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Community Performance Inc.

May 28, 2008

"This is hard. It's just hard."

"I marched. I was in that march. I knew the man who was murdered. It brings up a lot of emotion. I think this is why people aren't coming/. That's what I'm hearing in my community."

Barbara and her daughter, Blythe, who is about my age, spoke this to me yesterday. it isn't that people don't want to be in the play. They are having trouble understanding the effort behind it- "They only hear the negative" Blythe said. "They think it's just about the murder. And people think it's gonna stir something up or bring something back, but they don't know about or hear about what is really happening".

"This is why people aren't coming from my community", she said.

This is the night that 17 African American cast members were present for the "March in the Rain" scene. Before we even began, we had a full cast meeting. Richard spoke of the need to commit to the rest of rehearsals and the rest of the performances, and to check in, and see if we were going to get that commitment. TO this point, none of us, or the cast really, was quite sure if we'd have enough people present on any given night to have the March in the rain.

People signed forms, stating exactly which dates they would be here for, and which ones they could not. I reviewed them as the buzz was going on in the room, and discovered that except for graduation night, Friday night, we should have a large compliment of people for the March. We also found that on that Friday night, we would have enough people to make it happen.

That realization wasn't what we were looking for. What we were really, all of us, cast, producers, production team, were looking for, was that moment, when we all stood up and said "I am in this." That moment had not been bourne yet. And so after it was borne, we took hands in a circle, and said another prayer. The second of the evening.

We went into the March scene. Lots of energy in the room needed to be cleared. Iega called it blocked energy. As we sang the music, so many cast members, black and white, were frozen to the floor, stuck in space, stopping themselves from moving with the music- really they were all getting in their own way. There was tension in the room. thick. Iega had everyone sing again, and asked people to feel the stillness. We sang again, he asked people to move into the lyrics of "I was there, I marched with you". More people moved with and toward each other. We sang again. And the first tears of the evening appeared. I looked, and Barbara, African American, was weeping into to arms of Peggy, a white woman, who also has African American grandchildren. I grabbed Richard's camera, and shot because it was a moment, and then though, Oh, geez, don't let me be one of those people destroying that moment by trying to document it. But it was the first of the evening. Many more to come. THose first tears were the beginning of clearing house. Iega spoke of the power of Art, the power it has to clear blocked energy and to allow energy to flow, and that energy is freedom within ourselves. We were emboldened by those words. We sang again. Iega having the African American cast grouped around the destroyed piano (which stands not only for the murdered man, but for all of those things that had happened- the displacement, the mistreatment, those painful things.) They begin to sing as a chorus, and Iega has them gently stepping. There was a laugh among the group when Iega said, OK, I need all the white folk over here. The whole cast started moving, and he said, "No, I need the black folk, I mean the colored folk, the colored folk need to be over here." they were laughing. Iega was being real about how things were, and laughing at how, I don't know what the word is for it-- unevolved?-- that thinking was. One cast members says "There you go segregating us again". The white folks were moved because it started as a black march, which was joined later by some younger white community members who marched with them. In the room, in the cast, were people who were a part of that march 40 years ago. The living experience. I weep as I write this. I had no idea thesse very same people would come to represent their story in the play. They came because no one elsse was coming to represent them. Some afraid of facing those days again, some afraid of the emotions they may have stored up. Those words came from one marcher/cast member. He told me straight out. Some didn't come because they still had such anger for that event, nearly forty years ago. And there was at least one person from the white crowd, who was a young woman at the time, who against caution from her own community, joined that march.

The lead soloist sings "We marchedi nt he rain
our souls drenched in pain
wondering why why why should it come to this
oh and why so much strife
when we want the same thing
just a little respect"

As the soloist sings the line of why should it come to this,

Iega has the groupd of white folk slowly turn their backs on the singer. Some out of shame, some out of fear, some out of misunderstanding, some out of prejudice. it's a powerful moment of theater, and of just being a human being- opening up and looking at this moment, touching it, right in front of us.

The composer begins to weep.

"This isn't what i intended in this song. I intended people to come together, not to turn away. Not everyone. I'm from California, not the South, so I wasn't here for all that stuff, I was in a different world, but still. Everyone? All the people turning their backs? It's just too hard"

She says this at first privately to Richard, and we see the opportunity to open up and engage in some real, authentic dialogue. She is so brave to speak these words that must have been on the hearts of many of our white cast members, like the one, who as a young woman, did not turn her back"

So she spoke this piece.

