Ground Zero at the Palace
By Jessica Arnold
Sunday, October 6th, 2002
Embedded in our subconscious we knew there could be a possibility of creating waves in what should have been a dead sea.
It was the anniversary of 911 and the gig was the Palace. People asked me if I was somewhat insane, planning America’s New War Strikes Back! to go on side by side with the imaginatively titled "The Dave Matthews Cover Band," along with other various and sundry acts to raise money for the Firefighters’ Fund on the anniversary of September 11.
You see our play was a tad bit subversive. It was comprised of shifting dialogues between "people…just people," American people mostly, at any given moment in any given time frame in any town U.S.A. It was a brilliantly constructed objectivist piece by Shamrock McShane. On top of this was a layer of monologues and asides giving glimpses of the individual in relation to the whole (my contribution).
When I read Shamrock’s original version back in January, I wanted to produce this show because it spoke truths, not just one supreme truth, but a myriad. Like a war, it escalated; it dropped bombs and people died.
At most venues, it caused nothing like a ruckus. In fact, we were starting to believe that we were nothing but another company of artists promoting bland mediocrity. I mean if you can’t provoke thought (good or bad), what is the point of devoting every last drop of energy and every last penny into your art?
Halfway through our 11-show run, we had one outburst by a female who felt that we weren’t representing the black population. (Am I supposed to say African-American? All this political correctness hurts my brain.) She pointed out that there wasn’t any diversity in our cast and that nothing in the play spoke that category of truth. This was refreshingly disturbing.
We had done our job, yet had something gone awry? Yes, we did not have much ‘diversity’ in our cast, aside from our Latino poster boy, but I posed the question, "Where were you at open call auditions?" Furthermore, is it merely the tangible physicality of color that matters? And if it is, then what would the ramifications be with whites playing blacks? Maybe we should have painted our faces. "And then the world spins out of control," as the play says; "This has been going on for all time."
It seems to me, diversity, like a bureaucratic government institution, sometimes does more harm than good. Diversity and political correctness are words like human rights. At first, they appear to mean good things, much needed things in an ever-changing society, but examining them further, one may ask what exactly these words define? What is a human right? Who judges what is right? What is right?
And diversity? It is obvious we are a diverse people. To bring into focus and impose moral sanctions only adds to the problem. The problem being that it all falls under political correctness. We are moving farther and farther away from the truth. We are censoring our words, our actions, our beliefs as to not to offend someone who may not share the same ideas as our own. Are we truly a democratic society or just a façade of illusion?
What are the limits to free speech? If there truly is diversity, then why are we silencing it under polite moral responsibility? It seems that vague ideals fare well with the American public; ideals that can never be reached because we refuse to see them for what they are: a contradiction in terms. And as far as the peace corps, just think of the semiotics involved in that little pairing of words. War and peace. But I digress.
As to the question of why would we perform this play at a ‘Remember 911’ benefit at the Palace, I was stunned by the mere of the words. Why wouldn’t we? This is precisely what we are talking about. These are precisely the people we want to provoke to think.
(Since I have already taken a stance on political incorrectness, I will continue in my irreverent stereotyping.) The majority of the crowd was a club-going, scantily clad herd of beefalos. (Wait, is that simply beefalo for plural?)
A herd of beefalo, singular, plural, masculine and feminine. The proud, the strong, the beautiful, all grazing on the…umm dirty concrete floor sticky with the remnants of bodily fluids, beer and who knows what. Some shed tears for the sickly sweet masochistic video images of the towers falling and the rescue attempts projected on the wall. And at the end of the video and color guard ceremony, there was a speech with a not so subtle theme of vengeance. I do feel for the victims of the atrocity, but am personally quite sick of having my emotions played upon by the powers that be to rationalize or cloud the issue of war.
We were the very next act.
Some of the fleeting characters depicted in the play were just like the ones in the crowd: strong, beefy, and headfast in their beliefs. And some of the other characters mirrored the other pockets of people in the crowd: curious individuals, young blank slates, intellectuals, music fans, hippies, etc; a ‘diverse’ mix.
