Directors Notes
After having completed our American
Century Cycle Project, where in we formally staged August Wilson's
seminal work in its entirety and in chronological order of the decades
presented in his massive work; we found ourselves at the end of our
known existence. By that I mean we crossed over the borderline into a
new place, a new world, a place without boundaries. We arrived at what
my mentor describes, as "the front of the line". We are no longer
following the continuum of The Black Arts Movement. We are dragging it
forward.
The experience of directing,
producing, and performing in Oakland's first Black Arts Movement Theater
Festival served to reignite my passion for art and theater as practice
and as a powerful revolutionary tool for crafting an equitable public
sphere. In the tradition art is never merely entertainment, it is
spectacle, a sacred ritual, the passing of story, inter-intra
group conversation, active healing and preparation for war. The
festival served all those purposes while shining a bright light on the
collection of talented black theater makers that manifest in the body of
The Lower Bottom Playaz.
It was my profound honor to produce 9 afrocentric pieces that ranged from the Black Classical to North American African themed Magical Realism and Si-Fi.
I framed the festival in one of my curtain talks with the observation
that the breath of the festival reflects the range of the Black
experience in North America from the classic creation of timeless art to
the ephemeral distress of the current moment where we are being pushed
into outer spaces in the wake of being displaced from the new frontier
that Oakland has become.
In the midst of trying
to heal from all of the violent upheaval in which we struggle to create
we are preparing for war as we actively engage in the building of BAMBD
by the people for the people. The presentation of Collective Acts: A
Black Arts Movement Theater Festival may be considered a shot across
the bow of those who can't find Black actors, or intelligent, relevant
Black Theater, or the thought that we can be starved out of creating
work that reflects our lived experience in The Town. We are Oakland's
premiere North American Theater Company and our shadow covers all the
ground on which we stand.
Flowers For The Trashman
by Marvin X Jackmon
This
is a classic work which has earned its place in the canon of Black
Theater by standing the test of remaining relevant over time. I asked
and received permission to add this to our arsenal several years ago and
have produced the work multiple times. Each time I am struck by how it
transcends itself to consider communication or the lack of it between
intimates. At it's farthest stretch it holds the dangerous avoidance of
conversation about racism in America, we pretend to talk about race
here. What we really discuss is the events that occur because of our
inability to address the root of the problem. In its (racism)
persistence it colors everything even the most personal of
relationships. What are the conversations North American African men
should be having with their sons? What conversations are they having? I
produce this work because it is the story of my sons and many of their
friends even though it was written before they were born. Joe and Wes
are the characters created in Marvin X's autobiographical one-act but
their experiences mirror those of the actors who play the parts. That
should be instructive in that the author and the actors are generations
apart yet the story of the author's life resonate deeply in the
generation of men making life today without the benefit of close
relationships with older males to guide that journey. In many cases
older males have become the missing on the milk carton poster children
for who not to become. In a lot of cases there are no conversations
because there are no fathers. Ask youth about the father figures who aim
you and show you how to pull the trigger. It has been said that the
most important relationship a man will ever have is the one he has with
his grandfather; in the absence of fathers, grandfathers are icing on
cake many never had. Marvin's work is presented though the lens of a
son who can't connect with his father who sells flowers in the ghetto.
The father is not physically missing but he and his father are
emotionally estranged. He has no pride in his father's independence as a
business owner. He can see some of the sources of his father's pain,
the failed marriage, a daughter on the block, a son in jail -- but he
fails to capture the joy his father invest in him. He recounts how folks
in their community disrespected his father and the pain that created in
him. Yet it is his father he reaches out to when he lands in jail and
wants to be free. He is devastated first by his father's refusal to bail
him out and finally by the father's death on the way to free his son
from jail. The loss makes him swear to communicate with his own sons. I
want father's and sons to see this work together or alone and to find
ways to talk to one another.
The Toilet
by Amiri Baraka
I selected this piece by Baraka because my mentor, Marvin X instructed me to. There are all ways blessings in honoring your teacher. He connected me to Amina Baraka and helped me gain the rights to do Baraka's
work. I immediately ran into casting difficulty which like most theater
problems resolve themselves with enough effort. The work was beyond
worth the cost and effort of pulling a cast of 11 black male actors
together. Baraka
was generous in his presence during our journey and production, (he was
deeply felt), the work is an enormous literary gift that demands you
bring your perspective and inner bias out to play havoc with what you
think you see, what you think you know, and invites you to ask yourself
why you think like that. It is a storied exploration of masculinity in
all its facets through a lens of violent coming of age without
compasses. It is a love story to the myth and reality of manhood in a
violent culture that outlaws love, compassion, and empathy. Pierre Scott
and Luchan
Baker turned in exemplary performance as the provocateur and the
assassin in this tale of boys gone wild meets lord of the flies in a
men's room. Christopher Weddel and Jeffery Dean, the lone white characters, were perfect foils for this dark deconstruction of intercity machismo.
Bathroom Graffiti Queen
By Opal Palmer Adisa
Suffice
it to say the work is conducive to conversations about female rites of
passage and mental health as well as the interior world of stress and
trauma manifest in black women. This piece is a perfect response to the
myth of the "unbreakable strong black woman. Opal Palmer Adisa has created a world that is beautifully broken for the consideration of the weight borne by today's women.
Tasha
By Cat Brooks
Cat Brooks brings life and perspective to the Tasha McKenna
tragedy. The work is razor sharp it cuts into all the right places to
reshape a story shaped by the mainstream media as saga of a disposable
black person who was died at the hands of the law because they were non
compliant with authority. The multimedia piece speaks to the audience
through Tasha's voice and through her mother's pain. Brooks brings her
self to the piece as she asks what are activist to do beyond marching.
She invokes Oakland's anger after the death of Oscar Grant and weaves
facts in text with actual footage to recreate the murder of Tasha McKenna
and the laws response to her death. Brooks is magnificent in the work
and I predict it will sweep the Fringe Festival. When you get the chance
to see this work do not miss it.
52 Letters
By Regina Evans
This
acclaimed work about sex trafficking is a mesmerizing indictment of the
structures that allow the enslavement of young people in America and
around the world. In the work Evans takes you from the slave block to
the brothel in this blistering piece of theater.
Too Much Woman For This World
By Khryrisi Wigginton
An
intelligent, funny, sweet, and painful interrogation of body image from
the lens of a woman who has been told that she is too much in all
facets of her being. The work makes connections between trauma,
addiction, public opinion, corporate image manipulation, the diet
industry and the manufacturing of food. The work has a big heart and is
perfect for those who don't like what they see when they look at
themselves.
Ideal Plain
By Reginald Wilkins
What
if a slave who rebelled with Nat Turner collided with a thug from today
running from the police -- what conversation could unfold on that ideal
plain? Reginald Wilkins a core member of the Lower Bottom Playaz
has written that conversation for performance on a bare stage where we
are only burned by our history, the present moment, and the decision of
what way is forward.
RagDoll Lullaby
By William Crossman
A work in magical realism, Crossaman's
Rag Doll, conjures the space to consider the black body in flight
seeking to control its own destiny. The body is a literal battleground
in the dark mythos of North America and this lullaby contrast the past and presence of privilege and the monetization of Africans and their Africaness.
Next
By Terry Bisson
Bisson's SI-Fi
offering takes the ideas of unchecked privilege, white hubris, the end
zones of opulent consumption into the future where melanin has been
declared a national resource after a climate failure as a result of
global warming. The declaration is enforced by the prohibition of
interracial marriage; making black marriage illegal. Bisson
offers us a world where supremacy reaches its outer limits and we are
being breed for the sole purpose of extending white life.
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