(no subject)
Friday night I saw Ameriville, "An explosive fusion of storytelling and the infectious rhythms of jazz, Gospel, and hip-hop" that "puts the state of the Union under a microscope...through the lens of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath." My bias notwithstanding (I went largely to support a friend who was working tech), I genuinely think that technically-speaking it was extremely impressive.
Perhaps most strikingly, they used lighting and choreography to infuse the show with exquisite form, shadow, etc. in a way that was clearly deliberate but done so seamlessly it "felt" unconscious.
The show is very much experiential (no Brechtian acting here), taking the audience through a crisis of faith in the American dream particularly brought to the forefront by Hurricane Katrina. It's intense; though there are distinct "scenes," they aren't separated by blackouts or closed curtains like in "traditional" plays so the show flows continuously. That being said, they did a great job of varying more intense "scenes" with those that might be equally serious but have a more humorous approach. Similarly, they alternated "simpler" monologues and dialogues with montages that managed to be complex without feeling "busy."
Throughout the show, they used the device of repeating/riffing on snippets from well-known songs, and by doing so repeatedly and with an eclectic range of songs that paralleled the show's "embrace U.S. diversity" message turned the music into a unifying motif. Also, I'm now in lust with the actress's voice.
This great promotional video clip should give you a sense of what I'm talking about above.
Content-wise it was definitely thought-provoking for me, though I suspect not in the ways the creators/performers intended. Two of the scenes that most people found most powerful (including the friend who I "dragged" along, a.k.a. "asked if she'd like to go") really rubbed me the wrong way.
One was about hate crimes and right from the beginning used very loaded imagery - an image of a burning cross as the background, and three actors chasing the fourth and the fourth miming being hung. The person being "lynched" then has a monologue that, by offering a super-abbreviated reason that various groups hate various other groups, is I think supposed to show the absurdity of racial hatred, making statements that are accurate depictions of how a given group thinks but that are so ridiculous they're funny in a way. That....didn't work for me. I think that most ethno-racial "othering" is a matter of competing for limited resources (whether that be concrete like land or intangible societal respect) - settlers say the indigenous people are savages to justify taking their land, "white" people (even those who don't benefit economically from it) perpetuate the subjugation and enslavement of "black" people because hey, we may be dirt poor but at least we aren't them, etc. Over time, however, that original reason is no longer important because the violence perpetrated by the other side is more than enough to fuel ongoing fear and hate. As I interpreted it, this scene failed to account for either of those factors. (Actually, though it certainly dealt extensively with class, the show as a whole left me feeling like they should have done more debunking of the "limited resources" idea because it ties in so much to their message about the importance of supporting our fellow countrymen.) With the imagery making me viscerally tense up but the attempt to deconstruct racism not working for me, I wound up frustrated by the scene.
The other scene that seems to have done a lot more for other people than for me was about religion being used to justify violence. Except that half the examples weren't theologically-motivated. Now, I admit, I'm touchy about comparisons between flat-out, deliberate genocide and, and racism-motivated production of shitty, but not, for the most part death-inducing, conditions* and the conflation of the two didn't leave me well-disposed towards their point. To be blunt, it made me feel like they were co-opting other people's pain without acknowledging what makes it unique, which I find disrespectful. Between the two issues, this scene really didn't work for me.
That being said, trying to articulate why these scenes bothered me was certainly thought-provoking, though almost more in making me aware of how much my time around Israelis has shifted my perceptions than in the way the show was intended. One of the scene that got to me most was probably the one featuring an elderly Hurricane Katrina victim struggling with crappy (non-)response to PTSD. I also really liked a scene about a father dying while saving people from the floodwaters that (facilitated by one of those musical riffs mentioned above) had a brilliantly-done message about the importance of taking action rather than leaving things entirely "in G-d's hands."
Just as my preferred and...less-preferred scenes say more about me than about the show, so does my struggle with the format of the show. I'm aware that "spiraling" (as opposed to linear) narratives are characteristic of oral histories/storytelling and that it's a bit of a trend in theatre that embraces "minority" experiences to lean to a greater or lesser extent in that direction. Knowing that, however, didn't stop me from spending much of the show trying to fit the pieces/scenes together.
One way or another, I'm really glad I went to see this show. It was thought-provoking, had a good message, and was beautifully executed. And tickets for people under 30 are available for only $10 :) (they only list it on the site's fine print, but are super nice when you call to get the tickets).
* The friend with whom I went to the show asked me to clarify this bit. From what I sent to her: "My issue was with comparing what I see more as xenophobia marginally tempered by a token nod to human rights (internment camps) to the deliberate fostering of an ideology that justifies the creation of a class of okay-to-kill people in order to avert class riots (by poor whites in North America or by poor Christian Germans and Poles in Europe)."