With the exception of a few spartan peeps of amusement, the crowd was silent once we took the stage. Blank stares of confusion taunted us as we addressed them. They were just standing there with their mouths open going ‘duh.’ They expected, or should I say wanted, eye and ear candy; they were confused. That is until the ‘black in black’ theme and the cat o’ nine tails was busted out for a piece about the power the terrorists must have felt ‘bringing a hundred some passengers to heel…to cow them,’ at which point the crowd became excited and cheered like drunkards at a titty bar (not even a strip club, a titty bar; actually I just wanted to say titty bar and now I’m wondering how long this pandering to the word titty can continue).
But, at any rate, at least we got something from them. A moment of recognition. We went on a bit further through act one and eventually, a ‘this sucks’ was adamantly voiced from someone in the crowd, whose friends then hi-fived him on his ballsy outburst.
But the show must go on. So we finished act one with our simpsons-esque ‘its all good’ gospel song and began Act Two. This is where the play got good.
By the beginning of Act Two, the characters in the play have died and moved on to another level of existence. What was reality had become the absurd. "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Musical theatre numbers (complete with jazz hands), puppetry, and lots of sex talk were about to unfurl like "the flag, the bleeping flag." But our flag was burned way before then.
With the death march from Star Wars trumpeting in the background (or should I say foreground; the sound quality and tech was less than desirable) Shamrock said a spiel regarding the U.S. and its history of propping up repressive regimes. At which point more than one voice booed.
The booing became more frequent especially when the analogy between ‘heroes’ and ‘villians’ was discussed. Perhaps it was a tad bit insensitive expressing these points of view in light of the reason we were there…it’s like saying bad things about someone at their funeral. Yet, the material was something to be considered and not simply dismissed. It was an attempt to get a glimpse at the larger picture, an attempt to find out ‘why’ these events are shaping our history, and not just ‘who-dunnit’.
Wonder Woman and a girl are in a bar having a conversation…and Wonder Woman tells the girl to be careful where she aims her video camera. "Why?" asks the girl? "Because if you take pictures of people doing bad things, they’re going to be pissed at you and then you’re making that movie." She then proceeds to play out this scenario with Barbie Dolls who viciously rip each other’s limbs off.
Except in this showing, a girl out of nowhere suddenly seized the mic. "You guys suck. This play is rude and you f***ing suck" was essentially what she said repeatedly with a few more minor variations of the word rude and suck. (No, I’m not embellishing.) Enter man in black (Gregg Jones, a dead-ringer for Tommy Lee Jones) for security and crowd control (not to mention brilliant comedy stylings, unfortunately not adequately used in this performance) and peace was restored for a brief, brief moment.
Still, the natives were restless…
Soon thereafter a burly man came up to the front of the stage and accosted us, saying that we were being anti-American and we were being offensive to all the firefighters who lost their lives. He proudly lifted the arm of his to display a tattoo in remembrance of the 300 ‘brothers’ who lost their lives. Martyrs. His behavior was threatening. Every pore seethed with anger. The heightened energy of the moment was untranslatable. Pure energy.
And then some of his buddies came and backed him up. We were being threatened by an angry mob. It was chaos. p>
Jesus then grabbed the mic and barreled right into his monologue (jesus and the devil play music together and are the best of friends). "Let’s not forget a crucial point, we have freedom of speech, use it, practice it."
To which belting cheers were thrown out from the crowd.
"Political correctness is just another way of molding your behavior."
The crowd was split between elation and vengeance. We had reached the boiling point.
"It seems censorship is alive and well in Gainesville."
At that point, the sound was cut, and we slowly caught up to the fact that we were being forced off stage.
After the show, some of the actors suggested that we travel in numbers and after it was all said and done, security safely escorted us out; but I wondered where they were during the show. How did that girl even get on stage?
The devil remarked, "She had a hot little ass."
-Jessica Arnold |
