Saturday, October 20, 2012

That Being Said, Part II



“I would like you to know that I am very open-minded.”

That statement was made repeatedly by the person who complained about my world premiere of an idea. And that is all I will say about who complained about my world premiere of an idea. Blogs are not diaries, nor done to vent and expose, and since the internet is the most public forum ever invented, I won’t divulge anything more about the source of the complaint. Well, I will say that up until the conversation with the person complaining, I had never met the person, nor is it anyone I have ever written about in the blog. So that at least helps a little with your wondering. But the point of “That Being Said, Part II” is not to discuss the complain-er, just what happened after the complain-t.

I met with the complain-er and then a few days later our head decided to re-evaluate the decision that this world premiere of an idea should happen. As you know from Part I of this saga, our head did not go into this naively; he knew he would, I would, the school would, meet some opposition. But one Tuesday, about two weeks into the rehearsal process, the head stopped by to talk with me. The problem with The Laramie Project would actually never be with those who saw the truncated production alongside Our Town. The problem would be those who heard about it and might insinuate something. As an English literature scholar and an educator, John the headmaster couldn’t stand the idea of not presenting the plays. He thought they would provoke the kind of conversation, compassion, and progress that the school is founded to do. However, he had been wrestling for several days about whether or not to cancel Laramie. He felt confident that I would offer the play to the community with the kind of teachable-moment context that it demanded; he knew how serious and sincere the play cast was about performing a play that at its heart is about acceptance and tolerance and loving your neighbor. Here is when (again!) I am so glad I am not a headmaster. He had to weigh whether the potential good that would come from doing the play would outweigh the potential bad. Which would prevail???

The following day John met with the play cast at rehearsal time. He looked beleaguered as he announced that he had re-evaluated his decision to allow the school to perform The Laramie Project. He explained how proud he was of the drama program at the school, had every confidence that the play would have been performed with dignity, intelligence, and maturity. As John explained these things to our stunned cast, I felt…oh, no, I know what phrase is coming… That being said…

He went on to explain that this is a delicate time in the region in terms of stability and empowerment. It’s funny—a week does not go by without someone from the United States asking me on the phone or in an email if I feel safe in Jordan. WE really don’t think about it! Libya is close, yes, Syria is closer, but those images in the news seem as far away as summer vacation. So John’s talk reminded us all that we must make decisions that are prudent and hopefully will not endanger our precious stability.

After John spoke to the students for about 15 minutes they asked him questions, mostly trying to change his mind back. Many of the cast felt this play was important in this exact time of “awakening” in the Arab world and that their play might actually herald a new era of discussion and progress forward. They knew it was a “tightrope” to walk, but they were willing to take the chance since they had fallen in love with the play. “This may not be the best time,” John observed, and one young man exploded, “Then when will it be the right time? 50 years? 75 years?”

What educator wouldn’t have loved this discussion? Teen-agers passionately imploring for the opportunity to raise issues and seek new understandings…

I chimed in to settle the students down—John was doing fine, but they needed to know that I stood by his decision since the point was not to create any discord among all of us. I explained that a month before the headmaster felt the enormous good that might come from doing this play, and pairing it with Our Town and having a sister school perform the school in the same season, would be a highlight of the year in drama. But in his wisdom, he now worried that more bad might obscure the potential good. Could this play turn into a debate that misrepresented the school in a harmful way? Could my world premiere of an idea brand the school in a way that could invite condemnation? We are too young of a sapling to invite too much debate.

After the headmaster left several students shared what they had learned from their very brief exposure to doing the play. I talked about the plays like the “twins” that I had imagined. One of the beautiful connections between The Laramie Project and Our Town happened to be about stars. In Our Town after Emily came back to earth and found that “live people” never “realize life while they live it,” she returns to the cemetery, and sits with the other serene Dead. One woman shushes Emily by saying, “Look, it’s clearing up. The stars are coming out.” An anonymous man among the Dead says, “My boy Joel, knew” all the stars’ names. “He used to say it took millions of years fer that speck of light to git to earth.” At the very close of the play, the Stage Manager notices the stars as well, sighing, “There they are—the stars—doing their old criss-cross journeys in the sky…this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself.” At the conclusion of the The Laramie Project when the tortured Matthew Shephard’s father finally speaks he wondered what would have become of his son who was just shy of his 22nd birthday. He explained that while he was tied to the fence where his captors left him on that cold night, he wasn’t alone. “There were his lifelong friends with him, friends that he had grown up with. You’re probably wondering who those friends were. He had the beautiful night sky and the same stars and moon we used to see through the telescope together…” It was so interesting to me how both plays, set in small-town America, took on cosmic proportions as they were settled not really in any one town, but in every town, actually in the universe. Our plan was to perform both plays in the courtyard where I have done two plays before here—we would have the audience and the actors under the same night sky and the same stars that shine over the United States and any town in the world. I enjoyed those heady, universal, cosmic connections.

So we met a few days later for rehearsal and the students wondered what I planned to do. I wanted them to have a choice so that they did not feel that this change of events would saddle them with just one twin.

At rehearsal I talked with them about the realities of choosing plays for us to do in Jordan. First of all, we had lost rehearsal time, there is little money, little hopes of good sets, limited this and limited that. But I still wanted them to have a choice. So I brought the play, Twelve Angry Men, a play I have done several times in the last 18 years, to their attention. It is cheap, effective, and an actor’s delight with almost no production headaches. After I explained the criteria of choosing a play, and that we had no time to read and evaluate plays from scratch, we read through most of the play. The students found the play very interesting. I announced that at the next rehearsal we would have a good, honest discussion about both plays, Our Town and Twelve Angry Jurors (re-christened by since it is a mixed gender cast).

Wednesday came and I asked the students to break into two groups. The seniors would moderate the discussion evaluating the pro’s and con’s of each play. Afterwards we would come together, vote by secret ballot, and then have a choice finally after a week of drama about the drama.

The students handled the discussions well. I collected the secret ballots and my tech guy noted each vote as I opened up the ballot. I thought the voting would make the choice pretty easy. Well, the vote was a deadlock. Exactly even! We discussed again the pro’s and the con’s. Obviously some serious camps had developed and felt passionate about each of the plays. We voted again by secret ballot. No one changed votes. As strange as this sounds, it was very suspenseful in that room going through the ballots! One student noted that the drama about the play choice mirrored the voting of the jurors in the Twelve Angry play.

Deadlock! I didn’t want to vote actually—I had hoped the cast would decide…hmmm…I decided that we should go out to the courtyard and play a theater game. Let’s put the play choice aside for a moment and just enjoy being dramatic! We played “Killer” and that was the end of that.

But somehow by the next rehearsal I needed to break the deadlock. I started getting emails from actors from both camps about how their play choice was the better choice. Hey, you know, I should be grateful they wanted to be in a play, and that both play choices were appreciated!

Julianne, ever the coach and athlete extraordinaire, recommended that I simply toss a coin and let that decide which play we did. I pointed to the headmaster and said he should come and toss the coin since he got us in this mess! I chose a beautiful Egyptian pound coin for the coin toss.

But on the day that we would meet again, I realized one choice was actually a better choice for us…oh wait, I seem to have come to the end of my word allotment for a blog entry. I guess there will be a trilogy after all of blog entries about the drama about the drama…Stay tuned!

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