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Went and saw “A House with No Walls,” (written by Thomas Gibbons; directed by Terrence Spivey) on Sunday at Karamu.  In the end, I must say, I enjoyed myself quite a bit. 

(Aside from the young girl in the far left corner of the house who, yes, let her cell phone ring—but alas, not only let it ring, no… that wouldn’t be enough…yes, she answered it…answered it and talked…until someone hissed and shushed her…is that the end…oh, no…did it ring again, you ask?…yes, it did…and she didn’t answer it…just let it ring.  I was tempted to stand up and ask the actors to stop and then pull a Lawrence Fishburne on the girl…I don’t know how that would have gone over.)

Regardless, I had a good time.  Clyde was in it playing three roles including that of a George Washington impersonator.  After the show there was a meet-and-greet line (which is the first time I’ve encountered that, by the way) and I quipped to Clyde that he continues to look remarkably good in wigs.

I was a bit shaky at the outset because I have grown so used to watching theater of a certain type: in your face, no fourth wall, etc., that I have been having a tough time seeing other plays.  It was the same sort of experience with Boom at CPT.  The experiences seem to move in slow motion and I am overly-conscious of the construction of the things: oh, here’s a big helping of exposition, here’s a detail that will mean something later on, and so on.  For the most part, this is the way that A House starts off.  The first “grand opening” is a bit overwhelming and the sensory overload actually confused me some.  But, I did like the activity of it.  Cadence Lane (played with an extraordinary, seething integrity by Katrice Headd) is at a podium, stage left, speaking passionately about race in America and timing, what turns out to be salvos of Oreo cookies being thrown at her; Salif Camara (played with strength and heart-felt moral outrage by Peter Lawson Jones) and Allen Rosen (Tony Zanoni as a convincing academic) use measuring tape and stakes to allot the slave quarters on Washington’s property; and Oney Judge (Taresa Willingham: timid, fresh, and with conviction) are all moving about at once.  I was enthralled by the measuring tape and stakes—maybe it’s a man thing—but lost complete track of whatever Headd was saying.

Overall, I think the message of the play was strong and I certainly felt compelled by it at times—at others I felt it was redundant and, as others have remarked, preachy.  But I felt that Gibbons did a good job of keeping the tension up by the use of the modern-American- political-drama shtick—you know, the one that plays out daily in newspapers…the one of rhetorical blaming and finger pointing and posturing for news papers and inciting mobs to do this thing or throw that thing or misbehave one way or another for the performance art of it all.  It hit every racial theme and every hot button racial issue—like reparation, interracial lovin’, mulattos and mixed blood, cultural and linguistic signifying, double-talk, righteous revenge, white guilt, etc. 

But most of all, I think Gibbons did a great job mixing it up.  I LEARNED from watching this play, and that is what strikes me the most.  This play wasn’t simply a dull exercise in ratcheting tension and getting people to yell in self-righteous fury; Gibbons used the space of the theater and the power of theater to create visual images: the most striking of which comes right at intermission, when Lane and Judge come face-to-face with one another—holding out, every so lightly, a hand toward one another—over the distance of 200+ years.  Their symbolic meaning, to the play, being that both are black women being “used” as political tools: Lane as a “token” Republican and Judge as a “token” run-away slave.  The house with no walls is a powerful symbol as well—as one would expect.  The demarcation on the ground of where the slave quarters stood, as well as Gibbons notion that the walls that once did exist were philosophically non-existent, as any white person could violate the privacy of the slaves’ “house” at any time.  I haven’t thought long and hard on the overall meaning of the play and what that image means for both of the women in the play—perhaps that their boundaries are constantly threatened, uncertain, and justify their tough exteriors.  I would move into a Bakhtinian analysis of the temporal dialog going on in this play between “the present” and “the past” but I won’t bore you with my lame attempt. 

