Wish I Had a Clever Title But I Don't

My mother is a physical therapist who did early intervention with children. She would be called to make a home visit to assess what, if any, help the child would need moving forward. These were children ranging in age from newborn to 7 years old, all dealing with any one of a number of things that would require a different life. Being a physical therapist, my mother focused mainly on motor skill development and muscle-related exercises to teach slow-learning children how to walk, crawl, sit up, find balance, hold a spoon...etc. For me, I have a distinct memory, which happened far later in my life than I am comfortable admitting, of my mother turning to me after some thrown aside comment and telling me, "Just because they navigate the world in a different way than you, doesn't mean their lives are any less than yours." It was a real slap-in-the-face wake up call for me, the realization that differently abled people don't give a shit about the pity or sympathy I may want to throw at them, they merely want to live as full a life as possible, the same as me. That they will do that in a way that is different from me means nothing. Which is all merely to say that the readings this week helped to bring home how shortsighted I can be in my view towards "others." I cannot escape my straight, white, maleness, and much of this semester has been me fighting "privilege responses" I didn't even know I had.
Another, I guess only semi-related story, is of a guy I played basketball with in seventh grade. I don't remember his name, I just remember that he loved basketball. Neither of us were starters, but we would have a blast cheering on the team from the bench, and relished any playing time we got. He was much more aggressive than I was, with a stronger belief in his own abilities and a willingness to experiment on the court that I just didn't possess. He also only had one arm. I remember at tryouts thinking, "Good on you for trying, dude, but...c'mon." He shut me and my friends up pretty quickly. He wasn't born with one arm, but had been climbing a tree as a kid and reached up and grabbed a power line. They had to amputate that arm, and he moved on. I thought of him during the reading this week, in that in my head he has the same no-nonsense tone that Petra Kuppers had. He asked for no pity, would smack you with his good arm for trying to help, and was maybe one of the best dribblers of a basketball I've ever been around. The point being: the phrase disabled does a disservice.

P.S. Just read on playbill.com that Martyna Mayok's The Cost of Living won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It's a beautiful play about a man with cerebral palsy, a quadriplegic woman, and the people that care for them. If anyone wants to read it I have a copy.

Universal Soldiers

Erica poses an interesting challenge/question in regards to "universality." Specifically: is there are piece of theater, film, or art that is truly universal? As far as Taylor Mac's play Hir is concerned, I don't think it is. Nor do I think it is trying to be. Hir is specifically about a family in transition. The character of Max is literally in transition, exploring the process of living as a man after being born as a woman; the mother is in the transition of wanting to accept this process so badly that she becomes an uber-ally, advocating for weekend art excursions, a less-than-orderly house, and the slow stripping of power from her husband who certainly had it coming; the son Isaac transitioning back to civilian life after being dishonorably discharged from the armed services. I don't believe this play is trying to be universal, I believe it is trying to paint the picture of the chaos certain facets of society find themselves in as the more marginalized of its members begin fighting for equality.
For me--feel free to picture the dislodging of a tic-tac in my throat here--I think the piece of theater I've seen that is closest to universal is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. 

For those unfamiliar, Hedwig is the story of a self-described "girly boy" from East Berlin who gets a sex change operation so that he/she can marry a U.S. soldier and move to America. The operation gets botched and Hedwig is left with an angry inch of skin, not really man, not really woman, definitely alone and living in the upper midwest of the United States. The lead character of this musical has been played by both men and women, among them John Cameron Mitchell, Ally Sheedy,  Neil Patrick Harris, and Lena Hall. Hedwig's backup singer and roadie is Yitzhak, a woman living as a man because that's how Hedwig likes it (and because, musically, the harmonies tend to work better). Hedwig sings a song towards the beginning of the show where she describes the ancient myth of Plato, who put forth that eons ago human beings were made up of two kinds of sexes joint like siamese twins, back to back. There were guy/guy pairing, guy/girl pairings, and girl/girl pairings. And we were all so happy and complete that we grew in knowledge to the point that the gods got angry, and cut us all in half. We are then doomed to spend our lives roaming the earth searching for our missing half, who when we find them will complete us.

(I posted the original Hedwig, John Cameron Mitchell, and then Lena Hall, cause they are both pretty badass)

 It's a really amazing show, and I think it fits the bill of universality in that the main character works no matter the gender, the secondary character also can be played either way, and in the end every single person who has ever felt a little iota of what is it be in love can relate to the story.

