Acting Like Nothing’s Wrong
Mar. 11th, 2022 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947Nuh body touch me you nuh righteous
Nuh badda text me in a crisis
I believed all your dreams, adoration
You took my heart and my keys and my patience
You took my heart on my sleeve for decoration
You mistaken my love I bought you for foundation
All that I wanted from you was to give me
Something that you’ve never seen
Something that you’ve never been, mmh
But I wake up and act like nothing’s wrong.
(“Work” by Riahanna – 2016)
Kathy and I went to see the play Slave Play by Jeremy O’Harris at the Mark Taper last month. I must admit I was a little apprehensive about going. I knew little about the play that had run on Broadway in 2019 until it was shut down during the Covid pandemic. The staging in Los Angeles was the resumption of a planned national touring run. Kathy had simply added the play to a list of productions we hoped to see this season as part of our Center Theatre Group membership on the recommendation of the ticketing agent. It would be the first in a series of plays that included The Lehman Trilogy, Hadestown, and Oklahoma.
Kathy and I have been long time aficionados of live theatre – musicals and dramas. One of our first theatre dates was Zoot Suit with Edward Olmos in 1978, and we introduced our children to the musical Cats in 1985, when Toñito was 7 and Prisa 5. While musicals remain our most enjoyable experiences, live dramas standout as the most thought provoking, memorable productions. A post-theatre dinner is mandatory after a live drama to process and analyze the characters, actions, and themes of the play. The Slave Play, merely by its title promised to be particularly startling and provocative – especially in this post-George Floyd murder era with its reactionary responses to the teaching or mentioning of Critical Race Theory, and American racism. So, in preparation I took the precaution of reading Charles McNulty’s positive (but critical) review of the play before watching it with Kathy on February 27th.
I approached the play on three levels: as a regular theatre goer; as a former U.S. History teacher; and as a first-generation Mexican American citizen living in this post-George Floyd era. In general, The Slave Play is the type of complex drama (like great movies) that really needs to be viewed at least twice to be fully appreciated. One exposure (which I had) left me unsatisfactorily provoked and questioning the characters, their conflicts, and the issues raised about slavery and racism in America. The play is not meant to make anyone feel comfortable or uninvolved. Even before it begins you are startled by its staging. A backdrop of mirrors immediately places you IN the actions taking place on a pre-Civil War plantation. You will not be allowed to be a safe and aloof spectator in this drama. You see yourself reflected onto the stage with the actors. You will be a participant in the play’s unfolding actions and emotions. Additionally, high above the stage, suspended over the actors is the boldly visible and disturbing quotation (which I only later discovered is from Rihanna’s song “Work”, which is played and mentioned in the play):
Nuh body touch me you nuh righteous
The play is a 2-hour, 3 act drama, with no intermission. You are jolted into the first act which depicts three antebellum (before the Civil War) vignettes with pairs of interracial couples – a black female field hand and a white overseer; a light-skinned male house slave and white plantation mistress, and a black field overseer and white male indentured servant. Each of their exploitive slave-to-master interactions is uncomfortable to watch because of the sexual undertones that build up and culminate in rapes of different fashions. Yet each of these interactions is about power and its ability to control, dominate, and exploit other human beings.
In the second act we learn that the three interracial couples are willing participants in a novel 5-day interactive session called “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” (ASPT) taking place in a Southern plantation overseen by two university researchers. These three couples suffer from sexual dysfunctions of some kind, and their simulated reenactments are supposed to expose these issues to visibility so they can be identified, analyzed, and processed. The processing was guided by two female, interracial therapists – one black and the other white (whom we later learn is Latina). The treatment, they explain, is designed to help black partners reengage with their white partners from whom they no longer receive sexual stimulation or pleasure. This session is the heart of the play. The part where the characters finally reveal the internal tensions, turmoil, and conflicts that arose during their relationships. There is no clear-cut resolution during this session, which ends in confusion, arguments, and more conflict between couples. We are left with a myriad of disquieting and insightful revelations about the hidden and destructive dynamics of prejudice, racism, and dominance between individuals of different colors and race.
The third act zooms in on the bedroom scene of the original interracial couple in which the black woman admits the failure of the therapy to alleviate her “numbness”, and her feelings of revulsion for her white partner, whom she sees as harboring the “virus” of white supremacy in the relationship. The man’s angry response to this accusation is to demonstrate physically his desire for, and dominance of, this woman by raping her – as if this was some sort of “make-up” sex after an argument.
