Day 122…
Just how bad do things need to get before the White House actually DOES something?
66,000 new cases yesterday.
The news today is that the President is going to visit Walter Reed Medical Center to visit wounded troops and that he’s going to wear a mask. Really? THIS is news? This is where we are?
Disney World is opening today in Florida.
Over 10,000 new cases yesterday with nearly 200 deaths and many areas of Florida have reached maximum capacity in their ICU wards, but sure, open away.
The last time that Dr. Anthony Fauci saw the President was June 2. The President has started openly questioning Fauci’s expertise: "Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes."
"I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things," Fauci said, "And that may be one of the reasons why I haven't been on television very much lately."
The longer this non-reaction from the government continues, the longer this virus is going to rage, keeping us all isolated from each other and unable to do our jobs.
I can’t help but notice that there is a new level of righteous anger that seems to be rising all across social media. Given that we can’t be together, the internet has become the sole way that we are all communicating with each other. Communicating online creates somewhat of a false sense of anonymity and, perhaps protection, that is allowing discussions to go far deeper than I think they would, were we facing each other in a room together.
In my own industry, a group called “We See You White American Theatre” have published a vividly strong 31-page list of demands for racial reform in terms of how we operate our theatres.
In 1996 the playwright August Wilson delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) entitled “The Ground on Which I Stand.” It was an impassioned stand on black pride and black separatism. He likened the idea of non-traditional casting (think Pearl Bailey in the all-black version of Hello Dolly on Broadway) to the practice of slaves being "summoned to the plantation house to entertain the slave owner and his guests." He pointed out that of the 66 professional regional theatres around the country, only one, Crossroads in New Jersey, was created by and run by black artists. He called for the creation of more institutions where black artists could be nurtured, and their work developed and pushed forward.
In the speech, Wilson singled out the critic Robert Brustein as being at the vanguard of backward thinking. Brustein had long argued that funding agencies were supporting what he felt was mediocre work by minority artists over more accomplished work by white artists. His argument was that the work needed to be judged on its own merits, separate from the race of the creator. The counter argument to that, of course, is who, then is making that determination? In most cases, white adjudicators.
So, the fight was on. The two men had a very heated back and forth exchange largely through written articles. “We See You White American Theatre” have picked up Wilson’s arguments and have expanded upon them.
A group of older theatre performers have formed another group called “Black Theatre United.”
Their mission statement reads, “As members of the Black theatre community, we stand together to help protect Black people, Black talent and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theatre and communities across the country. Our voices are united to empower our community through activism in the pursuit of justice and equality for the betterment of all humanity. We will not be silent. We will be seen. We will be heard. We are here. Join us.”
Tonya Pinkins, a Tony-award winning actress, who has a long history of activism within the community has written a piece called “Why I am Fed Up with Performative Activism from White and Black Theatre Makers.” In it, she calls for actual action rather than the forming of committees and discussion groups. She has long put herself on the line standing up for what she believes in and has paid the price for it.
She is saying that it is all well and good to discuss all of this, but in the actual room where it’s happening, do any of us have the guts to be the only person in the room who stands up and says something? When you actually stand up, you are risking your career and livelihood, in other words, everything. Who among us is brave enough to do that?
A whole group of international writers and educators signed a piece called “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” It was published a couple of days ago in Harper’s Magazine. The letter addresses what is seen as a counterattack against dissention from either side of the political spectrum. The concern is that some of those fighting for change are silencing anyone who isn’t strictly following the party line.
While stating that the protests for social justice and the demands for police reform are long overdue, the letter says, “this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.”
It has always been my experience that when confronted with an angry person, the only way through the conversation is to try and hear WHAT they are saying not HOW they are saying it.
Emotional confrontations backstage on a show are extremely common. While a cast may seem unified onstage, they are usually like any other group of people offstage - disparate. People who have to fall in love onstage can have knockdown drag out fights seconds before they walk out into the lights together. Producers get into conflicts with actors. Actors get into conflicts with stage managers. Stage managers get into conflicts with crew members.
Theatre artists, no matter what department they work in, are rarely shy about expressing their anger. True righteous anger coming at you can be extremely intimidating.
I can think of several times when the entire creative team of a show have been sitting out front while we were teching a show and a leading performer became so angry about something that they left the stage.
When that happens, everyone in the room - the director, the lighting designer - the music contractor - you name it, ALL of them, turn and look to the production stage manager.
In a word - Me.
My job, at that point, is to get that person back onstage.
How?
The only way I know to make that happen is to listen to them.
It doesn’t matter that there are 100 or so people sitting around while the clock ticks by, if the person I am talking to is angry enough to walk off the stage, they have something to say. It is usually about something that started small and wasn’t addressed and got bigger and bigger until a breaking point was hit.
You can’t do anything about stopping the water when a dam breaks. It floods. Once the water goes down you can start to repair things and maybe build a better dam. You can’t do any of that while the water is still rushing out of the breach.
George Floyd broke the dam.
George Floyd broke a dam that should never have been built in the first place.
Being locked down at home during all of this has allowed everyone the time to fully engage. Because we are not all in a room together, the conversation has deepened and sharpened to a level that I cannot recall ever happening before.
The flood of anger can be terrifying.
Until we finally get back to work, I think that what we have to do in the interim is just listen. The anger that is coming our way is coming from people who feel that they haven’t been heard. Stop listening to how what they are all saying is being said and try and concentrate on what is actually being said.
I look at some of what is being demanded and my first response is to think that that will never happen. Every time I have that response, I try to change how I am thinking to well, what if that DID happen? How would that work? Some of it, I can’t imagine actually coming to pass, but who knows?
We aren’t going to all be in a room together for many, many months.
Here are the links to all of the pieces I’ve referenced above.
https://www.weseeyouwat.com/
https://www.americantheatre.org/.../the-ground-on-which.../
https://www.blacktheatreunited.com/
https://medium.com/.../why-i-am-fed-up-with-performative...
https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Many of them are not easy to read. They provoke all sorts of difficult to process emotions. That’s OK.
We have the time to work through it all.
All we can do right now is listen.
If we listen long enough, maybe we will all be able to finally hear what is being said.
One of the gifts of acting for me
It teaches me, demands that I
listen
Listening has shifted my whole life
I forget about me
and see you
I become
present
The only moment is now
George Floyd broke the damn
now we all are knee deep in learning how to listen (swim)
Thank you for always
sharing the truth
💕