A glorious greed

"The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all."

James Baldwin's observation about a writer's need is both accurate and chilling.  In one sense Baldwin was thrusting his writing out into the world as if it was a life raft that could help float us to freedom.  In another way, just like many of us, the raft is also for him.  It's meant to buoy up ego, to help love find its way to him.  In the satisfaction of a story well told (whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry, song or play) comes a desperately craved moment of validation.

But it's only ever a moment.  Then the writer climbs back into a carapace and begins again, almost oblivious to the world outside, at the same time taking everything.  The cycle of how a play emerges from that hidden place inside a writer's life reveals that greed. It's a cycle that is shared by all the artists collaborating on the project.  Since it's rarely a straight line from typewriter to stage lights sometimes only the hunger the writer has inside can urge the work forward.  

"Waiting for Giovanni" grew out of a blend of those urgent needs--both Baldwin's(as they were perceived by me watching that raft float by) and my own.  I always imagine that I'm writing something that will maybe save someone's life...or change it...or at least give them something to think about for more than 10 minutes.  I push, cajole, call out...whatever it takes to get people to come sit in the audience and see what I have to say...what Baldwin still has to tell us.

After an amazingly successful run in San Francisco...sold out for almost the entire run...figuring out where it goes from there is not easy.  A theatre group in New York City is doing a public reading of W4G in January, and unlike the previous road the play has traveled now it is in the hands of someone else who is new to it.  The group will cast and direct and present their vision of  my vision of Baldwin's vision. Scary.  Magic.

It's only a reading; no commitment; I'm not even sure I can get any producer types to come and listen. I'm going to send off a newly edited version of the piece next week like it's a life raft and hope people need to climb on board.

Of the I sing...

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." James Baldwin


I read that quote when I was much younger and it really framed how I think of political activity.  Coming of age during the Viet Nam war, I heard the phrase "Love it or leave it" continuously from conservatives who felt patriotism was only revealed by how fast you could raise a flag.  Instead Baldwin's words reinforced what I learned in civics classes...remember those!   Our country is only as good as the work we--we individuals and as groups--put into it.

The Civil Rights Movement was successful, in part, because of the sit-ins it staged to grab the public attention.  Watching an elderly woman be pepper sprayed by anti-Occupy Movement authorities in 2011 is just as shocking as seeing Black marchers set upon by police dogs in the 1960s.

The Occupy Movement has reminded us of our responsibility to pay attention and act.  Whether you like the methods, feel threatened by their appearance on your doorstep, worry about the break down of the social contract (which has already been broken, by the way, by banks and government regulators), or simply feel uneasy because there have been no ready-made demands...that is not what is most important.  In fact feeling uncomfortable is one of the first ways we can tell change is happening.

What is significant is that enough people from a broad spectrum of communities and interests have actually acted on their social concerns and are trying to get officials to think about what happens to people when profits are the sole basis for decision making.  Not all of us are going to grab our gear and go sit in a public plaza or a tree...I need a little more help getting up from a cement bed than I used to...but there are ways to help make the process work.  I ask myself: What would Jimmy do?  Maybe start by asking questions about the ideas rather than simply stating your annoyance. Maybe ask what is the historical context for such dissatisfaction.  Or just ask what do people need who are out there?  Think about it...ask your local OM folks.  The 99% are not without resources. 

When we criticize our country we're showing our faith in its ability to grow and mature.  No one would say one shouldn't try to correct the table manners of children, or not teach them to read or how to cross the street.  This is a young country and it needs all the help it can get. Any positive attention (large or small) we give to the dilemma of people vs profits will create more positive energy.  Can't hurt.

A Poet's Heart

James Baldwin was inducted into the Poets Corner this week, only the 44th writer so honored in the space at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (NYC).  Fitting as this was also the site of his memorial service which spilled out into the streets of the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1987.

