation in Maxwell Anderson’s Gods of the Lightning ,” American Drama 4, no. 2 (1995): 83. [33] . Ibid. [34] . Ibid., 107. [35] . Jones, for instance, reads the play as a “socialist drama” that merges “political protest with instinctive American worship of the individual” (89, 83). By claiming Capraro is a condensation of Sacco and Vanzetti and arguing that Capraro’s politics always come second to Macready’s, Jones attempts to demonstrate that the play “eviscerated the beliefs [Sacco and Vanzetti] died for” (94). She builds this argument, however, on the claim that “Sacco and Vanzetti were pacifists,” misreading their anti-war stance as the rejection of all violence (88). Ultimately, she accuses Anderson of focusing on an “American protagonist” at the expense of the “socioeconomic forces of race and class oppression that brought about the death of Sacco and Vanzetti” (93). [36] . Anderson and Harold Hickerson, Gods of the Lightning (London: Longman’s, Green, and Co., 1928), 26. [37] . Jones interprets Macready as an unabashed, liberal individualist who overwhelms Capraro’s anarchism, but Macready is linked to the IWW: he speaks from a political position similar to the one Jones attributes to Anderson. [38] . Anderson and Hickerson, Gods of the Lightning , 78. [39] . Ibid., 26. [40] . Michael Schwarz, Class Divisions on the Broadway Stage: The Staging and Taming of the I.W.W. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). [41] . Anderson, Gods of the Lightning , 106. [42] . Schwartz, ch. 5. [43] . Ibid. [44] . I quote here from John Dos Passos, The Big Money (Boston: Mariner, 2000), 372. Dos Passos regularized the spelling from a reporter’s transcription that originally appeared in the New York World on 13 May 1927. [45] . Winterset was first staged at the Martin Beck Theatre in 1935 and was a “smashing success at the box office” (Shivers, The Life , 149). Its original run lasted 179 performances. The play then toured nationally before returning to Broadway for 16 additional shows. It was turned into a film (directed by Alfred Santell and starring Burgess Meredith) in 1936. The play has not been revived frequently, though it was staged for short runs in Chicago in both 1991 and 2016. [46] . The long-standing tradition of foregrounding Anderson’s purported aesthetic triumphs may well explain the tendency to minimize his play’s political import. [47] . Anderson, “Acceptance Speech for the Drama Critics’ Circle Award to Winterset ,” in Dramatist in America , 295. [48] . Anderson, introduction to Gods of the Lightning , x, vi. [49] . Ibid., xi. [50] . DiNapoli, “Maxwell Anderson’s Misuse of Poetic Discourse in Winterset ,” in Staging a Cultural Paradigm: The Political and the Personal in American Drama , eds. Barbara Ozieblo and Miriam López-Rodríguez (Bruxelles: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2002), 101. DiNapoli contends that “[Anderson] knew the topic would entice audiences to see the play” (101). He claims that Anderson’s attention to Sacco and Vanzetti “exploited the Sacco-Vanzetti issue for other than artistic reasons” (101). [51] . Steven M. Richman, “ Winterset and the Recrudescence of Ressentiment,” Nova Law Review 18, no. 3 (1994): 1882. [52] . The body of scholarship on Winterset is quite small given the play’s critical reception in the 1930s. What little research there is largely ignores the play’s focus on anarchism in favor of other theatrical/dramatic concerns. The most common trope is to look at source materials and influences. As early as 1946, Samuel Kliger examined “Hebraic lore” in the play (“Hebraic Lore in Winterset ,” American Literature 18, no. 3 [1946]: 219-232). Explorations of other Biblical influences (Howard D. Pearce, “Job in Anderson’s Winterset ,” Modern Drama 6 [1963]: 32-41), Shakespearean elements (Jacob H. Alder, “Shakespeare in Winterset ,” Educational Theatre Journal 6 [1954]: 241-248 and John B. Jones, “Shakespeare as Myth and the Structure of Winterset , Educational Theatre Journal 25 [1973]: 34-45), and classical references (Frances Abernethy, Winterset : A Modern Revenge Tragedy, Modern Drama 7 [1964]: 185-189 and J. T. McCullen, Jr., “Two Quests for Truth: King Oedipus and Winterset ,” The Laurel Review 5, no. 1 [1965]: 28-35), amongst other allusions and inspirations, followed over the next few decades. After about 1980 work on Winterset is virtually non-existent, excepting the scholars I engage with in this essay. [53] . Shivers, The Life , 148 [54] . In part, Winterset ’s reputation emerges from the contradictions of post-WWII literary scholarship. During the Cold War, anti-communist backlash, scholars were forced to reconcile the play’s reputation as one of the best from the 1930s with its subject matter (Sacco and Vanzetti) and Anderson’s