this is the first of a few deep revelations about the characters you will find making up the fiber of the Civil Rights play, "Ordinary Heroes." if you haven't seen the play yet, take these next few entries as an opportunity to explore the diverse cultural perspectives of one particular story that, hopefully, you can experience vicariously through this writing. if you've seen the play, these characters are familiar to you. i hope that after reading more about them, you will like-or dislike-them even more (i love it when everyone sees something different in a piece of theatre!).
so... to the task at hand. i promised some ladies at a big event yesterday that i would talk about some of the characters in detail, so here goes...
MULT-EYE
that big old TV dead center stage. yep, it's a TV. and it's a major part of the entire play, just as television itself was a major part of the Civil Rights Movement. many would say THE major part of the movement. the advent of the widespread availability and growth of the television was the factor that tipped the movement of nonviolence in the oppressed's favor. for the first time, people all over the nation and the world could turn on that box and witness for themselves the horrors that were taking place in the southern region of the "land of the free and the home of the brave." it was a huge embarrassment for America, one that grand architects like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend James Lawson took full advantage of.
the TV is called "Mult-Eye", Esoterically, a play on the current trend in "Multi-Media." i originally planned on using that big TV, in conjunction with giant radios and other projection methods, to weave this character even more into the story. there is a debate in theatre, especially as it pertains to young people, over whether or not the old "Narrative Linear" model of standard storytelling rules over the "Visual Associative" model, that incorporates the technology of the MTV generation. i personally stand in the middle. i think both work and both are necessary. because of space and other limitations, we went with basic projection this time around. it has gone over pretty well--i think--to tie the present to the past. we need to see some of the images we see on Mult-Eye.
SPACE
the opening monologue is a Spoken-Word poem. without a doubt. there are two things to keep in mind here now (and these are things i want to point out because, if executed well, you should not be thinking about them consciously, you should just be hearing words):
1. Star Trek. yep, it's an instant, blatant homage: "space/ our final/ frontier/ these are the voyages so/ dear/ of a people/ with enterprise/." Gene Roddenberry was a visionary in the field of race relations. for you Trekkies AND Trekkers (there is a slight difference of course), you know that he was one of the first to envision a future where race did not matter, where whites and blacks, russians and scots, purples and browns were able to get along with one another with one common purpose. so it's a nod to that concept. a nod that turns the corner, just as the images change from the ridges of planets and universes to the ridges on a slave's scarred back: "keep in mind/ i speak not of/ places/ in/ spaces/ where a spark/ causes a galaxy to/ begin/ i speak of spaces/ in /places/ where light/ and dark/ men/ can't /begin/ to be/ friends/." there's the duality of the moment we explore in the play--that new space called race in the America. the "Space" being the distance between us.
2. The Music and Rhythm. Mult-Eye begins with the "Space" monologue. the poem is written in the rhythmic meter of the Djun Djun. an African drum that calls us to the circle, it bops aloud and proud and speaks to the energy of the earth and creation, moving in time and meter to move the energy from the ground to the top of the head. when i write, i write to music (more on that when we get to "MayBail" tomorrow). most importantly, for this piece, it had to begin with an African tone. one, because we're talking about the discrimination of African people, yes. but MOST importantly, because of the contradition. we all came from Africa, the mother of civilization. how sad is it, then, that we have allowed some very human architects of the social construct of "Race" to divide us thusly, no more prevalent than in the United States of America?
Mult-Eye has its place. it's earned its place on that stage.
so, what do you think? here's your space to talk back. we gave school kids the chance and they responded well. tell me how you felt about Mult-Eye. helpful? intrusive? what about the images? see anything you haven't seen before?
i look forward to hearing from you and rapping about it all.
Tomorrow: The Secret of Maybail The Maid