I remember standing outside with hundreds of others, milling around straining to hear any small thing, watching the notables who entered and being furious at the welcome accorded those who'd been so rude to Baldwin because he was gay and therefor 'unworthy' of carrying the torch for Black civil rights.  But nevertheless it was thrilling to know that Baldwin was so memorialized in that place...much as Black lesbian poet laureate Audre Lorde was less than a decade later.

Although Baldwin wrote only one book of poetry, JIMMY'S BLUES, the truth is that most of his work was poetry.  His heart was infused with the metaphor and magic of poetry; his view of humankind was similarly imbued with a confidence that only a poet can have...that is a belief in the power of what is not there.  What is not on the page is part of what makes poetry brilliant.  Baldwin believed in the things that human being had not yet achieved.  

Baldwin had belief, despite his unblinking eye, and complex understanding of human frailty and our capacity for evil.  The spaces between the words that define who we are were quite clear to him and are what kept him from bitterness and what kept him writing.

His poet's heart made life worth living...for all of us.

You dare not disobey!

Following the end of the production I collapsed in a heap of both physical and emotional exhaustion.  It was as if I had been up on stage every night myself rather than simply sitting in the audience.  But taking in the performances and thinking and feeling through what each actor was doing did engage me more than anything else in my life. 

I'm not sure how the actors move from one intense experience like this on to the next.  They are all younger but still it amazes me.  I'm looking forward to seeing the next shows they do.  Fred Pitts (Richard), Chris Nelson (William) and William Giammona (Luc) are each in upcoming productions.  Lonnie Haley (David) is doing a piece in the Fringe Festival and still performing as Mercedes Monroe at The Look Out!  Liam Hughes (Giovanni) is in London studying.

Wm Hunter (Jimmy) just performed one of the monologues for a group in the East Bay, Desiree Rogers (Lorraine) recorded some new music with her band. Check them all out on Facebook!

I also posted some pictures from the production on my FB page.

Today I'm going to Stanford to talk to a class studying Black women playwrights and am using the experience to launch me into the rewrites.  Here's Lorraine's final monolgue which I have to keep in mind as a cut and paste and start to look out to the world to see who wants to embrace my little baby.  I dare not disobey!

ACT II Scene 8

LORRAINE

“When the mystery is too overwhelming, you dare not disobey.”

Remember that from 'The Little Prince'? You were saying exactly this

with Luc and in the new book.

The mystery of desire draws you to both Luc and to this novel. 

Jimmy, we each suck our words from the breath the dead leave behind;

don’t lose sight of that.  Emmett Till’s bones will long be dust before

anyone understands how we need to speak of love.

If we don’t start listening to each other Armageddon might come

quietly like a whisper of gossip, weakening us until we no longer

believe in each other.

And if things are not working out with you and Luc I am so sorry. 

I have to believe there will be other loves. But books, true books do

not pull up to our stoops in taxi cabs!

It’s the beginning of a new world, Jimmy.  Damn the critics!

Lights down on Lorraine.

A contest for cast and those who saw the play...

Okay, what word was totally out of place in the previous post but is totally relevant to the play!  Was it a Freudian slip?  A typographical error?  Or a secret code between us?  You tell me!

Maybe everything lasts...

Tonight was the final performance in this run of "Waiting for Giovanni" at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. It was a bitter sweet afternoon to watch the 24th show and see how each of the actors had settled into their roles, to remember all of the paths we took, thinking about who James Baldwin really might have been,who his literary colleagues were and what their legacy to us is.
The humanity that Baldwin believed in is the humanity that the actors of wildly varied backgrounds bring to a theatre project. They come together, read material that may or may not have immediate meaning for them and the. They study,rehearse, open themselves, find new ways, learn new things and dredge up old. All in service to words some one else wrote.
I missed only three rehearsals in the seven weeks of rehearsal and did not miss any of the performances

Yes I am obsessed with listening to my own words...of course...that's why so many people go to therapy...just kidding. But mostly it was because I was mesmerized by the actors and the team they created back stage and on stage. Each night they inhabited the characters and mad the ideas about humanity and love that James Baldwin preached about come alive.

