Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, James Carter.
Recently Athol Fugard “berated dramatists” (will the overhyped online headlines never cease?) for failing to confront injustice. He, like those before him, scolds writers who take on more lucrative projects in film and television, and he suggests that these sister mediums are “passive experience.” There is a paragraph where Nicolas Kent, artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre, disagrees with Fugard, but there aren’t many details. Fugard does praise David Hare for his fight against injustice, and he suggests several global topics that are intriguing and valid. However, as I finished the article, I asked the question: Why doesn’t he write these plays?
To be clear – I love Athol Fugard. When I was in high school, I performed a cutting of his Master Harold…and the Boys as part of speech competition, and the first time I read that play I burst out crying. I lived and loved that play all the way to state finals. He is an activist, a director and a phenomenal dramatist. The respect I have for what he does is huge.
That’s why I’m so disappointed. Mr. Fugard obviously hasn’t been to see any theatre OOB in the past nine years. From the start of these despicable wars, I have seen more anti-war plays than anti-war films. The anti-establishment sentiments in theatre are so strong I’ve grown weary of them. Just as people have grown weary of the wars. This isn’t meant to rip apart Mr. Fugard’s opinion. His experience and reputation far outweigh my humble career. It is, however, easy to complain about the lack of political plays, overlooking a more important question:
Do political plays become irrelevant when they continually preach to the choir?
The real reason social change in the theatre is ineffective is because it often plays to an audience who agrees with the themes or messages. This also goes for film and television. Most drama confronting injustices are now passive because audiences have heard it all before. When it comes to film and television, people who want to see politically charged stories will Netflix or TiVo them (Let’s be real here – no one goes to the movies to see an anti-war film. They rent or record them).
A few years back, I went to a festival of “political theater” at the Ohio Theater, and all of the pieces I saw were slightly subversive, quickly & cheaply produced, and very, very leftist. I remember sitting there thinking, “Who is this festival for? Are any of these companies really effecting change in the community?”
Then, stuck onto the end of the evening, like drunken Uncle Harry, who happened to show up at the party and wanted to give a toast, was “The Right Wing.” Not the entire Right Wing, mind you, just a few viewpoints. A couple monologues and vignettes about abortion, the war and the economy. Mostly, social issues. All pushing back hard against an audience that didn’t agree at all.
I was one of those who didn’t agree. I laughed it off. I thought it was a piece of shit theatre (it was poorly done). But then I saw people talking, reacting, and getting riled up. It was the highlight of post show conversation. Taylor Mac had performed at the beginning of the night, and most people were asking “How did this conservative piece end up in a festival about politics?”
It was beautiful.
It was the first time I saw a New York theatre audience think about their politics. It made people discuss issues, rather than heading to the bar after the show and patting each other on the back for a “job well done” for “sticking it to the man”. I have no way to gauge the percentage of political plays produced in New York every year, but my guess is that of those political plays, over 90% of carry a leftist view. I’m not suggesting everyone go out and write plays supporting the Republicans, The Tea Party or fundamental religious groups. I’m suggesting we stop preaching to the choir. These plays are not effective in the echo chamber of liberalism. One of our foremost political playwrights doesn’t even hear the messages anymore. They are caught in the cacophony of leftist messages from people who don’t know how to propagate their message.
Granted, there are theaters across the world that are choosing seasons to placate subscribers, and Mr. Fugard’s argument that theaters are more concerned with the bottom line than facilitating change is spot on. What would happen, though, if political plays really took their message to the people?
About six years ago, The Imagination Liberation Front produced a play at Performance Space 122 titled I’m Gonna Kill the President: A Federal Offense. It was a huge success, and people loved it for the subversive and leftist outlandish antics. At the end of the play, they brought an audience member onstage and made her take out a cell phone and call the “White House.” At which point, the entire audience yelled in unison: “I’m Gonna Kill the President!” Not only was it political, it was funny and pushed peoples’ buttons on many levels. People left the show feeling a little unnerved, more supported in their beliefs that President Bush’s regime were full of assholes, and very entertained. In the end, though, I wonder if anyone was really stirred to action.
Cut to two years later: I’m Gonna Kill… goes on tour. The company packs themselves into a van and hit the heartland: Kalamazoo, Michigan. They present the play, and it all goes as planned – until the end. After the phone call to the White House, “FBI agents” (actors) storm the location and “arrest” the entire cast. The cast is handcuffed, the audience requested to exit the theater. That’s supposed to be the end of the play. Everyone goes home. But, one audience member wasn’t about to go quietly. He began to argue with the “FBI agents” and other audience members began arguing with him. Punches were thrown and a fight ensued. The producers had to talk the audience down, insisting what they’d experienced was part of the show. Finally, embarrassed and disheveled, the man backed down, and the play was truly over.
When was the last time you went to the theatre and there was a fist fight? Or, an argument? Or, even a heated discussion?
Danny Hoch’s most recent show Taking Over played The Public Theater a couple seasons back, and the play dealt with gentrification, primarily. The performance I attended was dead quiet. The lack of audience response was palpable. I enjoyed the show, but I felt a disconnect between Danny and the audience. A couple months before his engagement at The Public, Danny performed the play as part of the Hip Hop Theater Festival in The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. I had the opportunity to ask Danny how those shows differed from the performances he gave at The Public. The difference, he said, was huge. In the boroughs, Danny was playing to his audience, his crowd. When a character in the play, a native New Yorker, yelled at those gentrifying, Danny said the hometown crowd cheered the character on. At The Public, he was “public enemy.”
