Post #3: Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre

Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre

Amiri Baraka was a playwright and poet who was heavily engaged in the bohemian counterculture of late 1960s Harlem.  His work is incendiary, controversial, and heavily political.  This passage from the above article caught my eye:

To fulfill the goals of the Revolutionary Theatre, Baraka borrowed from and utilized the efficacy of customary African rituals and sacrifice. His confidence in ritual evolved around his nationalistic “return” to ancestral precepts. In preserving this sacred worldview, his Revolutionary Theatre adopted a rite-of-passage structure that thrived on violence and sacrificial rebirth. In part, therefore, Baraka presented Black drama as an extension of the oral traditions of Africa, and as a genre rooted  in specific Africansensibilities. The importance of exploiting African ritual and dramatic forms was twofold for Baraka; his plays threatened the oppressor while entering into the  rediscovery of his heritage.

I'm heavily interested in traditional forms of ritual and how they preceded and anticipated our current theatrical forms.  The rite-of-passage, or initiation, still exists in our modern religions (the Catholic confirmation, the evangelical "born again" choice, the Bar Mitzvah, the Quinceanera), while other cultural traditions act in a similar manner (in America, these have to do with sex, drugs, music, and fast driving).

How can a theatrical experience challenge the audience in such a way that they actually undergo some kind of spiritual crisis and catharsis?  A radical reframing of the human condition can be achieved in a number of different storytelling forms- whether they are mythical or contemporary, good stories should challenge our preconceptions and reorient our perspectives.  But I'm curious how modern, cutting-edge techniques (surround sound, strobe lights, elaborate costumes, projections) can contribute to a multisensory experience that resembles a coming of age rite.

Post #2: All the king's horses...

 As Chicago heads into its first mayoral runoff election, set for April 7, the heat has been turned up and is boiling over into the neighborhoods, where Chuy Garcia signs are elbowing out Rahm Emanuel 's $14-million-backed advertising initiative.  Still, Emanuel's lavish ad campaign has apparently done its job, as the conservative Chicago Tribune announced a new poll showing Emanuel with a 28-point lead.  The Tribune, of course, has a long history of underestimating progressive candidates' potential in their polling, but the psychological effect is clear.  People want to vote for the winner, and the media narrative has been set: Rahm is the winner.

Rahm screams at mental health activists, “YOU’RE GONNA RESPECT ME!”
This article offers a glimpse at the man's character.  Closing down 49 public schools and half of the city's mental health clinics suggests a certain callousness, but it's private moments like this one that offer a purer glimpse into the heart of the man tasked with running this operation we call Chicago.

Washington Post: How Rahm Emanuel flipped the script on liberal rebels in the Chicago runoff
Articles like this one, from the Washington Post, highlight the national impact of the race, which has been interpreted by Beltway politicos as a stand in for a larger feud between the progressive/populist wing of the Democratic Party, versus the centrist, pro-business wing heralded by Bill and Hillary Clinton, which has dominated the Democrats since their string of humiliating defeats in the 1980s presidential contests.

I would love to see a theatre piece where someone acting like Rahm goes through daily life acting with the imperial manner and wild mood swings that otherwise characterize a sociopath.  Why do such loathsome character qualities take on such an appealing luster in our politicians?  Does being in power mold people into acting out their most narcissistic and base qualities, or do we simply insist on electing egomaniacal blowhards into authority roles?

Post #1: Beheading bedfellows

CNN: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

The twisted politics of the Middle East rear their head (pun intended) over and over in recent months.  Much attention has been placed on the actions of the so-called Islamic State as it institutes a narrow, extreme Islamic theocracy over the lands it claims dominion over, and generates heaps of publicity through its theatrical and grotesque executions of prisoners-of-war and other foreign hostages. To combat the Islamic State and other projectors of radical religious terrorism, the US seeks whatever allies it can find in the region - notably the apartheid state of Israel, the military dictatorship of Egypt, and the Islamic-State-lite of Saudi Arabia. 

The Saudis execute by beheading just as ISIS does, in the streets and for a kind of blood-and-circuses spell over the masses.  Unlike ISIS, the Saudis are not at war and are not trying to intimidate other nations.  They are merely conducting their internal affairs in the manner that they prefer.  If that means chopping a woman's head off in the middle of the street because she has been accused of practicing witchcraft, so be it.

People were once executed for such things in this country.  Four hundred years ago.  Since then, in many ways, the structures of the United States criminal justice system have been a model for the world.  But the realities of our system have made us a global embarrassment - massive incarceration rates, retrograde views on the death penalty, huge racial disparities, massive profits for the corporate prison complex.

The issue of criminal justice and human rights is of massive importance and I really wish the US were leading the world in this area, instead of blundering its way ignorantly without the slightest hint of reform.  How can we claim to be a global leader in human rights while at the same time implanting images like this into the global psyche:

I am interested in what playwrights and dramatists have done in recent years to explore these two related issues - criminal justice and human rights, and the struggle against theocratic extremism.  It takes some kind of fanaticism to treat people this way, and the US, ISIS, and Saudi Arabia all have this grotesque blood on their hands.  How can we encourage an audience to have a nuanced view of international relations and our own spotted record of human rights?