Slavery, rape, and racial miscegenation (race mixing) are critical motifs in this play and central to its views on racism in America. The introduction of a so-called “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” reminded me of the famous (or infamous) Blue eyes – Brown eyes Simulation conducted by Jane Elliott, an Iowa teacher in 1968, with her third-grade students. Elliot gave the brown-eyed children praise and special privileges in school. They sat in front, went to lunch first, and drank from the water fountain. The blue-eyed children, on the other hand, were disparaged, sat in the back, went last to lunch, and drank from paper cups. The change in the students’ behavior and attitudes was instant: children with brown eyes became more confident, privileged, self-assured, and condescending; while the blue-eyed children became indecisive, submissive, and resentful. Many of these same attitudes and behaviors were exhibited in the play during the therapy session, with the white partners displaying many of the privileged, brown-eyed attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
“Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” and the Blue eyes – Brown eyes Simulation also recalled my own days as a U.S. History teacher at St. Bernard High School in 1972-73 when I used historical role-playing simulations with my own students. I wanted them to understand the reasons for the actions and attitudes of people in historical situations: Colonial Puritanism, Revolution, Slavery and Civil War, Reconstruction, and Industrialization. My own university training in history was always critical and I wanted my students to do the same. Otherwise, how would we as American citizens learn from historical wrongs? Role-playing and simulations placed students in historical settings facing situations and dilemmas of the past so they could understand them and seek better solutions. In these simulations I never structured the Civil War in nostalgic, Gone with the Wind, terms as being fought over libertarian and States’ Rights. The Civil War was a Southern rebellion, fought over Slavery and the maintenance of a plantation system that justified and codified slavery into social, racial, and legal terms. While the Civil War and Reconstruction may have ended the institution of Slavery, the Jim Crow Era that followed simply imposed a new type of racially repressive system in the United States which denied social and Civil Rights to American Black citizens – the children and grandchildren of slaves – well into the 1960’s.
During the debriefing and processing of the Second Act, the white participants seemed to take refuge in the Obama Era belief in America as being a “post-racial” society. They expressed the attitude that we Americans no longer harbored the racist attitudes, beliefs, and practices of the past. Yet it was they, the white partners, who did most of the talking, explaining, and justifying in the session. They clearly assumed the prominent and dominant positions in their relationships until their black partners finally erupted in their own declarations of emancipation. I thought that this interaction mirrored many of the dynamics of the Critical Race Theory Controversy that is sweeping many Southern and Mid-West states and manifested in their desire to dominate School Boards so as to ban any curriculum, textbooks, and books that resurrect or negatively portray the sins and practices of slavery and racism. As I posed the question to my students: If we cannot analyze and critique the actions of the past, how can we learn from our history to become and remain a better nation and people?
Lastly, I must confess that as I watched the play, some part of me stayed aloof from the racially conflicted characters on the stage. As a first-generation Mexican American I felt that I was not depicted in this drama. I was neither black nor white – I was Hispanic, a “person of color”. My immigrant grandparents too were racially profiled and subjected to discriminatory Jim Crow laws, attitudes, and practices in Texas and California in the early 1900’s. I leaned comfortably back in my seat and sat in solidarity with my black brothers and sisters in the audience and on the stage in judgement, as the white partners in the racial therapy “white-splained” their anti-racist, non-white, color-blindness, until the white researcher-therapist grandly revealed herself as a Latina, a person of color who could truly relate to, and understand, the black men and woman in the session. It struck me then that this was the universal excuse that all descendants of immigrants use when accused of prejudice or racism. How can we be racist if our Italian, Irish, Mexican, Asian, or Jewish ancestors were subjected to white, Protestant-American discrimination and racism? It struck me finally that this idea was a false assumption. No matter how much racism, prejudice, and discrimination our immigrant forefathers and mothers suffered in America, they were never slaves – viewed and treated as legally disposable property that could be bought and sold, used, abused, and destroyed on a whim. It was a moment of uncomfortable self-revelation. The Slave Play was about me – especially if I am unwilling to look critically at slavery in America and its racist residue in today’s American society. We as a nation cannot escape our history and the legacy of slavery – “acting like nothing’s wrong” – unless we are willing to face it and address the “virus” of racism that still exists and manifests itself in countless actions and reactions in America.