It’s important for us to be public enemy, and we won’t do that by staying in black boxes in downtown NYC where our 10 friends, 4 family members and a couple strangers cheer us on. We need to take it to the unconverted. If you have a play about the economy, figure a way to do it on the steps of The Federal Reserve or in front of the bull statue on Wall Street. A play about war? Find a way to do it next to an Army recruiting center. Have a great idea about a satire on Barak Obama being a Muslim? Do it in Alabama. Just don’t get shot.
OOB doesn’t just mean small, it doesn’t just mean scrappy, it doesn’t just mean New York City. It means doing theatre the big boys won’t touch. When New York Theatre Workshop wouldn’t put up My Name is Rachel Corrie, members of LAByrinth Theatre company met at a bar across the street from the theater and read excerpts of the play in protest. It wasn’t a production, but it took the controversy directly to the doorstep of injustice.
The only way to bring change is to raise awareness, and when we produce plays and share them for people who are already aware, it might as well be falling on deaf ears. We don’t need more plays confronting injustice. We need to take the plays fighting injustice to those causing injustice.
It's a start, a work of art
To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange
People, people we are the same
No we're not the same
Cause we don't know the game
What we need is awareness, we can't get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved lets get down to business
Mental self defensive fitness (Yo) bum rush the show
You gotta go for what you know
Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say... Fight the Power
“Fight the Power” – Public Enemy, 1989
Showing posts with label social change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social change. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Theatre for social change, finale: Diversify your damn stage
Contributed by our Guest Blogger of the week, Mariah MacCarthy
Last post of the week! A quickie:
I’ve noticed a few situations in which a population (lesbians, say) is so rarely represented that whenever someone comes along and finally represents it, they get shit for the way they represent it because it’s supposedly unflattering or inaccurate. I’ve also noticed that lots of people who watch or make theatre seem to want more plays by and about people other than straight white men to get produced. I’ve also noticed that even though it’s two-thousand-and-frikkin-ten, plenty of people are still racist and sexist, though perhaps in subtler ways than ten, twenty, fifty years ago.
So while Theatre of Compassion is one way that I think social change can happen, I also have another, simpler idea: just diversify your damn stage.
You don’t need to comment on it. You don’t need to be preachy about it. You can sneak it on people—maybe sneakiness is an asset. Just, say, make your superhero an Asian lesbian. Or make the POTUS a woman like 24 did. Or if you’re a director, encourage actors of color to audition for you. Or if you’re an artistic director, consider that maybe you don’t need ANOTHER play about a dysfunctional white upper-class family in your season, or whiney boys who are sad about the mean girls that leave them for their douchey best friends. If that’s all that people are submitting to you, apparently that’s the image that you’re projecting of the kind of theatre you do, and that is your fault.
The more women/ LGBTQ peeps/ people of color/ people with disabilities/ people of various religions/ etc that we see onstage, the more room there is to celebrate a breadth of experiences without getting flak for not portraying these groups the “right” way. And for my money, the less “significant” it is when these groups of people are onstage, the better. I wish it were as unremarkable to have an all-female cast as it is to have an all-male cast, but sadly, such a move looks like a “statement” even where none is intended. If you WANT to make a statement, by all means, make it. But it seems like people habitually resist statements that look like statements, and I think we can make plenty of progress by just nonchalantly putting more diverse characters and actors on our stages, and normalizing that diversity.
What do people think? Yes/no/maybe? Am I off my rocker?
It’s been great blogging for y’all! Feel free to keep the conversation going at my blog. Ciao!
Last post of the week! A quickie:
I’ve noticed a few situations in which a population (lesbians, say) is so rarely represented that whenever someone comes along and finally represents it, they get shit for the way they represent it because it’s supposedly unflattering or inaccurate. I’ve also noticed that lots of people who watch or make theatre seem to want more plays by and about people other than straight white men to get produced. I’ve also noticed that even though it’s two-thousand-and-frikkin-ten, plenty of people are still racist and sexist, though perhaps in subtler ways than ten, twenty, fifty years ago.
So while Theatre of Compassion is one way that I think social change can happen, I also have another, simpler idea: just diversify your damn stage.
You don’t need to comment on it. You don’t need to be preachy about it. You can sneak it on people—maybe sneakiness is an asset. Just, say, make your superhero an Asian lesbian. Or make the POTUS a woman like 24 did. Or if you’re a director, encourage actors of color to audition for you. Or if you’re an artistic director, consider that maybe you don’t need ANOTHER play about a dysfunctional white upper-class family in your season, or whiney boys who are sad about the mean girls that leave them for their douchey best friends. If that’s all that people are submitting to you, apparently that’s the image that you’re projecting of the kind of theatre you do, and that is your fault.
The more women/ LGBTQ peeps/ people of color/ people with disabilities/ people of various religions/ etc that we see onstage, the more room there is to celebrate a breadth of experiences without getting flak for not portraying these groups the “right” way. And for my money, the less “significant” it is when these groups of people are onstage, the better. I wish it were as unremarkable to have an all-female cast as it is to have an all-male cast, but sadly, such a move looks like a “statement” even where none is intended. If you WANT to make a statement, by all means, make it. But it seems like people habitually resist statements that look like statements, and I think we can make plenty of progress by just nonchalantly putting more diverse characters and actors on our stages, and normalizing that diversity.
What do people think? Yes/no/maybe? Am I off my rocker?