Now this phase of the W4G project is complete I will take the vision of this production back to my computer, do a little nip & tuck to make it tighter and honor Baldwin and the cast who helped brought him to the stage and back into the minds of many who' forgotten what a genius he was. I'll start bugging my collaborator, Harry Waters Jr again to help me thong my way through re-writes then we' star looking for another theatre to bring it alive again.
Several characters say in W4G: "Nothing lasts forever."
Giovanni's response is: "Maybe everything lasts. We just can't be around to see it."

I plan for W4G to last forever and I want a lot of us to be around to see it again more than once. Next week I'll post some excerpts from the script as I'm editing and keep you up on the news about where the show might go next.

“Books. Best weapons in the world. Arm yourself!” Dr. Who

 

Well, we opened the show on time which is evidenced by the absence of new blogs recently here at W4G!  So I guess that’s the good news….and most of the news is good so far.

Remember those old movies where the writer or director of a new play refused to come inside the theatre, but instead paced outside the box office smoking and mumbling nervously to (always) himself?  Until now I thought that was an overblown depiction of artist anxiety…until now.  On opening night, even after going to every rehearsal and all the preview performances I was more nervous than I’ve been since I heard the FBI ringing my door bell in 1972 (that’s another story). 

I focused my energy on what to wear (1950s cocktail dress) and how I might be helpful to the cast (deliver food and stay out of the way).  But internally I realized what a huge leap I’d taken in trying to depict what might be happening inside one of the greatest minds in 20^th century American literature.  And then to ask 7 actors to walk around naked on stage (6 metaphorically speaking and one practically) and say my words?  Suddenly I wondered if maybe I’d lost my mind; escape to the sidewalk seemed not so outlandish. Fortunately I haven’t smoked since 1988 and I had on cute but cruel shoes so couldn’t actually pace.

For the second time in this process, though, I felt I did understand what might have been going on in Baldwin’s mind.  I did know what it meant to have people think my work was not good for a political movement.  And the moment before I decided to persist with creating Black lesbian vampire stories was a yawning abyss…until it wasn’t.

Then having done the deed—to now let the world look at it, to think about it, to judge it?  That does make one question one’s sanity.

I know I still have work to do on the piece but audiences have made it clear I’m on the right track. However, one of the puzzling responses has been the reviewers’ difficulty dealing with the words.  Seems simple…I wrote a play about a writer who was extremely articulate.  Baldwin’s use of language was legendary; his circle of literary friends was almost his verbal equal. 

A play about Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry & company would naturally have more well-crafted sentences than most.  But that seemed to confound some reviewers.  It was as if being faced with an articulate Black voice…either mine or Baldwin’s it’s hard to say…the reviewer didn’t know how to respond. 

The play is not as long as a James Joyce novel…or even Henry James.  But it does contain a lot of words.  And the words are delivered extremely well by the company: Wm. Hunter, Liam Hughes, Christopher Nelson, William Giammona, Desiree Rogers, Fred Pits and Lonnie Haley.

Harry Waters Jr., with whom I collaborated and who directed the production, worked really hard to make sure the words were fully realized.  So it’s a bit disheartening to have professional wordsmiths be overwhelmed by them.  Not so much a blow to my ego but it raises a concern about the future of cultural criticism.  It makes me wonder: if a critic in a city newspaper expects to hear dialogue that is the equivalent of ‘tweets’ is this the end of civilization as we know it?

But no, I won’t be an alarmist!  The audiences have been completely engaged with the words.  And it's an audience that spans the full spectrum of San Francisco humanity. Many audience members have been so enraptured they’ve come back a second time.  At a recent post-show talk back session folks wanted to know more about the words.  Sale of Baldwin’s book in the lobby is steady, so clearly, regular people aren’t afraid of words.

I love the above quote from Dr. Who, one of my favorite TV shows, because it captures the world that Baldwin lived in and the way that most progressive activists I know live today.  We still believe that knowledge is power; and changing how we think and how we talk helps change the world.   

Tickets still available: http://www.nctcsf.org/press_room/waiting_for_giovanni.htm

More updates to come!