dalliance with the Left. Anderson’s rejection of communism makes the reconciliation possible, but scholars who wished to study Winterset were wise to ignore any political significance in the play that might appear radical. Thus, they focused on the fiction of apolitical formal characteristics. This scholarly juggling act may account for the seemingly disconnected reputations of Anderson (still viewed as a Left-leaning fellow-traveler) and Winterset (long considered a brilliant, yet apolitical play that just happens to be about two anarchists). [55] . Shivers claims “the passage of years since Gods of the Lightning gave [Anderson] the aesthetic distanced he needed in handling the Sacco-Vanzetti case” (Shivers, The Life , 148). In other words, Shivers reads Winterset as an aesthetic object worthy of consideration almost in spite of its subject matter, unlike the earlier play which he virtually ignores. [56] . In his confession, Medeiros implicated the Morelli gang, and many of Sacco and Vanzetti’s other defenders insisted the Morelli gang committed the Braintree robbery as well. Winterset obviously taps into this accusation, as its fictionalized Morellis try to avoid the exposure of their crime. [57] . Anderson, Winterset (Washington: Anderson House, 1935), 14. [58] . Ibid., 50. [59] . Ibid., 70. [60] . Ibid., 15. [61] .Richman rightly argues “the play stands for the proposition that a developed legal system may be seriously flawed” (1869), but after establishing its flaws, the play shifts significantly. [62] . Winterset , 73. [63] . Ibid., 95. [64] . Richman claims Gaunt’s depiction is open to a “sympathetic interpretation” (1882), but such an interpretation would have been difficult to sustain at the time, as outrage lingered almost a decade after Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. [65] . Winterset , 98-99. [66] . Ibid., 99. [67] . Ibid., 109. [68] . Ibid., 117. [69] . Ibid., 125. [70] . Ibid. Footnotes About The Author(s) Dan Colson is Associate Professor of English at Emporia State University. His work has appeared in American Quarterly , American Studies , Radical Teacher , Studies in American Naturalism , Philip Roth Studies , and the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom , amongst other journals. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience: The Tourist as Actor. Jennifer A. Kokai and Tom Robson, eds. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; Pp. 292. The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. Edwin Wong. Victoria, Canada: Friesen Press, 2019; Pp. 363. Susan Glaspell’s Poetics and Politics of Rebellion. Emeline Jouve. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2017; Pp. 258. Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry. Soyica Diggs Colbert. New Haven: Yale, 2021; Pp. 273. The Mysterious Murder of Mrs. Shakespeare: Transgressive Performance in Nineteenth-Century New York “What Will Be Changed?”: Maxwell Anderson and the Literary Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti Theatre of Isolation “A Certain Man Had Two [Kids]”: Tragic Parables, “The Prodigal Son,” and Edward Albee's The Goat “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells [Her] Story”: An Intersectional Analysis of the Women of Hamilton Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

By Sarah Stites, Frank Hentschker | An examination of the censorship of LiIllian Hellman's The Children's Hour. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Intermeddlers Sarah Stites, Frank Hentschker Download PDF Lillian Hellman's The Children’s Hour opened on Broadway in 1934. This drama about two schoolteachers falsely accused of having a lesbian affair was a popular and critical success—but the subject matter caused authorities to ban the play in many locations. This new work combines excerpts from Hellman’s controversial play and material from the 1936 case which sought to have the play banned. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Christine Mok Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 2 Visit Journal Homepage On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Christine Mok By Published on May 22, 2022 Download Article as PDF “It was built to be super universal.”