It’s been great blogging for y’all! Feel free to keep the conversation going at my blog. Ciao!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Theatre for social change, continued: thoughts and doubts about Theatre of Compassion
Contributed by our Guest Blogger of the week, Mariah MacCarthy
When I was twelve, my parents were smart and nice enough to enroll me and my brother in a summer playwriting class. I turned my focus towards God that summer, and wrote the Job-like tale of a guy who gets to choose between erasing Original Sin from history—killing the serpent that seduced Eve with the apple and creating a world where no one feels any pain—or leaving the world as it is. There were angels and devils tempting the protagonist at every turn, and of course he fell in love with a girl from this parallel sin-free universe, which further complicated his decision-making. Lucifer was, for no real reason, a cross-dresser who went by Lucy, and I decided that the song “Amazing Grace” needed to make an appearance (which, at the final reading, my actresses could not get through without a straight face, for which I am still a teeny bit ticked off but don’t really blame them). In the end, the protagonist chooses the world as it is—sin and all—and ends up deleting his lady love from existence.
I share this, not to celebrate my former precociousness, but because the above story explains a lot. I haven’t lost my penchant for cross-dressed characters, and while my focus has secularized since my tweens, all those years of church continue to influence me as a writer and a person. Namely, the basics: love your neighbor; love your enemy; be the Good Samaritan; love, love, love, etc, etc, etc.
This is probably where my obsession with Theatre of Compassion comes from. (Side note: I’m happy to note that when you Google “theatre of compassion,” that blog post is the first thing that comes up. My SEO is AWESOME, yo.) Not that you need a Christian background to understand or practice Theatre of Compassion; the basics of Christianity are pretty much the same as the basics of most other religions, and it is precisely this universality that makes Theatre of Compassion so potent, in my opinion.
In case you don’t feel like reading my whole big original post, let me just lay out a few tenets of Theatre of Compassion:
-In Theatre of Compassion, gray is the new black. Moral ambiguity is the rule, absolutes are the exception.
-While we may not sympathize with every character in Theatre of Compassion, we are at least given the opportunity to do so.
-There are no heroes in Theatre of Compassion, and there are no villains—or, everyone is a bit of both.
-Theatre of Compassion does not preach. It does not yell (though its characters certainly might). It may ultimately take a moral stance, but not without giving the other side a voice.
Because vague, unsupported concepts drive me batty, let’s talk examples.
One of the first times I can remember being profoundly affected by Theatre of Compassion was when I saw Eric LaRue in the UK. To summarize Eric LaRue: our protagonist, Janice, is the mother of a teenage boy, Eric LaRue, who has shot several of his classmates, Columbine-style. It’s clear throughout the play that she’s in a kind of hell and that no one—not her husband, not her pastor, no one—is really listening to her. In the end, she visits her son in jail and tells him, “You did the right thing” by killing his classmates. He is appalled and basically disowns her, begging her to tell everyone that he “feels remorse.”
It was an excruciating play to watch. When Janice said, “You did the right thing,” you could feel, if not hear, the entire audience suck in their breath. We went on an excruciating journey with her, watching the mothers of the victims berate her and blame her for their sons’ deaths, watching as her repeated requests to process her grief in her own way went ignored. She completely had our sympathy. And then, by professing that an act of murder was “the right thing” to do, she basically took a huge dump on that sympathy—and it was UH-MAY-ZEENG THEATRE. No blameless martyrs here, folks.
But, no one is pure evil, either. The pastor and husband, as obnoxious and intolerable as I found them, thought they were helping. And who can blame the mother of a murdered son for being furious and lashing out? Even the boy who killed his classmates is sympathetic. He feels remorse, and the shooting was a reaction to being bullied. All gray. All hopelessly complicated and infuriating—and five years later, I’m STILL thinking about that damn play. Had we been allowed to see the mother as a blameless victim of her environment, I assure you, I wouldn’t be thinking about that play today.
While I gravitate toward most Theatre of Compassion, I’m specifically interested in it as a means of creating social change. If we show somewhat-good, somewhat-flawed characters on both sides of an issue or a spectrum, can we change how our audience feels about said issue? Can we then continue the debate about that issue in a more respectful manner, increase our likelihood of the debate actually getting somewhere, rather than just spewing vitriol at each other?
A commenter on the original Theatre of Compassion post admitted that she had her doubts about it being a successful tool of change. She cited her own unsuccessful experiences with trying to tread lightly when talking about issues of race. And hey—I get it. People may like honey better, but sometimes the situation calls for vinegar. I don’t feel like having an intellectual discussion about gender roles with the guy who catcalls me in Hell’s Kitchen late at night; I feel like hitting him in the face (though I don’t do so). And on a better-lit street where I feel safe enough to pull this off, I may respond with a “fuck off.” I say “fuck off” because I want him to experience some negative consequences to his actions so maybe he’ll stop doing it. When I feel threatened, I feel no need to be polite.
But when I get home and I’m alone with my Microsoft Word, I have an asset that I don’t have walking home from Hell’s Kitchen. I have the asset of fiction. We accept things from fictional characters that we don’t accept from real people; we can sympathize with a fictional murderer more easily than we can a real one. Even if the characters are real people, they are probably fictionalized somehow, and so we can let ourselves sympathize with that particular author’s version of that real person.
My hope, then—my pipe dream, maybe—is that we can take that compassion for those fictional people and transfer it onto their real-life counterparts. People who demonize each other, I’ve found, rarely get anywhere in conversation. But people who respect each other are more likely to try to meet each other halfway, and, therefore, increase their likelihood of getting somewhere.
Example: a program called Sex Signals came to my college every year. It lured people in with its humor and pseudo-racy title, but then about halfway through the evening, they started talking about date rape. It presented a situation that started as consensual sex, then became, shall we say, complicated. The guy in this situation—the perp, if you will—seemed genuinely unaware that he’d done something that constituted an illegal or harmful action. He was a sympathetic character.