(Although, I did write a very nice article on the subject with regard to Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, which I’ll post here just for the hell of it sometime.  On a gossipy aside, I met her when I was at Ohio University, where they have a very nice literary festival; and there are great rumors out there about a feud with Louise Erdrich.)

Regardless, Gibbon’s play draws very rich parallels between the two characters in time and has given me good structural possibilities for my play The Empiric, and ways that I can mix it up with the original idea that got me writing plays.  I like, as well, his playfulness with the characters in historical re-enactments then doubling into the characters from 200+ years earlier.  Very novel.  The use of the house with no walls as a boundary on the ground over which / through which the “past” slave characters do not step—until a dramatic moment late in the play—is equally compelling and theatrical.  The off-stage sound cues supplement the action on the stage in effective ways as well: the shouting of crowds, the droning beep of construction equipment and the loud diesel engines on a site.

I enjoyed the performance very much, found it thought provoking (when it wasn’t droning on) and visually / theatrically interesting, too.

On another note, I just thought I’d give a shout out to Terrence Spivey and Karamu for getting some well-deserved recognition in this month’s American Theatre magazine, pages 42-45. Very nice!

Well, it’s been a long road for me and this play. It started as an exercise in Mike Geither’s English 612 class sometime in February or March of 2007. The exercise, toward the bottom of this entry: http://weebelly.com/04/working-theatrically/, led to Timothy and Spooky running around a campfire.

As nearly as I can remember the play started off like a normal one for me. Two characters in a rather bland exchange:

Timothy: Hey, Spooky, whachya up to?

Spooky: I don’t like being called ‘Spooky,’ thank you so goddam very much, I thank you.

Timothy: Okay, then Spooky, what is your name?

Spooky: I won’t tell you my name. A name’s power, there’s power in names; power in names over the named thing there is power. That I won’t give you.

Timothy: Spooky, how can I talk to you if I don’t know what to call you by?

Spooky: (Standing quickly and moving toward Timothy. Speaks in a loud voice and stands menacingly close) Ahhh, why doan you fuck off!

It had two male characters interacting and one was violent and domineering and the other somewhat passive and timid. At this point, the play could have gone the same route as an earlier play I wrote, Only Sing for Me. In fact, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on this comparison and the two are eerily similar, one is simply less imaginative and has less of my “true” voice in it. Although it nearly went the same route as the earlier piece, one exchange popped out that changed things:

Timothy: (Shrinking visibly and stuttering) I…I…m sorry Spp… I’m sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…

Spooky: (Just stands and breathes heavily into Timothy’s face.)

Timothy: (Raises his right hand and taps it on his chest) My, but you have got my heart racing. Simply racing. (He backs up a step and then turns, slowly, and begins circling Spooky) Simply a’goin’ pitter patter, my heart. (In the mock voice of Scarlet O’Hara or Blanche DuBois) Why, whatever is a girl to do with such a… brute as you?

That strategic choice by Timothy to switch to an openly effeminate persona, coupled with the sly strategy of a comedic mockery that challenges the openly violent hostility of the other fundamentally changed how the two would interact. This exchange was followed rapidly by the next exchange:

Spooky: (Sits on the ground again and crosses his legs; he draws idly with his index finger.)

Timothy: (In his normal voice) You know, I don’t often come to the woods anymore. Not like I used to. Not like I used to with Uncle Philly and Brother Gene and Sister Mary May and John the Butcher and Kim the Karate man from down the block. Not like that anymore. I used to come. With them. Used to come out here all the time and lay on my back in the clearing over there and gaze up at the night sky. Orion and Cassiopeia and the Pleiades and Sirius and Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and the Milky Way which was always my favorite way and the vast distance of the immensity that was the greatness that pressed down on my tiny chest and encompassed me fuller than any womb I was ever completely in but not completed in. I used to gaze at that.