—Young Jean Lee [1] In counting Young Jean Lee’s contributions to Asian American theatre, We’re Gonna Die is, on the surface, an oblique entry. We’re Gonna Die is Lee’s 2011 cabaret slash indie-pop concert, the antepenultimate production by 13P, which was formed in 2003 by 13 midcareer playwrights to produce each other’s work. [2] With creative and production control in the hands of playwrights, the first production of We’re Gonna Die is a series of songs and interstitial monologues that Lee performed herself, backed by a band, Future Wife. Lee chronicles a meditation on grief, mourning, and loss, as an indie pop paean and elegy to liberal humanism. We are all going to die . Lee sings this refrain, placing her body, marked by race and gender, front and center. While theatre critics and audiences focused on Lee’s own body as the Singer bearing confessional weight in monologues and songs, the 2013 studio album version gave the monologues to a who’s who of white indie rockers to embody, or rather give voice to, the narratives of the play, putting further weight on the body, present and absent, in question/confession. Almost a decade later, the New York revival cast Janelle McDermoth, an African American performer, as the Singer. With each iteration – the first run, album, revival – We’re Gonna Die shifts bodies, playing with surfaces as it moves away from Lee’s Asian American one . By focusing on Lee’s body and her subsequent erasures, I follow Kandice Chuh’s invitation for an Asian Americanist critique such that “taking Asiatic racialization seriously opens and sometimes compels avenues of inquiry and raises questions and creates archives that would otherwise be unavailable.” [3] While performance pieces are oft written to outlive their creators’ embodiment, I propose that Lee’s eventual disappearance informs how we are asked to encounter Lee’s racial surface in her performance. This short essay returns to Lee’s performance in We’re Gonna Die, while holding onto the other productions, in a series of provocations to offer up a deep cut of Asian American dramaturgy that explores the stakes of universal feeling to the aesthetic politics of whiteness. If cut is slang for a track or song, indexing the historical materiality of recording when sound was cut as a groove into vinyl, a “deep cut” refers to the songs deemed uncommercial (not a “single”) and placed “deep” within the album. As a deep cut, We’re Gonna Die is not a play “about” Asian Americans, nor do the stories or songs mine Asian American subjectivities or identifications, yet Lee’s performing body and its subsequent evacuations serve as an obstinate wedge and unwieldy accomplice to the universal feeling and liberal politics of recognition that the piece constructs. Akin to Asian American refusals theorized by Summer Kim Lee, Vivian Huang, and Xine Yao [4] as, in turn, asociality, inscrutability, and unfeeling, the Asian American dramaturgies in Lee’s performing body defy elision, disorienting how we see Asian American and how we know and feel whiteness. If Lee, following Hilton Als, “makes her body the central text of the piece,” [5] I linger on how we as spectators are asked to read Lee’s Asian body as a central text to refashion what Ralph Rodriguez, following Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus, names a “surface reading of race” to “attend to what we have before us” [6] on stage. Sincerity Forever What we have before us is Young Jean Lee, playwright as performer. Lee sought to “create a show about ordinary human failings that an ordinary person could perform, experimenting with and subverting a genre that traditionally depends most heavily on star-power and charisma: the one-person cabaret show.” [7] While compelling as herself, Lee is not a virtuosic or trained performer. As an ordinary performer, Lee deploys the affect and effort sublimated in post-Method acting, such that refusal or resistance to emote idealized forms of expressiveness becomes hallmarks of truth and depth of feeling. [8] Lee’s acting instead foregrounds surface. In interviews, Lee remarks that to go beyond surface was beyond her: “I was just totally incapable…even the most basic things. He [director Paul Lazar] really couldn’t tell me to do anything. Also, my default performance mode when I started out was just to stand stock-still like a statue without any facial expression or vocal expression whatsoever.” [9] That the racialized scripts of inscrutability do not overwrite her inexpressiveness hint that something else is at play. Surfaces, as Uri McMillan writes, “register and sense our presence as well.” [10] Alternating between songs and stories, We’re Gonna Die traces the vicissitudes of growing up and growing old. Singer’s stories are populated by biological family (mother, father, grandmother, uncle), childhood frenemies, an ex-boyfriend, and a friend with her own domestic tragedy. They detail experiences of isolation, illness, frustration, and infidelity. The songs are rejoinders to the stories, with advice, mantras, and a letter offered to the Singer as lyrics set to upbeat tempos. These offerings, both by the Singer’s community to the Singer, and now by the Singer to the audience, range from marginally comforting to bleak: “You are not the only one!” [11] “Horrible things happen every day,” [12] and “When you get old/You will Lose your mind!” [13] Yet, reviews index a different affective range closer to the musical key: “sly, weird and thoroughly winning” (Charles Isherwood for the New York Times ); “uplifting” (Adam Green for Vogue ). [14] Perhaps the piece’s winsomeness and uplift reside in theatre’s capacity for what Bruce Wilshire named, “standing in,” whereby the actor stands in for the character, “but the character is a type of humanity with whom the audience member can identify, either directly as a stand-in for his [sic] person, or indirectly as a stand-in for others whom the audience member recognizes and with whom he [sic] can be empathetically involved.” [15] The actor is the lynchpin who stands in for the character and through this standing-in, gives access to spectators who themselves stand in for that character — a riff on Richard Schechner’s “not-me and not-not-me” [16] by way of Sally Fields: (she is) like me/really, really like me. We’re Gonna Die foregrounds this by highlighting a “type of humanity” that rests in empathetic identification, suturing the phenomenological with the confessional conventions of cabaret, the one-person show, or the singer-songwriter. Yet, Lee is explicit in her acting style, interviews, and author’s note that the work is not confessional: “All of the stories in this show are true, but not all of them happened to me…the character of ‘Singer’ is not meant to be me.” [17] Given the deracinated “universal” substance of the stories and lyrics, it is her racial surface [18] that Lee offers to the audience for identification. How then is Young Jean Lee’s Asian body, her racial surface, a type of humanity with whom audience members can identify? Lee’s Asian body poses a problem for standing-in’s seemingly “neutral” processes of empathy and attachment. Asian Americans as performing bodies operate in contradiction. Their performances have been marked as national abjection by Karen Shimakawa [19] and exception by Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson. [20] Their labor is highly visible, theatrical, and spectacular. At the same time, their bodies and national identity are invisible; their racialization subtended to everyday enactments, Ju Yon Kim’s racial mundane. [21] Americans of Asian descent have historically been racialized as both indeterminate and undesirable subjects to the nation-state, seen and unseen, marked and unmarked, though that unmarking is framed by the provisionality of the honorary whiteness of the model minority who, Ellen D. Wu reminds us, was constructed to be “inherently apolitical and therefore definitively not black.” [22] Asian American racialization operates through inversion— not political/not Black— as much by what is invisible as by what is visible. The problem posed by the Asian American body is in whether it is marked by racial difference or elided (provisionally) with honorary whiteness. Junaid Rana foregrounds honorary whiteness as a social performance of collusion, “to pass as…honorary white in the case of the myth of the model minority,” because “racial performance is an important aspect of interpreting structures organized in relationship to whiteness.” [23] On stage, the interpreting structures framing how and whether spectators see “honorary whiteness” is linked to casting. To the ways that “nontraditional,” and I borrow Angela Pao’s terminology for color-blind, racially conscious, cross-cultural, and societal, casting, [24] has reshaped spectators’ apprehension of embodiment, whereby spectators toggle between seeing actors’ bodies as “unmarked” and as “incorporat[ing] their knowledge of racial histories and relations into their experience and interpretation.” [25] Given the mechanisms of intimacy and interiority at play in We’re Gonna Die, how do we feel with and through Lee’s racial surface? When Hilton Als writes that, “by assuming the role of the performer, Lee is taking on the kamikaze-like vulnerability that comes with making your body the central text, thus writing another chapter in her vital and necessary work,” [26] he sees an act of subsumption. While the “texts” of the performance are doubled, the script and lyrics, on the one hand, and Lee’s own body, on the other, both are enfolded into Lee’s own body of work. In Als’ reading, it is the cabaret performer’s “kamikaze-like vulnerability,” the almost suicidal (tinged by etymological Japanese aviators) exposure of interiority that is the challenge he sees Lee taking on. But the “almost, but not quite” vulnerability of We’re Gonna Die resides in the act of “taking on” of the role of performer, as opposed to taking in — as in take (us) in — where both valences, to dupe us into believing and provide the audience cathartic access to the self, are set in