I can’t tell you how many times I have mentally referred to that show, or sometimes in conversation with friends who saw it too. It gave me the tools to understand how something that is devastating to one person—something like date rape—can happen through no malice on the other person’s part. And this allows me to address the issue in a more productive way. After all, date rape won’t stop if we don’t talk to the people doing it—which, 99% of the time, is men. And men won’t listen to me if I seem unwilling to consider where they’re coming from. By saying, “I understand how it might seem like an innocuous situation to you, but…” I increase my likelihood of being heard.
Then again, I find myself getting just as cynical as my commenter sometimes. Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, for example, is a magnificent example of Theatre of Compassion. There are some villains, sure, but there are far more characters who float in that gray space—most importantly and deliciously, Mama, who protects girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the violence outside, but does so by making them prostitutes. However, we have yet to care as a country about the atrocities happening in the DRC, Nottage’s well-deserved Pulitzer notwithstanding. Lawmakers aren’t doing anything.
The play that has accomplished the most tangible social progress, on the other hand, is by no means gray. It’s The Vagina Monologues, and it makes no attempt to humanize those who commit atrocities against women. Yet it’s still a magnificent piece of theatre, which has raised millions of dollars that have gone toward ending violence against women, or helping women who have already experienced violence. And I am sure that if Eve Ensler had written a grayer piece, it would not be as widely performed, because gray is less empowering (or at the very least, it empowers in a less obvious way), and then the play would not have raised as much money as it has. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
What do people think? Can Theatre of Compassion change the world? Can theatre change the world at all?
When I was twelve, my parents were smart and nice enough to enroll me and my brother in a summer playwriting class. I turned my focus towards God that summer, and wrote the Job-like tale of a guy who gets to choose between erasing Original Sin from history—killing the serpent that seduced Eve with the apple and creating a world where no one feels any pain—or leaving the world as it is. There were angels and devils tempting the protagonist at every turn, and of course he fell in love with a girl from this parallel sin-free universe, which further complicated his decision-making. Lucifer was, for no real reason, a cross-dresser who went by Lucy, and I decided that the song “Amazing Grace” needed to make an appearance (which, at the final reading, my actresses could not get through without a straight face, for which I am still a teeny bit ticked off but don’t really blame them). In the end, the protagonist chooses the world as it is—sin and all—and ends up deleting his lady love from existence.
I share this, not to celebrate my former precociousness, but because the above story explains a lot. I haven’t lost my penchant for cross-dressed characters, and while my focus has secularized since my tweens, all those years of church continue to influence me as a writer and a person. Namely, the basics: love your neighbor; love your enemy; be the Good Samaritan; love, love, love, etc, etc, etc.
This is probably where my obsession with Theatre of Compassion comes from. (Side note: I’m happy to note that when you Google “theatre of compassion,” that blog post is the first thing that comes up. My SEO is AWESOME, yo.) Not that you need a Christian background to understand or practice Theatre of Compassion; the basics of Christianity are pretty much the same as the basics of most other religions, and it is precisely this universality that makes Theatre of Compassion so potent, in my opinion.
In case you don’t feel like reading my whole big original post, let me just lay out a few tenets of Theatre of Compassion:
-In Theatre of Compassion, gray is the new black. Moral ambiguity is the rule, absolutes are the exception.
-While we may not sympathize with every character in Theatre of Compassion, we are at least given the opportunity to do so.
-There are no heroes in Theatre of Compassion, and there are no villains—or, everyone is a bit of both.
-Theatre of Compassion does not preach. It does not yell (though its characters certainly might). It may ultimately take a moral stance, but not without giving the other side a voice.
Because vague, unsupported concepts drive me batty, let’s talk examples.
One of the first times I can remember being profoundly affected by Theatre of Compassion was when I saw Eric LaRue in the UK. To summarize Eric LaRue: our protagonist, Janice, is the mother of a teenage boy, Eric LaRue, who has shot several of his classmates, Columbine-style. It’s clear throughout the play that she’s in a kind of hell and that no one—not her husband, not her pastor, no one—is really listening to her. In the end, she visits her son in jail and tells him, “You did the right thing” by killing his classmates. He is appalled and basically disowns her, begging her to tell everyone that he “feels remorse.”
It was an excruciating play to watch. When Janice said, “You did the right thing,” you could feel, if not hear, the entire audience suck in their breath. We went on an excruciating journey with her, watching the mothers of the victims berate her and blame her for their sons’ deaths, watching as her repeated requests to process her grief in her own way went ignored. She completely had our sympathy. And then, by professing that an act of murder was “the right thing” to do, she basically took a huge dump on that sympathy—and it was UH-MAY-ZEENG THEATRE. No blameless martyrs here, folks.
But, no one is pure evil, either. The pastor and husband, as obnoxious and intolerable as I found them, thought they were helping. And who can blame the mother of a murdered son for being furious and lashing out? Even the boy who killed his classmates is sympathetic. He feels remorse, and the shooting was a reaction to being bullied. All gray. All hopelessly complicated and infuriating—and five years later, I’m STILL thinking about that damn play. Had we been allowed to see the mother as a blameless victim of her environment, I assure you, I wouldn’t be thinking about that play today.
While I gravitate toward most Theatre of Compassion, I’m specifically interested in it as a means of creating social change. If we show somewhat-good, somewhat-flawed characters on both sides of an issue or a spectrum, can we change how our audience feels about said issue? Can we then continue the debate about that issue in a more respectful manner, increase our likelihood of the debate actually getting somewhere, rather than just spewing vitriol at each other?