Nuh badda text me in a crisis
I believed all your dreams, adoration
You took my heart and my keys and my patience
You took my heart on my sleeve for decoration
You mistaken my love I bought you for foundation
All that I wanted from you was to give me
Something that you’ve never seen
Something that you’ve never been, mmh
But I wake up and act like nothing’s wrong.
(“Work” by Riahanna – 2016)
Kathy and I went to see the play Slave Play by Jeremy O’Harris at the Mark Taper last month. I must admit I was a little apprehensive about going. I knew little about the play that had run on Broadway in 2019 until it was shut down during the Covid pandemic. The staging in Los Angeles was the resumption of a planned national touring run. Kathy had simply added the play to a list of productions we hoped to see this season as part of our Center Theatre Group membership on the recommendation of the ticketing agent. It would be the first in a series of plays that included The Lehman Trilogy, Hadestown, and Oklahoma.
Kathy and I have been long time aficionados of live theatre – musicals and dramas. One of our first theatre dates was Zoot Suit with Edward Olmos in 1978, and we introduced our children to the musical Cats in 1985, when Toñito was 7 and Prisa 5. While musicals remain our most enjoyable experiences, live dramas standout as the most thought provoking, memorable productions. A post-theatre dinner is mandatory after a live drama to process and analyze the characters, actions, and themes of the play. The Slave Play, merely by its title promised to be particularly startling and provocative – especially in this post-George Floyd murder era with its reactionary responses to the teaching or mentioning of Critical Race Theory, and American racism. So, in preparation I took the precaution of reading Charles McNulty’s positive (but critical) review of the play before watching it with Kathy on February 27th.
I approached the play on three levels: as a regular theatre goer; as a former U.S. History teacher; and as a first-generation Mexican American citizen living in this post-George Floyd era. In general, The Slave Play is the type of complex drama (like great movies) that really needs to be viewed at least twice to be fully appreciated. One exposure (which I had) left me unsatisfactorily provoked and questioning the characters, their conflicts, and the issues raised about slavery and racism in America. The play is not meant to make anyone feel comfortable or uninvolved. Even before it begins you are startled by its staging. A backdrop of mirrors immediately places you IN the actions taking place on a pre-Civil War plantation. You will not be allowed to be a safe and aloof spectator in this drama. You see yourself reflected onto the stage with the actors. You will be a participant in the play’s unfolding actions and emotions. Additionally, high above the stage, suspended over the actors is the boldly visible and disturbing quotation (which I only later discovered is from Rihanna’s song “Work”, which is played and mentioned in the play):
Nuh body touch me you nuh righteous
The play is a 2-hour, 3 act drama, with no intermission. You are jolted into the first act which depicts three antebellum (before the Civil War) vignettes with pairs of interracial couples – a black female field hand and a white overseer; a light-skinned male house slave and white plantation mistress, and a black field overseer and white male indentured servant. Each of their exploitive slave-to-master interactions is uncomfortable to watch because of the sexual undertones that build up and culminate in rapes of different fashions. Yet each of these interactions is about power and its ability to control, dominate, and exploit other human beings.
In the second act we learn that the three interracial couples are willing participants in a novel 5-day interactive session called “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” (ASPT) taking place in a Southern plantation overseen by two university researchers. These three couples suffer from sexual dysfunctions of some kind, and their simulated reenactments are supposed to expose these issues to visibility so they can be identified, analyzed, and processed. The processing was guided by two female, interracial therapists – one black and the other white (whom we later learn is Latina). The treatment, they explain, is designed to help black partners reengage with their white partners from whom they no longer receive sexual stimulation or pleasure. This session is the heart of the play. The part where the characters finally reveal the internal tensions, turmoil, and conflicts that arose during their relationships. There is no clear-cut resolution during this session, which ends in confusion, arguments, and more conflict between couples. We are left with a myriad of disquieting and insightful revelations about the hidden and destructive dynamics of prejudice, racism, and dominance between individuals of different colors and race.
The third act zooms in on the bedroom scene of the original interracial couple in which the black woman admits the failure of the therapy to alleviate her “numbness”, and her feelings of revulsion for her white partner, whom she sees as harboring the “virus” of white supremacy in the relationship. The man’s angry response to this accusation is to demonstrate physically his desire for, and dominance of, this woman by raping her – as if this was some sort of “make-up” sex after an argument.