contradiction. Self-obliterating vulnerability is a curious counterpoint to the inscrutability that dominates discourse around Asian (American) affect; yet, is it not self-annihilation that is at the heart of Asian American femme racialization, from Madama Butterfly (1904) to Miss Saigon (1989)? Uneasy Feelings We’re Gonna Die is deceptively moving, exceeding its ambitions to provide “a very little bit of comfort,” [27] “in the hopes that [the stories and songs] might help you feel less lonely when you’re in pain— which I hope you’re not.” [28] While the relationship between “I” and “you” is structured by convention (the stage conventions of performer and audience), it is how the performance negotiates “I” and “we” that has a particular entanglement with racialization, surface, and depth. Sara Ahmed, writing on affect and the body, highlights surface’s relationship to emotion: “It is through emotions that…surfaces or boundaries are made: the ‘I’ and ‘we’ are shaped by, and even take the shape of, contact with others.” [29] Thus, my interest, and suspicion, in both how and whether her racialized body comes to embody the ordinary through the move between “I’’ and “We.” If We’re Gonna Die is taken as memento mori , it is a symbolic reminder of the inexorability of mortality, that life and death are absolute processes that knit humanity together; however, just as we are not equal in life, we are not equal in death—now, more than ever. The shift from singular to plural from “I’m going to die” to “We’re going to die,” is particularly insidious, because what is staged, or rather what I am afraid of, even as I am moved, is how processes of universality, humanism, and whiteness are one and the same. That what happens to Lee’s body, cheerily dressed in yellow skinny jeans, blue Adidas sneakers, and a sweater with a sailboat on it, is a disciplining of the Asian American body through honorary whiteness, with its attendant apolitical-ness and anti-Black racism. As opposed to the difficult politics and aesthetics that Karen Shimakawa corrals in her analysis of Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven , [30] We’re Gonna Die turns to a politics and aesthetics of “easy” feeling that Lee’s racial surface refracts. My unease at the ease through which Lee’s body can be drafted into the liberal politics of recognition hinders standing-in (even when her body and mine share a fungible Asian-ness), thus recoding ordinariness and defamiliarizing deracination. I am not alone in pausing during the final song to wonder at spectators singing along to “We are going to die.” Such dissonance gestures to the ways that Lee’s Asian American dramaturgies are not reparative; they do not smooth over inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms by which Lee’s Asian body comes to stand-in for a “type of humanity,” when western bourgeois whiteness, or the category of “Man,” as Sylvia Wynter argued, overrepresents itself as universal humanity. [31] Instead, Lee’s performing body shores up what Patricia Stuelke names the ruse of repair, [32] how the reparative turn, though it began as a response to state violence, is put to the service of neoliberal policies and their ideological constructions. Even as it mobilizes reparative feelings to elicit empathetic identification, Lee’s racial surface belies the “feel-good fix” [33] of the show. This ambivalence about the processes of subsumption and self-annihilation are dramaturgical constants in Lee’s work especially when she stages whiteness. From Sheila and Terence in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals , reprised as White Person 1 and 2 in Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven , and given full force in Straight White Men , [34] whiteness pervades Young Jean Lee’s work. Or rather, it keeps invading the plays, as if Lee is hell bent on showing her audiences that whiteness abhors not only a vacuum, but also the spaces filled by minoritarian bodies and voices, occupying that space, making glaringly visible whiteness’s presumed invisibility. If, in Lee’s plays, audiences are asked to scrutinize the seemingly totalizing nature of whiteness, that metatheatrical move is evacuated in the studio album of We’re Gonna Die , as displaced as Lee’s own body. No longer the Singer, Lee is relegated to the singer in the band, performing songs backed by lusher orchestrations, while the monologues are portioned to (white) indie rockers including Beastie Boy’s Adam Horovitz, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, David Byrne, and Laurie Anderson. Rather than stories that exceed the singular body of the solo performer, each monologue is isolated to a single voice in recording. If Lee’s own not-white body asks us to consider processes of deracination as the (racial) engulfment [35] of whiteness, the collapsing of narrative into the isolated voice signals not the taking on of universality, but the taking in of whiteness. We are taken in by whiteness, sonically surrounded like noise-cancelling headphones. Jump Cut Lee’s performing body and voice recede altogether from the stage in the revival of We’re Gonna Die. Directed and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly, the show featured Janelle McDermoth, an African American performer. The Second Stage production opened February 25, 2020, and closed early on March 12 when COVID–19 closed NYC stages. I did not see this production, and for some, [36] this is one of the last productions they saw before theatres shuttered. This production is part of poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong’s article, “A Season to Celebrate Asian-American Theater Is Lost to Pandemic,” [37] which marks the lost 2020 season as an Asian American loss. Hong’s collection Minor Feelings: An Asian American Racial Reckoning struck a chord during the pandemic, offering public vocabulary for the resurgence of anti-Asian violence. Hong’s minor feelings are “racialized emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed.” [38] That she comes to minor feelings through Richard Pryor — by way of Sianne Ngai’s Ugly Feelings [39] — enacts Claire Jean Kim’s racial triangulation that, for me, makes McDermoth’s casting as Singer, with Lee as Playwright, provocative. Does a Black woman’s body and voice center We’re Gonna Die ’s Asian American dramaturgies by decentering the (white) universal human subject? Is McDermoth’s skilled and virtuosic performance reparative? Poring over production images I am struck by the transformation of Lee’s original costume design. The sailboat emblazoned on Lee’s chest has become the proverbial heart on McDermoth’s sleeve, a glitter-trimmed sailboat on the arm of her leather jacket. Perhaps McDermoth as Singer with the majority BIPOC musicians as her fellow performers and the possibilities they pose are what set off theatre critic Jesse Green to cling to his individual “specialness” and project his recalcitrance onto fellow spectators at the end of his review: In answer to the central question — “What makes you so special?” — the singer at first answers: “I believe, deep down, with all my heart, that I deserve to be immune not only from loneliness and tragedy, but also from aging, sickness and death.” Surely I was not the only audience member nodding vigorously in agreement at that point. [40] “We” is curiously absent in Green’s rendering of the scene. In his response — in his insistence on himself — Green refuses what he calls the “trick” of the piece, to be moved from special and individual to collective shared experience — that in a few weeks would be inexorable for everyone. How impossible to remain “immune…from loneliness and tragedy…aging, sickness and death” during a global pandemic that continues today. In her performance of the final text, Lee complicates and undercuts the process of honorary whiteness of her performance by focusing on personhood in an interrogation of self that Green fails to register. I return to Lee’s performance and dilate the moment to underscore Lee’s focus on personhood not circumscribed by hierarchy or domination or even millennial “specialness”: “…I asked myself, ‘Okay, so, who do you think you are?’ And the answer was, ‘I think I’m special.’ I believe, deep down, with all my heart, that I deserve to be immune not only from loneliness and tragedy, but also aging, sickness, and dying. But I’m not special. I’m a person.” [41] That statement of personhood, of not being special, different, or marked, frames the final song where Lee makes the transitive and synecdochical move from “I’m gonna die” to “We’re gonna die” to the finality of “We are going to die.” Any trace of a radical politics of personhood is then erased in the album, an act of vocal whitewashing as yellowface. What “very little bit of comfort” that We’re Gonna Die , the album, provides the listener — and a listener attuned to Lee’s Asian American dramaturgies — may reside in the knowledge that white supremacy will in fact die, is in living also dying, even as we might be caught in — and still cut by — its death grip. References [1] John DelSignore, “Playwright Young Jean Lee, We’re Gonna Die, ” Gothamist , 13 April 2011, https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/playwright-young-jean-lee-emwere-gonna-dieem. [2] “Our Mission,” 13 Playwrights, https://www.13p.org. [3] Kandice Chuh, “It’s Not About Anything,” Social Text 32, no. 4 (Winter 2014): 125–134. [4] Summer Kim Lee, “Staying In: Mitski, Ocean Vuong, and Asian American Asociality,” Social Text 37, no. 1 (2019): 27–50; Vivian