A commenter on the original Theatre of Compassion post admitted that she had her doubts about it being a successful tool of change. She cited her own unsuccessful experiences with trying to tread lightly when talking about issues of race. And hey—I get it. People may like honey better, but sometimes the situation calls for vinegar. I don’t feel like having an intellectual discussion about gender roles with the guy who catcalls me in Hell’s Kitchen late at night; I feel like hitting him in the face (though I don’t do so). And on a better-lit street where I feel safe enough to pull this off, I may respond with a “fuck off.” I say “fuck off” because I want him to experience some negative consequences to his actions so maybe he’ll stop doing it. When I feel threatened, I feel no need to be polite.
But when I get home and I’m alone with my Microsoft Word, I have an asset that I don’t have walking home from Hell’s Kitchen. I have the asset of fiction. We accept things from fictional characters that we don’t accept from real people; we can sympathize with a fictional murderer more easily than we can a real one. Even if the characters are real people, they are probably fictionalized somehow, and so we can let ourselves sympathize with that particular author’s version of that real person.
My hope, then—my pipe dream, maybe—is that we can take that compassion for those fictional people and transfer it onto their real-life counterparts. People who demonize each other, I’ve found, rarely get anywhere in conversation. But people who respect each other are more likely to try to meet each other halfway, and, therefore, increase their likelihood of getting somewhere.
Example: a program called Sex Signals came to my college every year. It lured people in with its humor and pseudo-racy title, but then about halfway through the evening, they started talking about date rape. It presented a situation that started as consensual sex, then became, shall we say, complicated. The guy in this situation—the perp, if you will—seemed genuinely unaware that he’d done something that constituted an illegal or harmful action. He was a sympathetic character.
I can’t tell you how many times I have mentally referred to that show, or sometimes in conversation with friends who saw it too. It gave me the tools to understand how something that is devastating to one person—something like date rape—can happen through no malice on the other person’s part. And this allows me to address the issue in a more productive way. After all, date rape won’t stop if we don’t talk to the people doing it—which, 99% of the time, is men. And men won’t listen to me if I seem unwilling to consider where they’re coming from. By saying, “I understand how it might seem like an innocuous situation to you, but…” I increase my likelihood of being heard.
Then again, I find myself getting just as cynical as my commenter sometimes. Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, for example, is a magnificent example of Theatre of Compassion. There are some villains, sure, but there are far more characters who float in that gray space—most importantly and deliciously, Mama, who protects girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the violence outside, but does so by making them prostitutes. However, we have yet to care as a country about the atrocities happening in the DRC, Nottage’s well-deserved Pulitzer notwithstanding. Lawmakers aren’t doing anything.
The play that has accomplished the most tangible social progress, on the other hand, is by no means gray. It’s The Vagina Monologues, and it makes no attempt to humanize those who commit atrocities against women. Yet it’s still a magnificent piece of theatre, which has raised millions of dollars that have gone toward ending violence against women, or helping women who have already experienced violence. And I am sure that if Eve Ensler had written a grayer piece, it would not be as widely performed, because gray is less empowering (or at the very least, it empowers in a less obvious way), and then the play would not have raised as much money as it has. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
What do people think? Can Theatre of Compassion change the world? Can theatre change the world at all?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Theatre for social change - an interview with Ashley Marinaccio
Contributed by our Guest Blogger of the week, Mariah MacCarthy
I’m going to ask you a question that you ask people on your People Who Want Change blog: who are you?
25 years old. Artist and activist. Observer. Perpetual student of life. Ever evolving, never still.
So, you’re in the middle of Fringe right now. Are you going completely out of your mind?
Not at all. The Project Girl Performance Collective has a phenomenal team assembled, and all the most difficult and time consuming tasks are delegated. The power of delegation is mighty! (It took me awhile but I just learned this… ha-ha) We also have a new executive director on board who has taken PGPC to another level in only weeks. The collective has grown immensely in such a short time and we’re ever evolving, it’s fantastic and truly inspiring!
Fabulous—tell me more about the show, the girls, and your collaborators.
GirlPower: Survival of the Fittest is created by the members of the Project Girl Performance Collective, a group of young women between the ages of 13-21 who devise and perform original work based on their own life experiences and the current political, social and cultural issues that are most important to them. It is under the direction of myself, writer, activist and academic Elizabeth Koke and Jessica Greer Morris who is a playwright, performer and activist (and these women are fierce… let me tell you). We also have the unbelievably talented and organized Katherine Sommer stage managing/assistant directing and Alexa Winston, a former performer with last year’s PGPC Fringe company assistant directing.
PGPC was founded in 2008 after our experience directing GirlPower in the Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival . We saw the need to continue the work with the young women that was being done in the festival annually, throughout the year.
The girls have been working together on the Fringe show for the past 3 months. We hold weekly meetings where we do writing prompts and acting exercises, read articles and have guest speakers meet with the collective to create dialogue on the issues they feel are most pressing both personally and to their generation as a whole. Our objective is to create a safe space for the young women to express their voices openly, honestly and without fear of judgment or ridicule. We also encourage the girls to come up with solutions to the injustices they face and apply them to their lives and actions.
And what are some of those issues?
The beauty of this project is that each new cast brings a variety of new topics to explore. There are common threads that have been part of every GirlPower performance such as body image, societal pressure to fit a certain mold, family, peer pressure, relationships and sexuality.
This year’s group was particularly interested in exploring the role of women in theatre and questioning the lack of opportunities for women playwrights/directors in addition to looking at racism, gentrification and learning disabilities through the theatrical lens.
You are one of the most definitive examples I know of a theatre artist/activist. Were you always both? Was there a moment or a person or an experience that made you realize that you should combine the two, or that made you realize you were both?
My activism and art existed in completely separate planes for a long time (they were born separately). Truthfully, it was a professor I had in undergrad that made me see that they could be one. She was an anthropology professor who ironically gave me my first off-off Broadway directing gig at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (the site of our Fringe show last year) while I was still in school. She forced me to see the world of theatre that exists outside my microcosm and the potential it has for sustainable societal change. I am certain that I would not be doing any of this work if it wasn’t for her.
