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Community Performance Inc.

May 28, 2008

5/20/2008

Five days I haven't blogged. And they've been some of the best and worst. I didn't have the mental acuity left at the end of the day to write. And I've been up and out each morning as I begin to work on other elements of the production that seem to need help--prop, set and light issues.

Young Lynetta is back in the show with a vengeance. She's completely memorized and sharp on her parts. She's a fine, hard working actor. She's probably doing more than anyone else in terms of parts.

We've realized the black marchers are committed to the project, they've come out to several rehearsals. The predictability isn't there in the way that makes me feel comfortable. But I believe they'll be there. Every rehearsal? No. Sufficient numbers to make a believable march, each night of the performance?

We had a rocky rehearsal yesterday as we adjusted to the challenge of getting through the whole play. Practically every ending disconnected from the beginning of the following scene. That's just boring. Dead air. There were lots of pauses inside scenes as well. And low energy.

But these folks are tremendous learners and today was an entirely different matter. They learned the fun and power of banking energy with an audience. Expressed another way, they push the play at the listener with energy and speed sufficient to keep her in the flow of experience. A play can pick an audience up and move it bodily, like a flood. We touched that--a little--today. Lynetta was the only black who came. With Jules reading the Jimmy part, she did March in the rain and carried us through to the end. She's really doing well.

A cast member stayed afterwards to talk about ideas, make suggestions and ask questions. We agreed on most all of the stuff then he asked two pointed questions that took me by surprise. He asked why I'd had a fourteen year old white cast member do her wedding kiss scene with a black teenage boy. His other question was why I'd chosen a black man to be the prisoner in a scene that was otherwise almost completely white.

Wow. I was taken aback. The way he asked the questions painted an utterly different background to the two simple events that actually transpired. In the second case, I shouted out to the cast that there was an open walk-on role as we worked our way through the show. I do this a dozen times a night. I needed a prisoner, an attorney and a judge to come to the dinner table in one scene. I asked for men. None volunteered. Then I said, "In the time of this play, all the judges and the attorneys would have been male and white. But I don't care for such historical accuracy in a comic scene, so I'll take judges attorneys and prisoners of any age or gender. I got an 80 year old white male for the judge and an an 80 year old woman, his wife, for the attorney. And a young black male, with a comic flair, wanted the role of the convict. He saw the comic potential and he's right. I immediately thought about how many young black men we put in jail and how bad it would look, but it was a rehearsal and I needed people to fill roles so we could move on with the runthrough. And I thought, to make more of it would not serve us. That's how he came to be in that role that night. Immediately a black woman volunteered to double the judge and another volunteered to be the attorney, I said both could double the roles.

The fourteen year old white girl's scene is not spoken, but accompanied by narration. She sees her future husband from afar, they cross to one another, go up onto a pod, he removes her veil and gives her a chaste kiss. Then she sings a solo. I was sensitive that this girl was already doing a scene that put her at the edge of her comfort zone The kiss should have been on the lips, but she intended not to kiss anyone till she married. So at the corner of her mouth is acceptable. She is a brave and fine young artist, and a devout Christian. Her established double was not present, a young white friend of hers. I asked who she would feel most comfortable to act as a stand-in. Without hesitation, she chose a boy and named him, a friend of hers, a young black youth. Again, I said nothing.

I'm fortunate that the cast member was so incredibly forthcoming as to ask me about these choices. The actor who spoke up thought I had "an agenda," and was pushing my liberal values onto this community by choosing these two actions. I hadn't chosen either one. I'd let the actors choose.

What to do? First, the young lovers won't happen again because she has a partner for that role, a white youth. And I have decided that I won't let the black youth stay the convict, at least by himself. Either we get a convict comedy team, one white, one black, or Bobby and I talk and I take him out of that role.

It's a discussion topic, as well. An opportunity for civic dialogue arising from our work together. Vital to us. I may bring it up in rehearsal. I'll first have to ask permission of the two youths and their families. It is a good opportunity.

It is also a great example of how we have been misunderstood in other places in the past. We've been excoriated for our supposed agenda, when the choice came from the community. In trying to bridge between generations of thought, cultural norms, we've become casualties. Really, we've all become casualties. It's a risky business.

Thank God, this time someone spoke up.

   

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