"And what's done is often done again and done again."

As the page loaded so that I could begin this blog post, I heard

Without going out of your door
You can know all things on earth...

...The farther one travels
The less one really knows

((lyrics from "The Inner Light," The Beatles))

And all of the sudden, like many things in this play, that song really resonated with my mind frame. I know that after we finished reading the play I barely spoke two sentences. But this play, for several reasons, was one I really needed to have time on my own to decompress from reading; to let my thoughts percolate and my emotions untangle as it were.

Since In the Heart of America is the third Naomi Wallace play we've read as a class, and I'm not yet familiar with her other work, it's the commonalities between these plays that stand out to me. Foremost are the themes of inequality (within interpersonal relationships), power struggles/issues of control (both inter- and intrapersonal), homoeroticism, the cyclical nature of history and the way people dwell on their past mistakes without trying to learn from them.

There are also several images she uses repeatedly -- whether in evocative dialogue or visually, suggested in the stage directions. With most plays, people within the theatre world--especially when taking a scholarly approach--tend to bear in mind that stage directions in scripts are often added into scripts not by the playwright, but rather, after they have been performed and the script reprinted. My question after reading Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, and In The Heart of America is whether or not the stage directions in the versions of these scripts that are included in the anthology we read from are directions from Naomi Wallace. Given that we are not reading reading individual scripts, from different publishers, as happens with Shakespeare, Williams, O'Neill, Mamet, but rather an anthology containing works only from one writer, I would assume Wallace wrote in the directions we read.

This makes it all the more meaningful when we read stage directions indicating that Pace stands in Dalton's jail cell and he is unaware of her presence, or Cod, not yet born, standing in the room that will lead to her mother's demise, trys so hard to warn her mother of the fire creeping quickly up the building, or Remzi shows up in the shadows of Craver and Fairouz's minds in the final scene of In The Heart of America.

Then there is the language. Again her language in this play is striking; stunningly simple at times, profound in its blunt, provocative nature in places, and full of memorable phrases and imagery. The repetition of words and phrases within each play ((all roads lead to Viewpoints for me now?)) lead you to reexamine the characters motives with each utterance. The threats and occurrences of people gutting one another throughout these three scripts make you contemplate what it is to split a person open, metaphorically, and get their inner self -- who or what will you find their heart beating for? Can you figure out what makes them tick? And their soul, if it is still there, what will it look like? The one that gets me every time, the one I most want ask the author about is the significance of fishing. It (the fishhook, fishing, fish etc.) seems to be a trademark. It appears in each of the scripts we read at some point. See if you remember who said what in which play:

• "As though your chin has a string attached to it that is pulling it up. (stage directions). No, a hook is better, a hook in your chin, like a fish."
  
• "He took some fish line and a hook out of his box and he sewed my mouth shout. That's why I could never kiss a girl."
• "Long thin pieces of glass. He pulled them out of his cheeks with pliers, like pullin' fish bones out of a fish."
• "I was using a six-pound line that day and I landed a four-pound smallmouth bass...He kissed me on the mouth four times, one time for each pound of that bass."

To touch on the three questions we were asked to keep in mind for each reading (what stands out to you, what do you relate to, and how does this play relate to your community), I think I have one thing to say to all three. Because I'm spending 20+ hours a week immersed in working on Soldiers Circle, the things that stand out to me and that I relate to most are bits of the dialogue that serve as keyholes into the soldiers' minds (right off the bat, between pp. 87 and 89, there are three lines that sound so much like characters in SC, that I immediately flashed back to last week's rehearsals, and David, Justin, and Tiffany in different scenes, making different observations about Iraq and war...and killing.) The play I'm stage managing is based on interviews with, blogs, journals, diaries, and letters by veterans of and soldiers in the current war with Iraq.
Even though In The Heart of America and Soldiers Circle are structured very differently and each has a very different focus from the other, I couldn't help but think about the parallels between all of the soldiers in the past wars Wallace mentions and soldiers in the current war. History isn't just repeating itself when politicians, civic and religious leaders ignore the past and return to war against anyone they can find who'll fight back, it repeats as the soldiers on the front lines are taught not value the lives of others (much like the attitudes Sarah Carleton described in her Solo Composition); are inundated with messages that the only thing that matters is winning, is saving themselves, at any cost, are sent back to live as civilians with the knowledge of the things that happen during war, and with the weight of the world on their shoulders. The weight of a world that is filled with people who can never possibly understand their experiences, relate to their lives.
I know I sure as hell won't ever understand what it's like to kill someone, because you've been sent into their country by people who can make the decision to put you in the line of fire, knowing they're safe back home, and now if you don't take that shot it could be you who dies.

The current war, like all wars at home and abroad, impacts not only the global community, but our community down to its most localized level -- campus, and even further in, our department. I'll venture to say all of know someone involved in the war to some extent (I have a fraternity brother who was called back to active duty last year, a close friend who's recent ex just shipped out, and a friend from my last school who married a man in the service, as well as other friends of friends or friends of family), giving us all an even bigger stake in a peaceful resolution.