This effusion by Timothy is remarkable, for me, in that the character of Timothy now has openly been freed up to allow his innermost thoughts to pour out, uninhibited. It is quite really that by allowing my character (myself) to put on an effeminate voice I freed myself (Timothy) to let an imaginative world pour forth. This is quite naturally followed later by this, not too much later:

Spooky: (Turning) Are you gonna get smart? (Stands) Are ya? (Walks menacingly toward Timothy) Are you gonna get smart. Are ya? Are you gonna get smart, now? (Smacking Timothy on the head) Where’s your dress? Where’s your dress, Timothy? Where is it? (Smacks Timothy on the head) Put it on. Put the dress on. (He turns and stomps back to the backpack and starts rummaging.)

And then…

… Timothy steps out of the tent in a pink dress and a blonde wig with braids. He has red lipstick all over his mouth.

So, the course of the play had been set in motion.

Originally, the Ranger was in on it. Later he became a foil against which the other two acted. This is very in keeping with Only Sing for Me, but I do have to speculate what the play would have been like had I kept the Ranger as a part of the other two’s activities.

For the most part the play developed in a natural course flowing out of me quite easily. Toward the end, though, the magic fizzled and my conscious mind started getting in the way. I’ve written about this on several occasions, but my entry on Wallace Shawn certainly foregrounds the problem: http://weebelly.com/02/on-writingand-on-writing-about-sex/

The unconscious mind is the realm of dreams. It is mythological and powerful, spontaneous and frightening. The conscious mind is dull and predictable. Beware you let your conscious mind write (or edit your unconscious material). Of course, you have to do this (allow it) so, as Shawn points out, this is where a talented writer shows up (the ability to edit). I have yet to fully acquire this talent. I read Christine Howey’s review of my play and admired her eye, as she directly caught the problem of my play of which I was acutely aware.

In revising the play, which I had named A Howl in the Woods, I comment elsewhere about the change in name http://weebelly.com/25/play-to-be-produced/ which I admit is much more interesting than my original. The original name, however, reflects the direction I went with the play: there is something in the unconscious tangle that transforms the main character—empowers him to slough off his mutable identity and become the self-defined person he was meant to be.

There was a fundamental failure on my part to instantiate this vision for this play and that left it open to many interpretations. And truth be told, the direction that it went was too much a conscious decision and left it open to the failures I mention above. I think very much that Clyde revived the comedic heart of the play as it was originated—the playful spontaneity that made it special—and helped it to come to something worthwhile. I know that I am fortunate to have him as the director.

Ultimately, there were mistakes made in the writing of this play and I have learned valuable lessons from them—so, I will go on to new mistakes. Hopefully my plays will get better as I move forward, too—the mistakes less obvious and bumbling. In reflection, I had opportunities; including the aftermath of the staged reading at CPT.

Lord of the Burgeoning Lumber is going well and has been very well received (see Tony Brown’s review). I admit that I’m somewhat surprised, but I guess that is because I know its warts and focus on what could have been rather than what is, making it difficult to see that there is good in it yet. Certainly, I have no regrets about placing the play in the hands of convergence-continuum. I cannot say enough about all who have given so much of their time to it: Clyde Simon, Lucy Bredeson-Smith (tireless and omnipotent wielder of the immortal stage manager lash), Geoffrey Hoffman (whose talent as an actor and director shows in his acute perception of and critical inquiry about the flaws in this play), Tom Kondilas, Tyson Rand, Mark K (who should have two more arms to manage the musical gymnastics he accomplishes for this performance), Megan DePetro as the Butterfly Queen, and Sarah Kunchik as Helga. Then there is Terrii Zernechel who put in long evenings working on lights and lighting effects, Tom Kondilas (again) who stop-motioned the video and brought the shadows to life, and Sade Wolfkitten who is always present to make the sound go off without a hitch.

I am grateful to convergence for making this play a success; to Mike Geither for his guidance, and for the input of the 612 class who helped shape it. The play has yet to reach its final resting place, perhaps, as it has been entered in the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival (ACTF) and will be reviewed by a judge from Wooster very soon. Some recommendation will be made at that point.