Slavery, rape, and racial miscegenation (race mixing) are critical motifs in this play and central to its views on racism in America. The introduction of a so-called “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” reminded me of the famous (or infamous) Blue eyes – Brown eyes Simulation conducted by Jane Elliott, an Iowa teacher in 1968, with her third-grade students. Elliot gave the brown-eyed children praise and special privileges in school. They sat in front, went to lunch first, and drank from the water fountain. The blue-eyed children, on the other hand, were disparaged, sat in the back, went last to lunch, and drank from paper cups. The change in the students’ behavior and attitudes was instant: children with brown eyes became more confident, privileged, self-assured, and condescending; while the blue-eyed children became indecisive, submissive, and resentful. Many of these same attitudes and behaviors were exhibited in the play during the therapy session, with the white partners displaying many of the privileged, brown-eyed attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
“Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” and the Blue eyes – Brown eyes Simulation also recalled my own days as a U.S. History teacher at St. Bernard High School in 1972-73 when I used historical role-playing simulations with my own students. I wanted them to understand the reasons for the actions and attitudes of people in historical situations: Colonial Puritanism, Revolution, Slavery and Civil War, Reconstruction, and Industrialization. My own university training in history was always critical and I wanted my students to do the same. Otherwise, how would we as American citizens learn from historical wrongs? Role-playing and simulations placed students in historical settings facing situations and dilemmas of the past so they could understand them and seek better solutions. In these simulations I never structured the Civil War in nostalgic, Gone with the Wind, terms as being fought over libertarian and States’ Rights. The Civil War was a Southern rebellion, fought over Slavery and the maintenance of a plantation system that justified and codified slavery into social, racial, and legal terms. While the Civil War and Reconstruction may have ended the institution of Slavery, the Jim Crow Era that followed simply imposed a new type of racially repressive system in the United States which denied social and Civil Rights to American Black citizens – the children and grandchildren of slaves – well into the 1960’s.
During the debriefing and processing of the Second Act, the white participants seemed to take refuge in the Obama Era belief in America as being a “post-racial” society. They expressed the attitude that we Americans no longer harbored the racist attitudes, beliefs, and practices of the past. Yet it was they, the white partners, who did most of the talking, explaining, and justifying in the session. They clearly assumed the prominent and dominant positions in their relationships until their black partners finally erupted in their own declarations of emancipation. I thought that this interaction mirrored many of the dynamics of the Critical Race Theory Controversy that is sweeping many Southern and Mid-West states and manifested in their desire to dominate School Boards so as to ban any curriculum, textbooks, and books that resurrect or negatively portray the sins and practices of slavery and racism. As I posed the question to my students: If we cannot analyze and critique the actions of the past, how can we learn from our history to become and remain a better nation and people?
Lastly, I must confess that as I watched the play, some part of me stayed aloof from the racially conflicted characters on the stage. As a first-generation Mexican American I felt that I was not depicted in this drama. I was neither black nor white – I was Hispanic, a “person of color”. My immigrant grandparents too were racially profiled and subjected to discriminatory Jim Crow laws, attitudes, and practices in Texas and California in the early 1900’s. I leaned comfortably back in my seat and sat in solidarity with my black brothers and sisters in the audience and on the stage in judgement, as the white partners in the racial therapy “white-splained” their anti-racist, non-white, color-blindness, until the white researcher-therapist grandly revealed herself as a Latina, a person of color who could truly relate to, and understand, the black men and woman in the session. It struck me then that this was the universal excuse that all descendants of immigrants use when accused of prejudice or racism. How can we be racist if our Italian, Irish, Mexican, Asian, or Jewish ancestors were subjected to white, Protestant-American discrimination and racism? It struck me finally that this idea was a false assumption. No matter how much racism, prejudice, and discrimination our immigrant forefathers and mothers suffered in America, they were never slaves – viewed and treated as legally disposable property that could be bought and sold, used, abused, and destroyed on a whim. It was a moment of uncomfortable self-revelation. The Slave Play was about me – especially if I am unwilling to look critically at slavery in America and its racist residue in today’s American society. We as a nation cannot escape our history and the legacy of slavery – “acting like nothing’s wrong” – unless we are willing to face it and address the “virus” of racism that still exists and manifests itself in countless actions and reactions in America.
