Monthly Archives: June 2018

Guirgis as Witness

James Baldwin wrote of William Shakespeare: “The greatest poet of the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the love of the people. He could have done this only through love – by knowing, which is not the same thing as understanding, that whatever was happening to anyone was happening to him.” Later Baldwin writes that one of Shakespeare’s duties as poet is “to bear witness”.

I believe that that aspect of Shakespeare’s legacy is something that Stephen Adly Guirgis shares.  His plays are the poetry of the people – the people that most works of American culture refuse to see (except in jail cells and witness stands in Law & Order) – and his great gift is to take the language of the streets and transform it into music. This year The Signature Theatre has produced two Guirgis plays: Jesus Hopped the “A” Train earlier this year and now Our Lady of 121st Street. Plot is not so important in either. Indeed, the major plot movements happen off stage. What is important is character: how individuals respond to terrible situations (some of which they are responsible) and how they try to progress on an arc to some better, more moral place. Those movements are often slow, laborious, and can be measured in inches rather than miles. Sometimes the epiphanies – as one might fight in the fiction of Flannery O’Connor – are too terrible to behold; a person’s moral compass may improve but not the material facts of their lives.

The revival of Our Lady of 121st Street, directed by Phylicia Rashad, is a propulsive production. A nun has died and her body has gone missing; that even at the end the question of whether that disappearance was a desecration or ascension (or both) fuels the ambiguity and complexity of the work on display. The real journey of the work is an internal one of the characters who have come to pay their respects. This is a rogue’s gallery of the desperate and the destitute. Those who have made something of themselves are in terms of spirit or soul no better off than those who have been left behind.

Yet, the play bristles with hope. Father Lux (John Doman of The Wire fame fuses a world-weariness into the role), who exhibits few of the talents or skills needed for a spiritual leader, senses a possible path to salvation. An alcoholic NYPD detective (Joey Auzenne) battles his own guilt over the loss of a loved one. A struggling actor (Kevin Isola), realizing he is in a stifling relationship with his boyfriend, seeks to carve his own path.

The music of Guirgis relies on rapid-fire dialogue and idiosyncratic monologues. They are entertaining, shocking, funny. Those qualities often mask that individual quests are underway, challenged by many a personal demon. The production has assembled an ensemble of actors that understands that the language is active, that is action. Among the highlights are Erik Betancourt (who also shined in Jesus Hopped the “A” Train)  and Maki Borden as two co-dependent brothers, Paola Lazaro as a bitter but highly intelligent con artist who may be the only character who gets what she truly wants, and Quincy Tyler Bernstine (the MVP from Vineyard’s The Amateurs) who commands in every scene she is in.

For more information about the show, please follow this link http://www.signaturetheatre.org but don’t wait too long because it closes this weekend.

 

Revolutionary Art or Vandalism?

In the winter of 2010, graffiti artists used an outside wall of The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a blank canvas upon which to create. This Is Modern Art by Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval, which has taken a journey from Steppenwolf in Chicago (where it was commissioned) to the Kennedy Center, now has its New York premiere at New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door. Blessed Unrest is producing.

The play investigates two intersecting concerns. The first asks whether the graffiti on the Modern Wing’s wall is an act of revolutionary art or vandalism. The second dramatizes the process by which a work of graffiti art is created. That is a lot weight to place on the slender shoulders of a play with an 85-minute running time. I am happy to report that play and production are more than up to the Herculean task.

The primary issue of the play is whether or not the graffiti on the Modern Wing (or, indeed, any building or structure we may see in an urban space) is art. The play boldly articulates that it is. Art critics such as Tony Bennett, deploying the lens of Michel Foucault, have argued in recent years that cultural spaces such as museums reinforce a stratified class hierarchy favoring the dominant. Though a museum claims to be open to all, how it presents its space often makes it an unwelcoming place to those outside of the neo-liberal hegemony. Culture is a barrier, not a leveler. What Goodwin and Coval convey with a crystal clear clarity is how this particular act of graffiti was about reclaiming a space, about sharing a work of art with the people, all the people. It is truly revolutionary.

If the above sounds a bit too abstract, the second part of This Is Modern Art‘s mission provides the production with a strong propulsive narrative. The play digs deep into the history and practice of graffiti art. The characters know the history of their craft and are inspired by a broad spectrum of artists from Sane and Smith to Basquiat to Caravaggio. Works about artists almost exclusively focus on the inspiration and the perspiration, so the act of creation always comes across as a snap. Not so here. Goodwin and Coval take time well spent to dramatize the collaborative process of developing a tag or piece, gathering the necessary materials, planning the logistics of how and when they are going to bomb, and executing all of the above. It is a harrowing process. One of the great elements of the film Love and Mercy is on the very long and difficult process it took Brian Wilson and The Wrecking Crew to build the Pet Sounds album. The play  taps into the struggle of artistic creation and ably translates that to the medium of graffiti art.

As the three artists, Shakur Tolliver (Seven), Andrew Gonzalez (J.C.), and Landon G. Woodson (Dose) are a tight and nuanced ensemble. Each of their scenes – whether they are breaking the fourth wall or engaged in a moment of naturalism – crackles with the energy of creation, passion, rawness, anger, respect for their craft and one another, and the love of beauty. The story tends to put the spotlight on Seven, we are always aware of how essential J.C. and Dose are to the collaboration. I particularly like J.C.’s mystical engagement with his Muse. They have an absolute commitment to the material. Nancy MacArthur plays Selena, Seven’s girlfriend and lookout for the group. I was unsure of why the role was there at first as she just seemed to be a Girl Friday along quite literally for the ride, but as the play progressed, it became clear the reason for her presence as Seven’s fears began to surface more and more. The most surprising moment of the play belongs to her near the end of the evening, and it is stunning.

This Is Modern Art fully engages in how space in this country is racialized. The art that Seven, J.C., and Dose create is available to all, even the homeless, while the art in The Modern Wing is available to those who can afford it. Seven feels excluded from the society of the art world by his race, economic status, and educational achievement; his exclusion is a tragedy because as play and performance demonstrate over and over again, he is both has a compelling artistic vision and a strong work ethic. As we are increasingly confronted by exclusionary spaces from public parks to Yale common rooms to Starbucks, the play offers an urgent contribution to the conversation.

The Next Door space is a small one, and there is not much room to maneuver. So there needs to be a special mention made of the collaboration between director Jessica Burr and scenic artist KEO XMEN. They recreate the original graffiti in a way that is striking, theatrically exciting, and surprisingly cost effective.

More information about the play can be found by following this link: https://www.nytw.org/show/this-is-modern-art/