In your perfect world, what would The Theater look like? If you could change any and everything about the theater, what would you change?
This is a hard question as my idea of perfection is relative only to my own experiences, as is everyone else’s. In the perfect world, or at least in mine, all of the theatre that exists today (commercial, independent, community, guerrilla, etc.) exists but without the labels I just gave it and it’s accessible to all regardless of age, gender, finances and geographic location. The arts are globally respected and seen as vital to the continuation of the human race so there is never a lack of opportunity for playwrights, directors, performers or any artists. Small theatre collectives are generously funded, and making a living through membership in one of these companies is not only common but also well respected.
I don’t think any of these dreams are impossible or unattainable at all. It’s just going to take an organized movement and everybody’s participation to make it happen. Director Lev Dodin told the members of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab last year, “What we do is not just a job or profession – it’s a calling. The highest calling. Treat it as such.” As artists, we need to embody and remember this. We get so caught up in just trying to survive that we forget why it is we do what we do. We must always strive to stay connected to our community of fellow theatre artists through supporting each other’s work and offering/accepting valuable feedback and criticism. We also must know our history and be willing to learn from the past.
Now speaking more broadly, what kind of change do you want to see in the World At Large?
Justice and Peace. To accomplish this everyone must work together. It sounds Utopian but it’s possible. Artists give people hope and a vision of what is possible. We as a community of socially engaged artists need to both continue and amp up this work so that people see change is not only attainable but something everyone can take part in despite the social constructs that exist to limit the potential of many people.
What suggestions would you offer other theatre artists who are interested in collaborating with nonprofits on socially relevant theatre, or just doing activist theatre in general?
Do it! The best advice we got from our professors at Tisch when asked how to get COTE off the ground was to go out and make it happen. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to both artists you admire and organizations you want to work with and introduce yourself. You’d be surprised how many people are not only willing, but genuinely excited to talk about their own experiences and mentor like minded artists. The theatre community is unbelievably generous. You must be willing to put yourself out there and ask for help.
You’re clearly a very nice person. But, it seems clear to me from your work that you have a lot of anger toward the injustices of the world. How do you balance your warm fuzziness and your anger? What keeps you going?
Faith, hope, the belief that everyone is connected and we’re all part of something so much bigger than this and a strong sense of community and support is what keeps me going. Right before opening GirlPower I was telling the girls that there is going to be a lot of industry and press coming to see the show. You know, giving them a rundown of what to expect, who may talk to them after and getting them hyped. And you know what? The majority of them didn’t care about that sort of thing. It was such a beautiful moment because there they were, all 14 of them sitting in a clump eating lunch, braiding hair and enjoying each other’s company. They were so empowered. They knew what they had created was special and that it would touch people and they didn’t need anyone’s official opinion to say so. Don’t get me wrong, they were thrilled when they saw their first glowing review and love having the support of industry and the press, but their confidence as artists, in their work and in themselves has taken precedence over everything else. It’s moments like that where I’m like, “Yes! We’re headed in the right direction!” and I know we can empower more people this way. We can continue the cycle, you know.
What makes Co-Op Theatre East different from other Off-Off Broadway theatre companies out there?
All theatre is socially relevant and there are a lot of theatre companies with similar missions popping up all over the place which is fantastic. There needs to be even more of this! I think that what we’re trying to do with COTE, which sets us apart from other companies is that our mission is to use theatre as a tool for social activism and we’re actively seeking out new and innovative ways to bring both theatre to the people and the people to the theater.
We have an exciting season planned for 2010-2011 that includes a series of new radio plays (staged live and podcasted), a new adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women by COTE’s literary director Casey Cleverly which is addressing the issue of sex trafficking and the global slave trade, and in the spring we’re starting a series called the COTE Home and Garden tour where we’ll be performing in people’s homes and apartments, bringing the dialogue home. We have a phenomenal ensemble of actors and artists who will be working with us this year. I strongly encourage everyone to become a fan of COTE on facebook and twitter and visit our website www.cooptheatreeast.org to keep up with the latest news.
What’s one of your dream projects?
This is going to sound crazy and perhaps unexpected, being that most of my work thus far has been new plays, but my dream project is to direct a re-imagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, a grandiose budget musical, complete with singing, dancing, puppetry, costumes… the whole nine yards. I actually think about it all the time and how I want to approach it (which changes daily, usually when I’m out jogging or driving in the car). I am obsessed with religion, patriotism, fundamentalism and how these things coincide in American politics. I want to explore the question of WWJD: What Would Jesus Do if he was here on earth, right now in 2010? Who would be his disciples? Where would he “hang out”? What messages would he preach and to who? How would he feel about the people who are using his name for personal and/or political gain? I have strong opinions on this topic. I was raised in the church and have had a very rocky relationship with organized religion (not spirituality… religiosity) over the years. I have a lot of questions, specifically dealing with Christianity, that I think many people share and I would like to address them through a theatrical lens. I would really encourage the political churches in addition to outspoken members of the religious right to weigh in on a production like this. I think it would be fascinating on many levels.
What’s next for you?
Acting. My soul is aching to be on stage again and that’s going to be my focus for the next few months. I’ve been auditioning and at the moment finishing up a one-woman show I’ve been writing sporadically for the past few years called What to do In case you miss the Rapture… based on interviews I’ve been conducting with people who believe the end of the world is upon us.