This talk of universality also made me think of the British comedian/politician Eddie Izzard...

Eddie Izzard is a self-proclaimed Action Transvestite. He talks about fancying women and liking to dress like them as well, calling himself a "male lesbian." He's also recently run for political party seats in Britain, and has been very active in demystifying the idea of a man dressed as a woman. On a British talk show he made the comment that he doesn't believe he wears women's clothes, he believes he wears clothes. Period. Why do we need a distinction? It's an interesting question. Maybe the only way to truly achieve universality is to progress to the point where we don't feel the need for boxes of any kind. I'm not gay or straight, male, or female, I am merely...me. Navigating the world as best I can, just like everybody else.
Sadly, this day still seems like a long way off. And part of me believes that the only way to get there may be to NOT aim for universality. Maybe we need to tell stories that are more specific to those that have previously been held voiceless. Tell as many of those stories as possible to the point where they don't seem out of the ordinary anymore. And then begin telling stories incorporating all these new faces and colors and abilities into all of our stories. It sounds like a daydream, but that's generally where progress begins: in the mind of someone, somewhere, dreaming of the day when thoughts of race and religion and gender aren't part of the conversation because the world has moved on and truly doesn't care what you are, as long as you area good and productive person. Right Hedwig?

Coalitional...come on.

After reading and talking and listening during our week of race-related readings, I've decided that coalitional casting is a pipe-dream, a false-positive that people use to rationalize a desire to produce a show that they cannot cast appropriately. Yes, I want to be an ally to those that are marginalized and pushed to the fringes of artistic opportunity; yes, I want the stories of all colors and cultures to be told; yes, I believe this is possible without betraying the artistic vision and purpose of the writer.
When I was in undergrad we had a phenomenal setup for the student theatre. It was a black box space entirely produced, directed, acted, designed, and built by the students. We would do 4-5 shows a semester in this space, everything from Chekhov to Eric Bogosian. The value in this was that there were so many ways to get involved as a young actor/artist. I believed, and still believe, that the place to really learn your craft is not in a classroom but in an actual theater. In the trenches, with your peers, doing the work and making it happen. However,  an environment that provides so many opportunities also allows for some misguided productions.
My sophomore year one of the seniors decided he wanted to direct Statements After An Arrest Under the Immorality Act, by Athol Fugard. An important piece of South African apartheid drama. The play, written in 1972, deals with the relationship between a white, female librarian, and a married black man. The Immorality Act in South Africa made such a relationship illegal. The play opens with the couple having just finished having sex, and the two actors are required to be naked for much of the play. It is a beautiful piece of writing, and I remember vividly the two undergrad actors cast in the leading roles. The two white undergrad actors cast in the leading roles. The production became all about the bravery of the two actors willing to appear naked in a student play, so much so that there was very little talk of the fact that by making them both white the play has almost no purpose. I'm embarrassed to admit that the full weight of what they had done didn't hit me until many years later. How did faculty let this happen??? Did no one question the student director? Did no one call him to account for his decision to whitewash a play that is entirely dependent on the color of its actors? Did it really not matter because...Harrisonburg, Virginia, 1997, ya'll? I don't know. But I feel that at best it was a tremendously missed opportunity to tell a beautiful story in a town that maybe needed to hear it, and didn't. And as responsible artists, I feel it's our job to not take the easy way out. Coalitional casting feels like the easy way out, arguing that education of some kind is better than no education at all. But not if that education is misleading and misguided. If you want to do a show that you don't have the actors for, pick another show. If you still want to do that show, figure out what's missing from your program that is keeping you from accurately being able to cast that show, and try and fix that problem. Do anything but say, "Oh, well. I'll just use the 'best actor' for the job, and at least the story will get told." The story will get told, but it won't be the same story the playwright intended. And that does a disservice to all involved. Educational theater should aspire to the standards of professional theater. Coalitional casting feels a little like giving Little League baseball players an extra out because they are children. Sure, it makes it easier and everybody gets to play, but doesn't it do them a disservice when they grow up and realize they in fact only get three outs? We should be training responsible actor/artists who are allies in the fight for gender and racial parity. And if that means some of us have to learn that there are roles we are not appropriate for, then so be it.