Consequently, I think it bears mentioning that while she was expressing her pain this very moment to Richard, I was with the African American march group, the elders, the ones who did the marching, who were stating how important this work was. How we needed to videotape this show, to educate their own kids. To show this process. And how important it was to be able to tell this story and release this. As it was being staged, currently, is the truth as they had lived it. And at this same moment on the other side of the room were the sounds of people saying ?This truth is too hard to show.

Rmeember, we started out the evening with the African American folks saying "this truth is too hard to show". At each step of thise process, we are finding the edges of our comfort zones.

"Were talking about a moment in history." Iega says to them. "You might not have even been here. Some of you weren't even born yet. You didn't turn your back. But in this moment in history, which we are talking about and which is the play, a group of people had to march, because people had turned their backs. This era was an era when this had to happen. The Vietnam War was going on, people didn't agree with it, didn't want to fight in a war they didn't believe in, and they marched. Civil Rights had been passed but not practiced. JIm Crow was still the law of the land here. That's nothing personal, I am clear about that, it is a fact. And people had decided to move beyond that. They decided, no more" We are making a choice as actors to show this moment in time, so that we can celebrate even greater the changes that take place.

Ray, our Philosopharmer, speaks up, he's a white cast member. "I have no trouble in doing this. I see where you're headed".

But it hurts.

Robert speaks up. Also a white cast member. "It will make the moment when wee turn back around even more powerful"

I realize what people are reacting to is the moment we are dealing with, and aren't looking at the place we are taking them, the place that is written in the script, the reconciliation-- because they are fixated and in pain about this moment and the huge truth that it holds.

Some of our teenagers are in tears. many adults are in tears. And we are talking. They are talking through their tears and fears.

This is an authentic conversation. We-- CPI-- have never had such an authentic conversation in any of our projects before. Ever. Ever. Where are the damn documentary cameras? My writers brain only remembers and catches so much, and i too am swept in the moment. A specator. oddly detached. I'm not sure how I'm having this experience- the moment and I are not the same. I'm not this story. I wrote this story, I am not it. And I also realize that I, along with Iega, Richard and Joe, as well as the production team of Judy, Genny, Barbara, Vivian, whom we'd met with earlier in the day about these very issues-- we created a space for this to happen. At this point, you must by now realize that my heroes are Judy, Genny, Barbara and Vivian. They are so clear, so strong, so brave, so honest, so powerful, so COURAGEOUS. Only through the courage of a core team like these members, could something like this be allowed to transpire. I realize this is the greatest moment in my career as a community performance artist. This is what it is all about. I didn't weep last night. I weep now at the realization. Our vision and courage, meets their vision and courage, meets the community's vision and courage and fears. And we are talking about it. We aren't making political decision in order not to hurt anyone. We are bringing to the light our truth, on so many sides. The youth are confused and don't understand, they can't understand the concept, because we are speaking about a moment in time- of colored signs and separate waiting rooms- a world in which they didn't exist. And the youth are holding on to one another.

And Linda speaks. Preacher Linda. From the African American community.

I know you. Half the white people in here, I know you, and I call you my friend. I know who you are. YOu are not the back turners. None of us in this room are the back turners. We are in this room because we are not turning our backs on this. We are in this room because we do care, we all care about each other. Yu are playing a part, but I don't think this is who you are" She said much more, yet I can't remember it all. She was speaking redemption. She was also speaking truth. She was saying, you much stand in for the back turners, because the back turners would not come here and be with us in the first place. You are not them. And you are courageous to stand in as them. Because when we all come together, is who we are now.

Something like that.

We got in a circle.

No one knew what to do. And Shelia began to sing. Solist. Huge voice. She began to sing Lamb of God. Some who knew it- the white music director, and her daughter, other people who knew the song came in, others who didn't know it took the lead off of mary SPencer, who started phrasing the next lines for people. THe song continued. Within the song, Preacher mary began to pray, for us, for our process, for the land of Spirit, for everything the people and the project stand for.

We Amened, red-eyed. I asked one of my new friends' Are you OK?"

"This is hard." Pause. Big Pause. "I'm OK. But this is Hard"

"A Bump in the Road" mary says. If you've been following my blog, you know the metaphor for change in this play is the bump in the road left by the poured over mule.

It is. A Bump in the road"

"I'll be OK, This is Hard"

I worry a little of the feelings of everyone. It WAS a hard night, and it was a night of miracles. We open with a VIP performance one week from tonight. Our hearts, Our hearts. Our fears. Our truths. If we can continue to hold a space for all of these things to have freedom.

It was the greatest night of my career to be in a room of such courage and honesty. This is a remarkable community. I am humbled to be a part of it.

   

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