Performances Of State, Commerce, And Art

Ngugi, in his essay “Power in Performance,” discusses the performance of power by the state and the performance of power by the artist, and how they are often in direct conflict. On my way to my second visit to 2001, I found myself in a strange netherworld between the two.

Normally, Occam’s law of direct travel (the quickest route is the one most likely to be taken; an adaptation of Occam’s Razor) would have me getting off the N or R train at W 60^th Street, literally within sight of the sculpture I was after. But for a second visit, I decided to shake things up, to listen to a little Robert Frost and take “The Road Not Taken.” In this case, the road not taken was not “the road less traveled by”; in fact, the road I was walking along was 5^th Avenue, one of the world’s largest shopping districts.

5^th Avenue proper extends the length of Manhattan, but the average American referring to 5^th Avenue is referring to the strip of 5^th Avenue through Midtown, which ends roughly at 60^th Street (my destination). This is the 5^th Avenue known for its pricey clothing stores. Window displays line the streets, aiming to draw in the unwary passersby into an abyss of merchandise.

I am not a materialist. I haven’t gone shopping for clothes since last year, and then I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t want to. But I have a personal vice: I enjoy watching television ads. Not all of them, of course: just the good ones. I will frequently turn to my roommate after certain ads and discuss to him why it was a well constructed work: sometimes I prize the simplicity, or a particularly striking moment. Television has the potential to be either art, entertainment, or commerce. Television ads, usually, fall fairly under the ‘commerce’ heading: thirty seconds of someone trying to sell you something. As a result, the average advertisement has the same effect on the watcher as a street vendor barking his goods—at best, ignored, and at worst, hated. Some ads, however, add in the entertainment element, drawing in the viewer with a joke and a punchline. A very precious few (most notably, of late, the viewer generated internet video ads for the Microsoft Zune) cross the threshold into being artistic. It is no small feat to sell a product, entertain, and be artistic in thirty seconds. Ad images on billboards have the same challenge. Perhaps it is a fascination with that often overlooked potential art space that led to Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement: to tell society that the barrier between artist-generated public art and commercial-generated public art is not as wide as one seems.

I’m standing on 5^th Avenue now. For most of my way, I have tuned out the stores. Lifeless mannequins fill shop windows, bedecked in fashionable clothes that will never seem to look as good on you as they did on the mannequin. There is something mute, blank, and alienating about the mannequins—they try to appeal to the everyman, but the lack of identity portrayed by the blank-faced (or worse yet, headless) dolls lends a creepy post-industrial feeling to the streets. I don’t like to look at them. I wouldn’t have stopped, but one storefront has caught my eyes.

I had almost reached 2001, unenlightened by the eerie capitalism of 5^th Avenue, but now I was confronted with one of 5^th Ave’s newest stores, and one which looks like the future in many ways. It is the Apple Store. The store itself is not visible—consumers go downstairs, below 5^th Ave, as though descending into its core. But what is visible above-ground is a huge glass cube broken up into individual panes. Despite its fairly straightforward design, its elegance and glasswork recall the cathedrals of the 1600s; it strikes the eye impressively and stands out from the buildings around it, from all of the buildings in Manhattan. In the middle, a large Apple Corp. logo is suspended, glowing white in the sunlight. It would not look any more impressive if it had been a cross.

Just across the street is 2001, a piece which Ngugi would call a performance of power by the artist, and General Sherman, a piece which Ngugi would call a performance of power by the state. What is so striking to me about the Apple Store, and its latticed window cathedral? It seems to be, to adapt Ngugi’s vocabulary somewhat, a performance of power by the corporation. In the way that television advertisements can be either artistic (breeding thought), entertaining (breeding contentment), or commercial (breeding desire), public performances can be by the artist (breeding thought), the state (breeding contentment), or the commercial (breeding desire).

