weebelly.com

I’ve been lax in my posting. I went over to convergence and participated in Booty Candy by Robert O’Hara, which is a hilarious play and well-directed by Terrence Spivey. Very meta, culminating at the end of the first act with a mini playwright conference in which each playwright discusses his or her play, scenes from which we’ve seen already, including a cross dressing pastor (Dreamin’ in Church/Michael May), Bootycandy (Wesley Allen/India Nicole Burton) the eponymous name of the male genitalia that might fall off if not cleaned properly; Genitalia: a phone conversation, a mocking gesture to the obscure names some black children receive (India Nicole Burton/Rochelle Jones), and Drinks and Desire (Wesley Allen/Nate Miller), a drinking scene of desire and repression. The play is a retrospective of the character Sutter (Wesley Allen) a young black man coming of age and coming to terms with his being gay. The scenes that make up the play are episodic, but they are truly funny and the acting is fantastic throughout. The play runs one more weekend.

I went to The Revisionist by Jesse Eisenberg at Dobama. I thought the play was ‘one note’ in terms of its dramatic action, but the acting was great and it was a pleasure to see Dorothy Silver. It was directed by Leighann Delorenzo who always does a great job.

My good friend Jared Bendis had his MFA thesis production at Case’s Department of Dance. I had forgotten the power of dance to create a dreamlike experience. The choreography, of all the pieces, was wonderful. The production was of several pieces, called Momentum, Jared’s pieces were Chroma and Château de Rêves, a dance piece with a stunning large scale multimedia show of Jared’s photographs from his travels around Europe. The pieces that left the deepest impression included Dark Covenant, with artistic director Gary Galbraith and Richard Oaxaca, reinacting through movement the story of Faust. Oaxaca has an impressive production history and physically is as close as you’ll ever come to seeing a chiseled marble statue spring to life and gracefully dash across a three dimensional space. The piece Until Death do us Part was impressive in altogether quiet way. And In Ancient Waters was magnificent, creating a dreamlike other world in which men and women seem to merge into fantastical beasts. Andrea Alvarez is an equally graceful and powerful dancer, and she choreographed many of these pieces as well.

Took my daughter to the Kids Comic Con at Lake Erie Ink, where she got to participate in an all day conference dedicated to different aspects of creating comics and graphic novels. There were many break-out sessions that were of interest to her, especially “action in comics” and how it is conveyed both in the West (pow, bam, etc) and in manga, which blurs frames foregoing the more obvious approach used in older comics. Her interest increases and we just picked up a digital tablet and Manga Studio 5 so she can draw (or trace) her work directly to the digital realm.

Law Enforcement Officer use of Force Considered

Belated post on Force Continuum (Kia Corthon) I saw at Karamu on 10/29 at Karamu. My friend, and a playwright whom I greatly respect, Michael Oatman directed the piece that is, unfortunately, all too timely.

Force Continuum, as explained during the course of the play, is a model for law enforcement officer’s use of force. As all models are, of course, it’s theoretical and its application in any situation, especially a live confrontation, is, at best, hopeful.

The play itself puts the spotlight directly on the recent demonstrable results of the failure of this model to be applied. That is, there is a tiering of force levels from what is essentially verbal control to deadly force. The problem, as pointed out by this play, is that the mid-levels of the model seem to be applied less and less these days with law enforcement officers leaping from the verbal to deadly force almost immediately—especially in the case of Tamir Rice here in Cleveland.

The play further delves by telling the story of three generations of black law enforcement officers who must constantly confront their relationship with racism in their own profession—overt racism and that based on assumptions we all make about each other.

Corthon’s play is hard to follow, unfortunately. It is clearly meant to be a dynamic piece with actors in multiple roles and fluid scenes that merge time and place through the dramatic story. This doesn’t succeed very well, however, and leaves quite a bit of confusion that must actively be sorted out to get the full story straight.

Still, a timely piece with a few moments that are terrifying and highlight the challenges police (of any race) face as they apply a theoretical model to a practical reality every day.

Runs through this Sunday, Nov 22, at Karamu.