As much I liked the other two plays, and would particularly enjoy working on Pace, I feel that in the spirit of community based arts, In The Heart of America just might be what's called for right now.




Besides I'd have an easy time finding people to interview.

Derailing life

Ok, so I know I talked a lot after the reading Saturday, so some of my comments will undoubtedly be straight reiteration of reactions which I already mentioned. I apologize in advance for that. For me to organize my thoughts/reactions to the readings, it is easiest to look at notes I wrote in response to Amy's specific questions and expound on my feelings from there.

1: 'anything that stands out, is striking, of interest'

• I already mentioned the strong imagery and use of metaphors, the poetic nature of the piece. Some of the page numbers I scribbled down while we were reading were 290 (the neck breaking), p 296 (pretty much all of what Chaz says), and the top of 306.
  

• Right off the bat, Pace and Dalton's conversation of how Brett used to hit himself in the face.It reminds of the behavior I've experienced when I used to work in childcare and there were autistic children in my program, some of whom were not very high functioning. While the particular child I'm thinking of, I have no reason to believe that was learned behavior from the way he treated by his parents, teachers or therapists, in Brett's case it was a survival instinct. *My dad doesn't know how to relate to me, and I can't seem to make him happy with me, so maybe if I treat myself the way he treats me, then we can connect on some level. And maybe the pain won't be so bad if I'm controlling it.*

Every single relationship and interchange, whether shown or described, within this piece
was in some form about status, power, and control. These were people living with the
daily fear and grief that comes from having no power over the chaos in the world around
you. When that is your reality every minute of every day, any control you can exert over
your specific circumstances and over the lives of those around you is that much more of
a sense of security, a feeling that if you can "trudge instead of wallowing," you have at
least some small hope of surviving. You just might make it, even though the world is
falling to shit around you.


2: 'something you relate to'

• As hard as is was for me to initially recognize things in this piece that I could relate to, once the first thought came there was a lot there waiting to burst the dam. The first thing was, again, Brett's self abuse. I had no thought's on his motivation for that until about 10 minutes ago, but I could still identify the urge he and his father were having to physically manifest their emotional torment.
• Dalton. His admission of 'I killed Pace' was the first time, in probably his entire almost-16 years of living, that he could control a major event in his life, and take ownership of things. I remember 16, it was hard to get people to let make your own choices, they were too afraid of the consequences to let you learn from your mistakes. I was 17 when this play was published, and it's set 45 before my birth. And I know I can not ever fully fathom what it what it meant to be a teenager during the Great Depression, in a time when it's finally becoming accepted and a standard expectation for, in middle class working families at least, their children -- of both genders, at that --to begin to receive something more than the most basic of education before they go to work with their parents or go out and find jobs in the world beyond Mom and Pop's home. I think Dalton felt immense guilt that he had not tried to stop Pace, who was so determined to control her own destiny and provoke the people around her to give into her powerful personality, her wants and whims. And his way of grieving and assuaging that guilt was to, rather than saying he felt responsible because he was there and he let her show off to him and he wanted things from her and he gave into her, he just out and out said he killed her.
  

3: 'ways this play ties into the community'

• This was an easy and obvious question to answer, and it was already touched on by the group Saturday that the parallels between the depression in the '30s and the economic crisis we currently face, which historians and economists are labeling as the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. What we currently face in 2009 is having a global impact. And we are already seeing people losing their ability to cope with job loss, mortage payments, evictions, inability to provide for their children. We turn on the news nightly (at least, I do; I'm a CNN junkie) and hear about people committing crimes against their neighbors, people killing their families and themselves, families with no means of feeding and clothing their children. I talked to the clerk at the liquor store near campus the other night; I was half-heartedly thanking him for carding me, and he was stating that he couldn't risk losing his job (I realted to that, being an ex-server) with a family to provide for. He told me "I get WIC, but that's not enough for everything. Especially since I've got twins." People forget when they bemoan the families recieving government assistance that yes, there are some who sit on their asses and do nothing to try and take care of their kids, sure, but there are also a lot of good people, working hard to feed and diaper their little ones, but just can't make it in this economy without some help from some other source. Enough about that. We all agreed, it's rough. And the despair and pain and sense of entrapment people faced in the '30s is rapidly creeping into our society today.
• One more thing. It's back to the control issue actually, and it is, I guess, more of a question or a grain of thought to rub on your brain and generate pearls for others' blog comments. For people who have some tie to the belief, whether it be through religion or spirituality or working the steps in AA, that something larger is always in control, and if you surrender your need to micromanage everything and trust that things will work out, are times like these easier to endure? Can you keep it together in the face of despair and adversity with no solution in sight if you believe in your heart of hearts that hope is somewhere down the road?