And yet, can we truly say that all three of these spheres are separate? 2001 is built of space-age plastics, which were probably developed through the government research; it also relies on the production power of the corporation. The Apple Store shows the corporation as an artist; it is creating an aesthetically pleasing structure for only indirect benefit. It is attempting to benefit the passersby, and hopes that its benefit will be returned to it in the form of commerce.

As the Pop Art movement showed, or the development of the iPod, or countless other examples of the ways in which commerce becomes artistic, or art becomes commercial, or both intersect the realm of the government. In a democratic society, the interests of art, commerce, and governance are locked constantly in the give and take and negotiations that ensure that each reach the same public and provide their own unique benefits.

When we want to talk about art, mass culture, and politics, perhaps there is no more shining example than that infamous and well-worn example of poor Ché Guevara’s face, plastered on commercial t-shirts worldwide. Like the McDonald’s in Hanoi Square, the McDonald’s in Red Square, and the Starbucks that until recently was in the Forbidden Palace, the perverse irony of mass-produced images of Ché Guevara would seem at first to be the victory of Capitalism over Communism.

One of the reasons that many cite for Capitalism’s “victory” over Communism is that where Communism excludes other ideologies, Capitalism swallows them whole. China, the largest “communist” country still in existence, has long since eroded the communist underpinnings, to the point where it now lives in some economic nameless twilight between the capitalist market economy and the communist planned economy. At any rate, it has become the engine that powers America’s capitalist economy. The success of today’s most iconic American ventures, from Wal-Mart to McDonald’s, relies heavily on the cheap, mass-produced goods. Capitalism has always defeated its enemies through engagement; rather than destroying, we simply merge.

This victory is plain in the story of Ché Guevara’s t-shirt.

If we are to look at the powers of art, commercialism, and politics, it is clear that Ché’s shirt began in the realm of politics. Alberto Kordo, a loyal communist, took the photo of Ché at a memorial service of the La Coubre explosion, a ship of armaments that exploded while being unloaded (the Cuban government still alleges that this was a CIA plot). Kordo sent the photo, among others, to the editor of the paper he was on assignment for; it was returned to him. He cropped it (removing several intrusions) and decided to keep it. He distributed prints to guests and friends, for no charge—it was not, after all, a performance of commerce.

Kordo did not accept money for his photo, entitled Guerrillero Heroico. Neither did the first man to popularize it, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Feltrinelli had been issued the rights to publish Ché’s Bolivian Diary outside of Cuba, and asked Kordo if he had a fitting photograph to put on the cover. Kordo knew instantly which one to choose: he had always been proud of the expression he had captured on Ché’s face, of which he said that it’s “A kind of mystery. His personality comes through.” Here is the performance of the power of the artist, capturing as much of Ché’s life in a photograph as Ché’s diary did in the pages within. Indeed, photographer Giorgio Mondolfo said, “I was not even slightly interested in the author. I was only fifteen, and it was the picture that had drawn us - many for the first time - to gather in the streets, crying Che lives!”

The artist stands, not for a political purpose, but to record the life of a man. But the man is political, and the artist represents that faithfully, with a bit of the ideal. There is the performance of politics. In Ché’s case, both the politics and the artistic representation meet because Ché has become politics personified. Without investigating Ché’s life deliberately, our instinctual reaction to Ché is political: his every movement and action is political. His face is not just angry, it is angry at the injustices against the poor; he is not just looking up, and he is David looking into the face of the Goliath of Capitalism.

It is this deeply accessible, deeply human, and idealized expression which attracted the attention of Jim Fitzpatrick, who created the original iconic poster from the Kordo photo. Like Kordo, Fitzpatrick’s original intention was to spread the image as much as possible, because he “felt this image had to come out, or he [Guevara] would not be commemorated otherwise, he would go where heroes go, which is usually into anonymity.” He wanted the image to “breed like rabbits” so he created thousands of prints and distributed them by hand to people in London.

