Summer Solstice Moon
Theater has been a passion of mine since early high school. I acted in high school, college and seminary, quitting only when the time demands of theater exceeded what chunks I could give. Not only did I act in college, but I had nearly enough credits for a theater minor, most of those credits in the history of theater.
Live performance, perhaps even more so in the age of high technology, has a sacred aspect, as it did in antiquity. It bridges the solitary creative act in the playwright’s mind and yours with real people, not paint or notes or words on a page, but people who choose to imagine themselves into other people’s lives and feelings.
Tonight it was Bruce Norris’s edgy, often nasty Clybourne Park, a play willing to grasp the charged cable of race, in this case a cable stripped of its insulation, fully alive to our past and present predicament. This play is worth reading, but even more it is worth seeing. It is on the page minimalist, clever and spare; but on the stage it snakes like a downed power line, sparking here and there, totally dangerous.
( photo of the Guthrie performance)
If you believe race has settled down in our culture, see this play. It will remind you that the road is long and the journey often bleak.
I too saw Claybourne Park and agree with you, leaving it disquieted and somewhat uneasy. It seems that little has changed in the 50 years that the play spans. After reading the Playbill when I got home I was astounded to learn the same eight actors in the first act appeared in the second in different rolls of course. The magic of acting ability and costume change.
We developed a community theater when I practiced in Bagley. I found that I enjoyed it immensely belying the fact that I have always been devoutly reticent and shy.
I enjoy your blog, keep it up.