Amateur Hour

Last night I went to see Joe Turner's Come and Gone at the Broadway Center. I like August Wilson; one of my goals is to see his entire ten play Pittsburgh Cycle. One of the best shows I've ever seen was a production of Fences in Ashland. My talented actor friend Mark was in the show, the tickets were free (preview night!) and I want to support theater in Tacoma. All good, right? Sadly, it was a terrible show. The cast was not cohesive, the pace was glacier, the blocking was awful (let's stand here and say some stuff. let's move slowly to another spot so we can stand still and say some more stuff) and the story was muddled. I did not know what the fuck was going on with that show, but it took them three hours to not tell me the story.

From what I gather, the action takes place in a boarding house in 1911. A mysterious stranger arrives with his daughter- they are searching for the missing wife and mother. Turns out the man was taken by Joe Turner (infamous slaver) and he returned home seven years later to find his daughter being brought up by the girl's grandmother and the wife long gone. There's some magic stuff, a B plot about a shiftless country lad and his wandering cock, and in the end the white trash people finder brings the erstwhile wife to the boarding house for a dramatic closing scene.

Great, great. So, why is anyone, especially the main dude who just escaped enslavement, cool with this used to be a slave catcher Kentucky cracker? Sure, he just waltzes in to the black boarding house to sell sheet metal and nobody changes their attitude. I mean, I'd be a little suspicious of him, right? He'd sell information, or escaped slaves right along with his dust pans. But nope, totally cool. And the mysterious stranger wears his hat and coat indoors throughout the damn play. I asked Mark, and it was a choice, to sell him as a lost soul. But no one reacts to this serious breach of etiquette. A man wearing a hat indoors? In the presence of women? In 1911? You've got to be shitting me, no one would look twice? So it was this coupled with the crap acting (dramatic pauses after every sentence!, poorly executed fits, no sense of relationship between the married couple, lack of romance between the lad and his two love interests, the worst onstage seduction I've ever witnessed), weird directing choices (crossing the stage in the dark, stand and declaim, special lighting to make sure we know the scene is dramatic) and what you have is the level of community theater that people have come to expect.

I think the audience, the actors, the script, and the promotion of minority participation in theater all deserve better than this sorry excuse for the Broadway Center trying to earn its grant money. I'm so tired of watching bad theater and having people try to convince me it's good. Yes, there were lots of black people onstage. That's awesome. I'd like to see more of that. I am tired of people telling me that there are no black (or other minority) actors available. You have to reach out and if you don't find any- look harder and train some up. Black people have stories to tell also, don't be an asshole. Yes, August Wilson is great- I'd like to see his shows done more often- his stuff is classic. Although he's not the only black playwright, he's a perfectly legit starting point in an exploration of black American playwrights.

But if I go to a show, and I don't understand who is on stage, what they are trying to tell me and why I should care? You have failed. No amount of back-patting and community empowerment language is going to polish that turd. I am so so tired of seeing crap theater passed off as good, or even good faith effort. It cheats everyone because it drives people from the theater thinking -oh so this is all theater can do.

I'm going to see another show tonight- The Nerd up at Centerstage. I am dreading it, because really I'd rather make some soup and watch Buffy. I'm tired of theater being such a crap shoot. Arrrgh. What if I only make bad theater? What if I never even find a space? What if this winter never ends? What if my voice is stuck in Whine-mode forever? Why theater? I could have been a scientist like my father. Why did I have to fall in love with theater, that fucking sadist art form?