The difference between Kordo and Fitzpatrick was the difference in format. Kordo was hand-printing from photographic negatives; Fitzpatrick was using a simplified version, which was highly compatible with silk-screen transfer printing. Silk-screen transfer was extremely popular in the 1960s, especially in the realm of t-shirt making. In other words, Fitzpatrick had created a version of the Kordo photo which was ready for mass-production: the great breakthrough of the 20^th Century.

Here it is easy to see how capitalism came to consume the image of Ché; in the realm of Capitalism, ideas and images are property, just as any other. And since the creator (Kordo) was not in the realm of Capitalism, the image was presumed to be in the public domain. Thus, anyone could supply a copy without having to buy the intellectual property; and Ché, through being a political and heroic symbol, created the demand. By the time that Kordo’s heirs attempted to reassert their rights over the creation of copies (the true meaning of copy-right), it was 2005, and thus was too late: Capitalism had merged with Ché’s legacy.

This is why the photo of Ché is fascinating: it is a recurring cyclical layering of performances. Layer one is Ché himself, trapped in image: a political leader’s life, embodied by Ché’s image. Layer two is Kordo’s photo, the artistic expression of Ché’s life as arranged by Kordo—a performance of the artist’s power to create Ché’s legacy. Layer three is Fitzgerald’s mass-produced, inadvertently commoditization, which is both literally and metaphorically a reduction: it flattens him to a symbol which is easily exploited. Patrick Symmes put it best when he described it as “An easy emblem of meaningless and unthreatening rebellion, a queer blending of educated violence and disheveled nobility, like Gandhi with a gun or John Lennon singing 'Give Peace a Chance.'”

The real interest in this third layers is in its relationship with the first two: although the political and the artistic are in alignment, the commercial aspect of this newly commoditzed Ché stands in blatant disregard and utter contradiction of them. This creates dialectic, a dramatic tension. And of course, this creates a new, fourth, political layer of performance: the layer of Capitalism as having bought out a hapless Communism, and the short-sightedness of a young 60s generation of liberal idealist who rails against a system they are in fact a part of.

Perhaps a parallel example to this multi-layered Ché portrait (although less iconic and emotional) is the song by Cake entitled “Rock And Roll Lifestyle.” The lyrics, set over a contemporary rock song, ask, “How do you afford your rock and roll life style?” The first chorus targets a generation of entitled children who ‘rebel’ against their parents while still depending on their parents for their money, asking, “how much did you spend on your black leather jacket? / Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?” The next paragraph expands into the machine the children are rebelling against:

How much did you pay for the chunk of his guitar,

The one he ruthlessly smashed at the end of the show?

And how much will he pay for a brand new guitar,

One which he'll ruthlessly smash at the end of another show?

And how long will the workers keep building him new ones?

As long as their soda cans are red, white, and blue ones.

The cycle of repetition takes away the holiness of the act of rebellion, and the invocation of ‘red white and blue’ invokes both the American Flag (and the American political hegemony it represents) and also the (presumably) Pepsi cans (and the American economic hegemony). The song ends with the answer to these rhetorical questions

Excess ain't rebellion.

You're drinking what they're selling.

Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them.

Your chaos won't convert them.

They're so happy to rebuild it.

You'll never really kill it.

Indeed, the cycle of creation, consumption, destruction, and creation again reveals the futility of this so-called ‘rebellion.’ This is further complicated when you look at the artist who is distributing this song. Who are these musicians? Are they not selling this rock-and-roll lifestyle themselves? Do they not promote consumer goods?

In truth, the artist stands apart from a pro- or anti- consumer sentiment. In the United States, it is impossible for a performance to be entirely artistic without the performance also being a performance of commerce, because art is commercial here. And both of these performances are political. We walk through the world, attempting to isolate different performances into different categories. Most movie theaters are considered to contain performances of commerce; those that do not are called “art houses,” as though they are separate and distinct. We have art galleries, and we have trade shows, and we have memorials.