Perhaps most strikingly, they used lighting and choreography to infuse the show with exquisite form, shadow, etc. in a way that was clearly deliberate but done so seamlessly it "felt" unconscious.
The show is very much experiential (no Brechtian acting here), taking the audience through a crisis of faith in the American dream particularly brought to the forefront by Hurricane Katrina. It's intense; though there are distinct "scenes," they aren't separated by blackouts or closed curtains like in "traditional" plays so the show flows continuously. That being said, they did a great job of varying more intense "scenes" with those that might be equally serious but have a more humorous approach. Similarly, they alternated "simpler" monologues and dialogues with montages that managed to be complex without feeling "busy."
Throughout the show, they used the device of repeating/riffing on snippets from well-known songs, and by doing so repeatedly and with an eclectic range of songs that paralleled the show's "embrace U.S. diversity" message turned the music into a unifying motif. Also, I'm now in lust with the actress's voice.
This great promotional video clip should give you a sense of what I'm talking about above.
Content-wise it was definitely thought-provoking for me, though I suspect not in the ways the creators/performers intended. Two of the scenes that most people found most powerful (including the friend who I "dragged" along, a.k.a. "asked if she'd like to go") really rubbed me the wrong way.
One was about hate crimes and right from the beginning used very loaded imagery - an image of a burning cross as the background, and three actors chasing the fourth and the fourth miming being hung. The person being "lynched" then has a monologue that, by offering a super-abbreviated reason that various groups hate various other groups, is I think supposed to show the absurdity of racial hatred, making statements that are accurate depictions of how a given group thinks but that are so ridiculous they're funny in a way. That....didn't work for me. I think that most ethno-racial "othering" is a matter of competing for limited resources (whether that be concrete like land or intangible societal respect) - settlers say the indigenous people are savages to justify taking their land, "white" people (even those who don't benefit economically from it) perpetuate the subjugation and enslavement of "black" people because hey, we may be dirt poor but at least we aren't them, etc. Over time, however, that original reason is no longer important because the violence perpetrated by the other side is more than enough to fuel ongoing fear and hate. As I interpreted it, this scene failed to account for either of those factors. (Actually, though it certainly dealt extensively with class, the show as a whole left me feeling like they should have done more debunking of the "limited resources" idea because it ties in so much to their message about the importance of supporting our fellow countrymen.) With the imagery making me viscerally tense up but the attempt to deconstruct racism not working for me, I wound up frustrated by the scene.
The other scene that seems to have done a lot more for other people than for me was about religion being used to justify violence. Except that half the examples weren't theologically-motivated. Now, I admit, I'm touchy about comparisons between flat-out, deliberate genocide and, and racism-motivated production of shitty, but not, for the most part death-inducing, conditions* and the conflation of the two didn't leave me well-disposed towards their point. To be blunt, it made me feel like they were co-opting other people's pain without acknowledging what makes it unique, which I find disrespectful. Between the two issues, this scene really didn't work for me.
That being said, trying to articulate why these scenes bothered me was certainly thought-provoking, though almost more in making me aware of how much my time around Israelis has shifted my perceptions than in the way the show was intended. One of the scene that got to me most was probably the one featuring an elderly Hurricane Katrina victim struggling with crappy (non-)response to PTSD. I also really liked a scene about a father dying while saving people from the floodwaters that (facilitated by one of those musical riffs mentioned above) had a brilliantly-done message about the importance of taking action rather than leaving things entirely "in G-d's hands."
Just as my preferred and...less-preferred scenes say more about me than about the show, so does my struggle with the format of the show. I'm aware that "spiraling" (as opposed to linear) narratives are characteristic of oral histories/storytelling and that it's a bit of a trend in theatre that embraces "minority" experiences to lean to a greater or lesser extent in that direction. Knowing that, however, didn't stop me from spending much of the show trying to fit the pieces/scenes together.
One way or another, I'm really glad I went to see this show. It was thought-provoking, had a good message, and was beautifully executed. And tickets for people under 30 are available for only $10 :) (they only list it on the site's fine print, but are super nice when you call to get the tickets).
* The friend with whom I went to the show asked me to clarify this bit. From what I sent to her: "My issue was with comparing what I see more as xenophobia marginally tempered by a token nod to human rights (internment camps) to the deliberate fostering of an ideology that justifies the creation of a class of okay-to-kill people in order to avert class riots (by poor whites in North America or by poor Christian Germans and Poles in Europe)."