Cast of "St. Mary's Hear and Now"
Over the weekend our college witnessed a remarkable theatrical event. Caleen Sinnette Jennings, a theater professor at American University, spent a sabbatical semester at St. Mary’s interviewing our students and crafting a play about race relations. Over the years I have been involved in numerous efforts to facilitate racial dialogue, but I’ve never seen it done as successfully as it was in St. Mary’s Hear and Now.
The weeks-long project began with Jennings interviewing scores of students about race at St. Mary’s. She then fashioned what she heard into a play and had a handful of students engage in scripted conversations about a host of topics. Some of the material from the interviews was put to music or set in rhyme
Americans (and others) often fear discussing race because they fear the subject is too painful. What they fail to realize is that the pain is already present—as a nation we are still twisted in internal knots by the subject—and a well-facilitated conversation actually comes as an immense relief. That was how the audience experienced Jennings’ play.
Among the issues we saw raised were black oversensitivity, white insensitivity, the n-word, roommate disagreements, different musical tastes, unconscious racism, self-segregation, the danger of making categorical statements, the challenge of asking difficult questions, and (a particularly volatile issue) the question of black hair.
The Slovene exchange student who lives with us was the one white male in the play–although, as he pointed out, he is half Bosnian, which makes him a target of ethnic slurs by certain of his own countrymen. The playwright used him to great effect as an outsider in America’s race conversations, especially as an innocent trying to understand how people use the n-word.
Former black students who took my “Minority Literature” classes back in the 1980′s and 1990’s returned to campus to watch the production and were amazed by how openly it confronted the land mines. Afterwards we talked about the contentious debates we had had years ago when we read and discussed Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues, Lucille Clifton’s Quilting and other works. As I look back at some very testy classes, I realize that we didn’t talk about the contradictions as well as St. Mary’s Hear and Now did. The black students had been angry at the whites–but of course, these were white students who had chosen to take to take a minority literature course. The white students had been angry at the blacks–but these were black students who had often chosen to buck their communities and come to a predominantly white college. Both groups privately admitted that they had very different conversations about race when they went back to their home communities. The play addressed such issues head-on whereas my literature course often skirted around them.
And yet, as inexpertly as I moderated the discussions, vital things were learned. Alumni from those courses, both black and white, talk positively about them to this day.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no place “above it all” to talk about race because we are always enmeshed in it. Yet as difficult as the conversations are, we have no choice but to have them. As I said, it’s ultimately easier, and far more healing, to talk about race than not.
One Comment
A lovely post, Robin.
I now feel obliged to share my view of the play – being the Slovene actor and looking out into the audience.
I now know that taking part in an original play was one of the best decisions I made during my time at St Mary’s College of Maryland – not only was it one way to improve my acting skills and techniques, but it also allowed me to penetrate deep into the real life of St Mary’s, the campus life that would have remained hidden from me and form my own voice on topics that had seemed so remote just several months away. I remember being greatly impressed by the broad mind and spirit of the director when I took part in the interviews, but I remained undecided for the next few weeks. It was not just the time that I would have to devote to the production – it was also the fact that I felt I lacked information on the direction that the project was to take. I had never performed in a play as it was being written, let alone one on a topic that was outside my own world. Or so I had thought. When I finally decided to take the plunge, I realized I was the only white male in the play and that my voice was not just mine now – I represented those that did not have the courage to take the risk. I guess that was the first major mind-switch and more were to come.
We opened each rehearsal with a warm-up and not just any warm-up. Mrs Caleen trained us in kick-boxing moves and articulation tongue-twisters. Punches should fall and strike the same way as lines – properly executed, from your entire body, sharp, with a strong sense of direction, correct breathing and as if you really mean it. Of course, I only understood the parallel much later, when she demanded of us to combine lines with punches and kicks. It was a test of us being off book enough not to get distracted, but at the same time both lines and kicks had to be done holistically. I believe this analogy will stay with me always – and if nothing else, an actor always has to be fit to perform either a line or a punch (or a punch-line).
Gradually we moved on to blocking and formations. I find it necessary to mention that although I have done some acting in the past I have never done anything in the round – how to cheat out in a play where you simply have to expose your back to the audience at any given moment? The director’s directions were simple: unless your movement was pre-blocked, your walk was the way you’d normally do it, but once done, it had to be redone the same way every time. Late it was when I realised that the director blocked all the scenes more than accurately – and I believe that the dynamics of movement on stage remains one of the strongest treats of the play. I also noticed that people who had never acted before had fewer issues with it as they had not yet been told an actor’s back can be a very problematic aspect.
Furthermore, the reverse duality intrigued me greatly: we were supposed to act ourselves and not just be ourselves. The characters we had to take on were not stable: more than that – they were mostly nameless character snippets that varied from our own personal voice (with names) to representations, types or merely bodiless voices. How does one act oneself, if one has to act one’s own exact words but the way the director desires? I remember being warned I overdid my own phrases and in this way created a distance between the speaker and the message, which broke the illusion of a regular student. The illusion had to keep on flowing, as did the very symbol of the river that the author used so as to put the entire piece in perspective. The symbolism, imagery, and even the author’s own music piece stressed the holism of the play and kept it from being plainly didactic – it made it into an artistic piece.
The play might have been otherwise simple (when it comes to stage and props), but I know that was not its core. The underlying essence of the play was in its dynamic, interactive and didactic nature that built on everyday moments audience was able to relate to. However, I strongly believe that the impression it had on the people cannot be the least compared with its echoing effect on the actors. It was interesting to see actors overcome the same barriers the play discussed. Both sides admitted they never had friends from other ethnicities and now, two months later, they refer to each other as the very best of friends. I realize this seemingly has nothing to do with the production, but at the same time I believe that such a didactic play can only be ‘real’ and successful if the people talking about friendship and common humanity truly believe in it and trust each other.
By and large I can confidently say I am very happy with the outcome: people shared, cried and talked about it. They felt touched and included. They felt the power of the theatre, the power of art at its greatest – the confessions of others spoke to them, so they could speak their own voices. It’s heART. It’s human magic.
It is simply fascinating to witness the entire process of creating a play from its very inception – in such short a period. I am still grappling with the fact that there exists a play that took my name, my words and my experiences and used them. The very idea is somehow still beyond me, yet the feeling of honor is undeniable, indelible and will always stay with me, as it did here and now.