But the most potent performances live where these three intersect. To work our way back towards where this essay began: the Pop Art movement was an engaging attempt to bridge these three performances. There is a strictly utilitarian reason to bridge these three movements: because the intellectual, rigorous lens we apply to art is often not applied to performances in politics or performances in commerce. Andy Warhol wanted us to look at soup cans not with the eyes of a consumer, but with the eyes of an art critic—with an emphasis on the word critic. Critical. Using our critical facilities to dig deeper into the meanings and construction of each performance. In our contemporary life, our commercials and our political events are just as carefully crafted as pottery or theater; it behooves us, if we want not to be misled, to look at them critically the way we look at art.

Let us take, for instance, one of the greats of Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein’s format is that of the comic-book drawing. The comic-book format is most interesting because it evokes the simplicity of childhood, and the straightforwardness with which youth views the world. But there is always something faintly wrong to the adult eye in viewing his works. Take for instance, Drowning Girl. A girl, surrounded by water, eyes closed, streaming with tears, and she is thinking: “I Don’t Care! I’d Rather Sink—Than Call Brad For Help!” It calls to mind the many helpless, emotive women in the comic books, who often need strong males to help them. As a child, this is all fantasy, and we don’t think too much about it. Her peevishness will cost her life if she doesn’t get over it. It is almost surreally stubborn. And yet in a comic book, such things happen, in order to create the dramatic set-ups the child enjoys—whether they are meant to be identifying with the girl, or identifying with the hero about to rescue the girl.

Another one, entitled, Whaam! features an American pilot destroying another plane in a dogfight. The exploding plane makes the familiar comic-book noise, Whaam! and the pilot narrates in poetic language: "I pressed the fire control... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky..." This painting is adapted from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War. In 1962, the Vietnam War had only just begun, and the tide of public opinion hadn’t truly turned against it yet—although the Bay of Pigs invasion just the year before should have chastened America that its foreign policy interference was too much.

This panel is so striking because the violence it portrays is perfectly glorified. And yet, somehow, hung in an art gallery, it seems perverse. What was okay in a children’s comic book (“boys will be boys”?) does not seem right in an art hall. Why is that? One explanation will be in the way we hold performances of commerce to a different standard than the way we hold performances of art. The comic book is marketed to boys: they like hitting things, and they like girls (even if they don’t know it yet). We don’t expect DC Comics to take into account the harsh realities of war or misogyny: they’re just making comic books. It’s “just entertainment.” On the other hand, an artist has attempted to transform this into a performance of art. In that, he has taken that glorification of violence or female helplessness to a new level: a level which is uncomfortably high. Does the artist actually ennoble those things? Is this glorification ironic? Without knowing the artist’s state of mind, we can see a performance of art which dialectically opposes the intent of the performance of commerce, but we can also see a sickening possibility that somehow we have turned violence into an art form.

So here I am, standing between General Sherman, the Apple Store, and 2001. What I have discovered, during my intellectual ramblings along 5^th Avenue, along the road Ché’s face traveled, and along the path charted by Pop Art is that the three different modalities of public performance (art, commerce, state) are most interesting when they are in conversation with one another. These three prove that axiom to me deeply.

Firstly, there is 2001. The sculpture is very aesthetically pleasing, and I certainly like to look at it, but it bores my brain. I hate to be that honest, but it really does. It’s a ball, and although I have explored ideas of child’s play and child’s thinking, I do not find it actually very informative about the world we live in and the world we interact in. As a performance of art to the exclusion of commerce and state, it has reached the aesthetic dream: art for art’s sake.

Then, there is General Sherman. It is a grand performance by state. Not just any state, as a matter of fact, but the United States in 1903. The gaudy display of gold, the literal realism of the style, the religiosity of the Archangel guiding Sherman’s path, and of course the presence of the bloody war criminal Sherman anchor General Sherman inartistically into a moment in the past which I would prefer to reject. Sherman’s burning March to the Sea may have been in the cause of anti-slavery or in the cause of defending the Constitution, but the brutality of his acts and the brutality of his campaign against Native Americans is beyond glorification. A performance of the state is anchored in its moment of conception.