I’m in the beginning stages of a collaborative piece between PGPC and COTE which will debut in September 2011 that I’m tentatively calling 10 Years Later: Voices from the Post 9/11 Generation. It’s going to be a collection of written words - songs, poetry, scenes and monologues by young people, ages 10 to 21 specifically, focusing on the aftermath of 9/11 and the “post 9/11 generation”. Many of these kids were babies on September 11th, 2001. We need to hear their stories and see what we’ve created, how terrorism, war, media, religious fundamentalism has had an impact on these kids. Throughout most of their lives, the US has been engaged in war. What kind of impact does this have on their psyche? How do they view the future? Where do they see their place in the world? We’re going to explore this.
Finally, I want to work on devising an episodic theatre piece with a group of playwrights and actors that deals with the prison system, particularly incarcerated women. I would like to work in collaboration with a women’s correctional institution, perhaps doing workshops and having the artists involved become personally involved. I have always been interested in prison reform and the justice system. I’m going to be fleshing this idea out a bit more within the next few months but it’s definitely something close to my heart.
Continuing work with and developing Co-Op Theatre East and Project Girl Performance Collective is my priority. We’re always looking for collaborators and likeminded artists so please reach out, by contacting either cooptheatreeast@gmail.com (COTE) or projectgirlperformancecollective@gmail.com (PGPC).
Hola, comrades! Mariah here—this week in my blogs I’m going to be mainly focusing on the idea of theatre as an instrument for social change. And I can’t think of a better way to kick things off than to introduce you to one of the top practitioners of activist theatre I know, Ashley Marinaccio. I’ve blogged about Ashley before, she’s blogged about me, and now I get the privilege of interviewing her for all you lovely people!
The day before our interview, I saw Ashley at the opening of her Fringe show and I wish I had snapped a picture: with hot pink skinny jeans, a tank top reading “Project Girl” in hot pink lettering, and enormous/fabulous turquoise heels, you could see from a distance she was a force to be reckoned with. However, I think you’ll be able to pick that up from her answers. Without further ado: Ashley Marinaccio!
I’m going to ask you a question that you ask people on your People Who Want Change blog: who are you?
25 years old. Artist and activist. Observer. Perpetual student of life. Ever evolving, never still.
So, you’re in the middle of Fringe right now. Are you going completely out of your mind?
Not at all. The Project Girl Performance Collective has a phenomenal team assembled, and all the most difficult and time consuming tasks are delegated. The power of delegation is mighty! (It took me awhile but I just learned this… ha-ha) We also have a new executive director on board who has taken PGPC to another level in only weeks. The collective has grown immensely in such a short time and we’re ever evolving, it’s fantastic and truly inspiring!
Fabulous—tell me more about the show, the girls, and your collaborators.
GirlPower: Survival of the Fittest is created by the members of the Project Girl Performance Collective, a group of young women between the ages of 13-21 who devise and perform original work based on their own life experiences and the current political, social and cultural issues that are most important to them. It is under the direction of myself, writer, activist and academic Elizabeth Koke and Jessica Greer Morris who is a playwright, performer and activist (and these women are fierce… let me tell you). We also have the unbelievably talented and organized Katherine Sommer stage managing/assistant directing and Alexa Winston, a former performer with last year’s PGPC Fringe company assistant directing.
PGPC was founded in 2008 after our experience directing GirlPower in the Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival . We saw the need to continue the work with the young women that was being done in the festival annually, throughout the year.
The girls have been working together on the Fringe show for the past 3 months. We hold weekly meetings where we do writing prompts and acting exercises, read articles and have guest speakers meet with the collective to create dialogue on the issues they feel are most pressing both personally and to their generation as a whole. Our objective is to create a safe space for the young women to express their voices openly, honestly and without fear of judgment or ridicule. We also encourage the girls to come up with solutions to the injustices they face and apply them to their lives and actions.
And what are some of those issues?
The beauty of this project is that each new cast brings a variety of new topics to explore. There are common threads that have been part of every GirlPower performance such as body image, societal pressure to fit a certain mold, family, peer pressure, relationships and sexuality.
This year’s group was particularly interested in exploring the role of women in theatre and questioning the lack of opportunities for women playwrights/directors in addition to looking at racism, gentrification and learning disabilities through the theatrical lens.
You are one of the most definitive examples I know of a theatre artist/activist. Were you always both? Was there a moment or a person or an experience that made you realize that you should combine the two, or that made you realize you were both?
My activism and art existed in completely separate planes for a long time (they were born separately). Truthfully, it was a professor I had in undergrad that made me see that they could be one. She was an anthropology professor who ironically gave me my first off-off Broadway directing gig at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (the site of our Fringe show last year) while I was still in school. She forced me to see the world of theatre that exists outside my microcosm and the potential it has for sustainable societal change. I am certain that I would not be doing any of this work if it wasn’t for her.
In your perfect world, what would The Theater look like? If you could change any and everything about the theater, what would you change?
This is a hard question as my idea of perfection is relative only to my own experiences, as is everyone else’s. In the perfect world, or at least in mine, all of the theatre that exists today (commercial, independent, community, guerrilla, etc.) exists but without the labels I just gave it and it’s accessible to all regardless of age, gender, finances and geographic location. The arts are globally respected and seen as vital to the continuation of the human race so there is never a lack of opportunity for playwrights, directors, performers or any artists. Small theatre collectives are generously funded, and making a living through membership in one of these companies is not only common but also well respected.
I don’t think any of these dreams are impossible or unattainable at all. It’s just going to take an organized movement and everybody’s participation to make it happen. Director Lev Dodin told the members of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab last year, “What we do is not just a job or profession – it’s a calling. The highest calling. Treat it as such.” As artists, we need to embody and remember this. We get so caught up in just trying to survive that we forget why it is we do what we do. We must always strive to stay connected to our community of fellow theatre artists through supporting each other’s work and offering/accepting valuable feedback and criticism. We also must know our history and be willing to learn from the past.