Huang, “Inscrutably, Actually: Hospitality, Parasitism, and the Silent Work of Yoko Ono and Laurel Nakadate,” Women and Performance 28 no. 3 (2018): 187-203; Xine Yao, Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth Century America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021). [5] Hilton Als, “Body of Work,” The New Yorker , 11 April 2011, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/11/body-of-work-hilton-als. [6] Ralph Rodriguez. “In Plain Sight: Reading the Racial Surface of Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings” in Drawing New Color Lines: Transnational Asian American Graphic Narratives (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), 87-106. [7] DelSignore, “Playwright Young Jean Lee.” [8] Shonni Enelow marks this style in contradistinction to Method acting’s “iconography of emotional expression, in which everyday repression gives way…to outpourings of powerful feeling.” Shonni Enelow, “The Great Recession,” Film Comment, September/October 2016. See also: Shonni Enelow, Method Acting and Its Discontents: On American Psycho-Drama (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015). [9] DelSignore, “Playwright Young Jean Lee.” [10] Uri McMillan, “Introduction: Skin, Surface, Sensorium,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 28, no. 1 (2018): 1-15. [11] Song: “Lullaby for the Miserable” in Young Jean Lee, We’re Gonna Die (New York: Theatre Communications Group [TCG], 2015), 21. [12] Song: “Horrible Things” in Lee, We’re Gonna Die , 39. [13] Song: “When You Get Old” in Lee, We’re Gonna Die , 29-30. [14] Charles Isherwood, “Amid Catchy Choruses, Personal Tales of Life’s Brutal Verities,” New York Times, 10 April 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/theater/reviews/were-gonna-die-by-young-jean-lee-at-joes-pub-review.html; Adam Green, “Stage Notes: We’re Gonna Die Spins Tales of Hot Pain in Cool Tones,” Vogue, 14 August 2013, https://www.vogue.com/article/theater-music-stage-notes-were-gonna-die-spins-tales-of-hot-pain-in-cool-tones [15] Bruce Wilshire, Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as a Metaphor (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 22-23. [16] Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2002), 92-93. [17] Young Jean Lee, “Author’s Note,” We’re Gonna Die (New York: TCG, 2015), 7. [18] For more on racial surface: Anne Anlin Cheng, Second Skin: Josephine Baker & the Modern Surface (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Sean Metzger, Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014); Uri McMillan, “Introduction: Skin, Surface, Sensorium,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 28, no. 1 (2018): 1-15; Colleen Kim Daniher, “Yella Gal: Eartha Kitt’s Racial Modulations,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 28, no. 1 (2018): 16-33. [19] Karen Shimakawa, National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). [20] Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson, A Race So Different: Performance and Law in Asian America (New York: New York University Press, 2013). [21] Ju Yon Kim. The Racial Mundane: Asian American Performance and the Embodied Everyday (New York: New York University Press, 2015). [22] Ellen D. Wu, The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 256. [23] Juniad Rana, “Race,” Keywords in Asian American Studies (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 204. [24] Angela Pao, No Safe Spaces: Re-Casting Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in American Theater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. [25] Ibid., 29. [26] Hilton Als, “Body of Work,” The New Yorker , 11 April 2011, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/11/body-of-work-hilton-als. [27] Lee, We’re Gonna Die , 39. [28] Ibid., 21. [29] Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004), 10. [30] Shimakawa turns to Sianne Ngai’s ugly feelings to unpack the “affective ‘difficulties’” that are “directly and intimately related to its ‘difficult’ politics and aesthetics.” Karen Shimakawa, “Young Jean Lee’s Ugly Feelings About Race and Gender: Stuplime animation in Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven ,” Women & Performance 17, no. 1 (March 2007), 92. [31] Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation — An Argument,” CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (Fall 2003), 257-337. [32] Patricia Stuelke, The Ruse of Repair (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021). [33] Ibid., 30. [34] Patricia Ybarra’s essay explores, through an analysis of realism, how an early workshop of Straight White Men “stages the performance of the straight white male self under neo-liberal capitalism” (514). Patricia Ybarra, “Young Jean Lee’s Cruel