Lastly, there is the Apple Store. It may be a pinnacle of art and commerce merging, but of course, the Apple Corporation would like you to think that Apple Corporation is the pinnacle of art and commerce merging. In actuality, Apple is a designer company, charging a premium for its products in return for a sleek, beautiful design aesthetic. It may be pretty to see once, but the demographic which enjoys the Apple Store’s architecture the most are the homeless who gather around its poorly insulated glass frame at night, hoping for warmth and inadvertently casting an awkward negative spell over this idealized capitalist dream.

I leave the square, and take Occam’s Direct Line of Travel (also known as the R Train) back to my home.

Culture Future II: Absolutism versus Reducible Complexity

It is easy to believe that we cannot change culture, because it is so large. So we throw our hands up and accept it as fate. But it doesn't have to be.

When I wrote this in the first post, I was speaking mainly of our contemporary American culture. In a way, Americans are still caught in the ancient debate of free will versus predestination. Although for some it is still in the old frame of God versus human free will, there are other outlets for that way of thinking. One place where I see this schism developing, which is a very difficult place to disentangle it, is in the realm of health (mental and physical). Am I the way I am because I made certain choices? Were those choices pre-determined by a combination of my genetic code and my upbringing?

This debate is crucial today because the two different views have two different solutions. If our depression (as a for instance) is caused by a plethora of causes beyond our control--our family, our genetic predisposition--then the best solutions will be medical ones (Prozac or Zoloft or some new experimental treatment). But if it is our choices which cause our depression, then it is our choices which will liberate us from it.

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe they can do it again.

John F. Kennedy said that. He was not speaking in the realm of health, but in the realm of culture. He was speaking of American politics, of the direction which America wanted to take, of its growing fear in the face of the Soviet Union.

Our culture is man-made, therefore it can be shaped by man. Although, as I said before, we think we cannot change culture because it is so large, Man can be as big as he wants. There is both good and bad in that.

The discovery that man can be scientifically manipulated, and that governments can turn large masses this way or that as they choose, is one of the causes of our misfortunes.

That statement was written twenty years before Kennedy's speech; it was Bertrand Russell in an essay about religion entitled An Outline Of Intellectual Rubbish. 'Our misfortunes,' which he refers to, is the scourge of Nazism, which at the time was even more dangerous than the Soviet Union of Kennedy's day, purely by virtue of the fact that the Soviet Union was as wary of the United States as we were of them.

Russell is correct that scientific manipulation of societies was the well-spring of Nazism, and of the Soviet Union. It is, of course, also the well-spring of American democracy; but Russell is right to highlight the dangers of mass manipulation. Sociology and communication, for instance, are combined to create propaganda. What went wrong for Nazis and for the Soviets was not that culture cannot be controlled--it is that culture cannot be rigidly controlled.

The current model I enjoy for examining culture is that of the conversation. A good conversation requires two people who are interested in the exchange of thoughts and/or feelings. "Interested" means that they are ready to listen; "the exchange" means that they are ready to speak.

The Nazi Party and the Bolsheviks had something to say, clearly--this is clear by how much they wrote at the time. It was very fashionable for them to write tracts and to make speeches. But they were not willing to respond, not willing to interact with the rest of culture as a whole. They wished to substitute Nazi culture for German culture, to substitute Bolshevik culture for Russian culture, and thus, were not ready to listen. If writing tracts and making speeches shows how willing to speak, then the brutal censorship of tracts and speeches (and those who made them) shows how unwilling to speak they are.

In point of fact, this shows that they had failed the 'scientific approach' to culture that many have ascribed to them. They started with the hypothesis of culture, and they performed the experiment. But by refusing to acknowledge the data which returned, and by refusing to engage in active conversation with other cultures, they were stifling that very same intellectual approach to changing society that first led them to embark. After all, Karl Marx was able to write his tracts on the economy because he was a professor at an English university, able to write what he pleased without fear.