Now speaking more broadly, what kind of change do you want to see in the World At Large?
Justice and Peace. To accomplish this everyone must work together. It sounds Utopian but it’s possible. Artists give people hope and a vision of what is possible. We as a community of socially engaged artists need to both continue and amp up this work so that people see change is not only attainable but something everyone can take part in despite the social constructs that exist to limit the potential of many people.
What suggestions would you offer other theatre artists who are interested in collaborating with nonprofits on socially relevant theatre, or just doing activist theatre in general?
Do it! The best advice we got from our professors at Tisch when asked how to get COTE off the ground was to go out and make it happen. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to both artists you admire and organizations you want to work with and introduce yourself. You’d be surprised how many people are not only willing, but genuinely excited to talk about their own experiences and mentor like minded artists. The theatre community is unbelievably generous. You must be willing to put yourself out there and ask for help.
You’re clearly a very nice person. But, it seems clear to me from your work that you have a lot of anger toward the injustices of the world. How do you balance your warm fuzziness and your anger? What keeps you going?
Faith, hope, the belief that everyone is connected and we’re all part of something so much bigger than this and a strong sense of community and support is what keeps me going. Right before opening GirlPower I was telling the girls that there is going to be a lot of industry and press coming to see the show. You know, giving them a rundown of what to expect, who may talk to them after and getting them hyped. And you know what? The majority of them didn’t care about that sort of thing. It was such a beautiful moment because there they were, all 14 of them sitting in a clump eating lunch, braiding hair and enjoying each other’s company. They were so empowered. They knew what they had created was special and that it would touch people and they didn’t need anyone’s official opinion to say so. Don’t get me wrong, they were thrilled when they saw their first glowing review and love having the support of industry and the press, but their confidence as artists, in their work and in themselves has taken precedence over everything else. It’s moments like that where I’m like, “Yes! We’re headed in the right direction!” and I know we can empower more people this way. We can continue the cycle, you know.
What makes Co-Op Theatre East different from other Off-Off Broadway theatre companies out there?
All theatre is socially relevant and there are a lot of theatre companies with similar missions popping up all over the place which is fantastic. There needs to be even more of this! I think that what we’re trying to do with COTE, which sets us apart from other companies is that our mission is to use theatre as a tool for social activism and we’re actively seeking out new and innovative ways to bring both theatre to the people and the people to the theater.
We have an exciting season planned for 2010-2011 that includes a series of new radio plays (staged live and podcasted), a new adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women by COTE’s literary director Casey Cleverly which is addressing the issue of sex trafficking and the global slave trade, and in the spring we’re starting a series called the COTE Home and Garden tour where we’ll be performing in people’s homes and apartments, bringing the dialogue home. We have a phenomenal ensemble of actors and artists who will be working with us this year. I strongly encourage everyone to become a fan of COTE on facebook and twitter and visit our website www.cooptheatreeast.org to keep up with the latest news.
What’s one of your dream projects?
This is going to sound crazy and perhaps unexpected, being that most of my work thus far has been new plays, but my dream project is to direct a re-imagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, a grandiose budget musical, complete with singing, dancing, puppetry, costumes… the whole nine yards. I actually think about it all the time and how I want to approach it (which changes daily, usually when I’m out jogging or driving in the car). I am obsessed with religion, patriotism, fundamentalism and how these things coincide in American politics. I want to explore the question of WWJD: What Would Jesus Do if he was here on earth, right now in 2010? Who would be his disciples? Where would he “hang out”? What messages would he preach and to who? How would he feel about the people who are using his name for personal and/or political gain? I have strong opinions on this topic. I was raised in the church and have had a very rocky relationship with organized religion (not spirituality… religiosity) over the years. I have a lot of questions, specifically dealing with Christianity, that I think many people share and I would like to address them through a theatrical lens. I would really encourage the political churches in addition to outspoken members of the religious right to weigh in on a production like this. I think it would be fascinating on many levels.
What’s next for you?
Acting. My soul is aching to be on stage again and that’s going to be my focus for the next few months. I’ve been auditioning and at the moment finishing up a one-woman show I’ve been writing sporadically for the past few years called What to do In case you miss the Rapture… based on interviews I’ve been conducting with people who believe the end of the world is upon us.
I’m in the beginning stages of a collaborative piece between PGPC and COTE which will debut in September 2011 that I’m tentatively calling 10 Years Later: Voices from the Post 9/11 Generation. It’s going to be a collection of written words - songs, poetry, scenes and monologues by young people, ages 10 to 21 specifically, focusing on the aftermath of 9/11 and the “post 9/11 generation”. Many of these kids were babies on September 11th, 2001. We need to hear their stories and see what we’ve created, how terrorism, war, media, religious fundamentalism has had an impact on these kids. Throughout most of their lives, the US has been engaged in war. What kind of impact does this have on their psyche? How do they view the future? Where do they see their place in the world? We’re going to explore this.
Finally, I want to work on devising an episodic theatre piece with a group of playwrights and actors that deals with the prison system, particularly incarcerated women. I would like to work in collaboration with a women’s correctional institution, perhaps doing workshops and having the artists involved become personally involved. I have always been interested in prison reform and the justice system. I’m going to be fleshing this idea out a bit more within the next few months but it’s definitely something close to my heart.
Continuing work with and developing Co-Op Theatre East and Project Girl Performance Collective is my priority. We’re always looking for collaborators and likeminded artists so please reach out, by contacting either cooptheatreeast@gmail.com (COTE) or projectgirlperformancecollective@gmail.com (PGPC).
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