Dramaturgy,” Modern Drama 67, no. 4 (Winter 2014): 513-532. [35] For more on racial engulfment, see Denise Ferreira DeSilva, Toward a Global Idea of Race (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). [36] I am grateful to Peter Kim, Brian Herrera, and Darren Gobert for recounting their spectatorial experiences. For reviews: Dan Venning, “ We’re Gonna Die,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 43, no. 3, (September 2021): 60-62; Benjamin Gillispie, “ We’re Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee,” Theatre Journal 73, no. 2 (June 2021): 245-247. [37] Cathy Park Hong, “A Season to Celebrate Asian-American Theater Is Lost to Pandemic,” New York Times , May 21, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/theater/asian-american-playwrights.html. [38] Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (New York: One World, 2020), 55. [39] Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). [40] Thank you, Brian Herrera, for teasing out the contrarian closing of Green’s review. Jesse Green, “Review: In ‘We’re Gonna Die,’ Pop Songs for the Reaper,” The New York Times, 25 February 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/theater/were-gonna-die-review.html. [41] Lee, We’re Gonna Die , 39. Footnotes About The Author(s) Christine Mok is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Rhode Island. She has published in Theatre Survey , Journal of American Drama and Theatre , PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art , Modern Drama ,and the Journal of Asian American Studies . She is co-editor with Joshua Chambers-Letson of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s China Trilogy: Three Parables of Global Capital (Bloomsbury, 2021). Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance and Transpacific Redress The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration Introduction to Asian American Dramaturgies Behind the Scenes of Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Representation from Cambodia to America: Musical Dramaturgies in Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Holding up a Lens to the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists: A Photo Essay Theatre in Hawaiʻi: An “Illumination of the Fault Lines” of Asian American Theatre Randall Duk Kim: A Sojourn in the Embodiment of Words Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed Dance Planets Dramaturgy of Deprivation (없다): An Invitation to Re-Imagine Ways We Depict Asian American and Adopted Narratives of Trauma Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Off-Yellow Time vs Off-White Space: Activist Asian American Dramaturgy in Higher Education Asian American Dramaturgies in the Classroom: A Reflection Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

​The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. ​​ The Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. 2026 Festival Read More Segal Film Festival returns for its 10th edition from May 28–June 5 in NYC, presented with Anthology Film Archives, featuring global performance films and a Robert Wilson retrospective. Film Festival 2026 10th edition View Festival Lineup Film Festival 2022 7th edition View Festival Archive Film Festival 2025 9th edition View Festival Lineup Film Festival 2024 8th edition View Festival Lineup About The Festival The festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. From its inaugural edition in 2015 to its present-day hybrid avatar, The Segal Film Festival for Theatre and Performance (FTP) has served as a platform for recorded works that span the length and breadth of the performing arts. Festival Founder and Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, Frank Hentschker shares his inspiration for creating the festival: “Film and digital media are an integral part of theatre and performance. I am surprised that there is not a film festival out there right now focusing on theatre and performance. I thought ‘why not create one’?” In the time before Corona, the Segal Film Festival had evolved into the premier US event for new film and video work focusing on theatre and performance. Its mission was to invite experimental and established theatre makers to present work created for the screen – not filmed archival recordings – to audiences and industry professionals from around the world. Now, after a year and a half of digital and hybrid theatre offerings, the festival must take on a new meaning. The festival has held on to its mission of being a free and open-to-all event accessible to everyone. The 7th edition of the festival was held digitally in March 2022, and featured 80 films from 30 countries, whilst the 8th edition was held in a hybrid format in May 2024 with in-person screenings in NYC and digital streaming.