Why were they unable to be in conversation? Because they were absolutists. They dreamed of a utopia, but it was an absolutist utopia. There was no room for non-communism in the Communist ideal; the bourgeois had to be brutally crushed. There was no room for the "impure" in the eugenics of Nazis; the impure had to be brutally crushed. It is specifically in the utopian, absolutist execution of these ideals that they were unable to be in conversation with other cultures. Nothing in the universe is perfect, so an ethos which calls for the destruction of the imperfect is by definition destructive; in fact, it targets everything in the universe. In fact, if these absolutist movements could look at themselves with objective eyes, they'd be forced to destroy themselves. How many of the leading Nazis were genetically pure? How many of the Communist leaders were truly equals to the rest of their society?

In The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross wonders why intellectuals who formed the artistic elite in Vienna found themselves supporting Nazism during its rise. As an answer, he says,

The cultish fanaticism of modern art turns out to be unrelated to the politics of fascism: both attempt to remake the world in utopian forms.

In fact, it is the cultish absolutism of certain modern artists; many of these same artists purported to hate the support of the people because the people were inferior. Take, for instance, Schoenberg:

If it is Art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.

This sort of bloody-minded absolute extremism is underpinned on a hatred of the imperfect. It is unfortunate, for instance, that this absolutism can sometimes arise from religion. I do not believe, like many of the New Athiests and their intellectual forebears, that everything religion touches is evil. But I do agree that absolutism is in religion is perverse and destructive. If, as some purport, we are all touched by sin and born in sin, and God hates sin, then how can God not hate everything?

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

Jonathan Edwards, one of the earlier evangelicals in this country, spoke that in his sermon "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God." Through the hyperbole of the text, it is clear to see that once you accept the philosophy of absolutism, everything which is not absolute is absolutely wrong; the world is black and white--and in fact, mostly black.

It has often been said of Islam that it is actually one of the most respectful religions, and that today's fundamentalists are perverting the Koran. But the Koran does have passages within it which support today's fundamentalists, just as the Bible supports today's fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Marxists can use the Manifesto to slaughter Capitalists if they so choose. Each of these ideas, when taken absolutely, are incompatible with other cultures--obviously, because absolute cultures refuse to be in conversation with other cultures.

But the hope for the world is not, as Richard Dawkins or George W. Bush might think, to set up an opposite absolutism and let them battle to the death ("Democracy" versus totalitarianism; Hitchens' anti-theism versus theism, etc.), but rather to create the forum for conversation which refuses to tolerate violence and moderates the conversation as it precedes.

The clear example for this is in the creation of the US Constitution. Reading the Federalist papers by Madison and Hamilton reveal something clear about the Constitution: although the Constitution was founded on certain ideals, the machinery of the Constitution was built not for a utopian, ideal community, but rather for the everyday. Rather than hoping that America would never elect a cruel dictator or greedy, self-serving beaurocrats, the machinery was put into place to keep such people in check. This is the center of the concepts of checks and balances. The machinery continues to need tinkering, especially considering the abuses which the Constitution has weathered over the past eight years, but the concept is still sound.

We still have a culture which allows for conversation, although the state of our conversation is still poor. We have a culture which allows for change. Even cultures which attempt to stifle change and innovation find themselves prey to the human spirit. Consider Vaclav Havel, writing in the frozen Czechoslovakia during the oppression of the Cold War.

I am unwilling to believe that this whole civilization is no moer than a blind alley of history and a fatal error of the "human spirit."

But he did not sit and wait for things to happen; nor did he preach some extremist anti-Communist revolution. Rather, he preached the idea of "living in truth," describing in his seminal essay "Power of the Powerless" of a green-grocer who does simply nothing more than stop following the ridiculous laws of the Communist regime. He is not attacking the problem at the center, not trying to topple a powerful and huge regime alone, but rather: he is eroding the ideological and absolutist foundation of the regime. The more people simply stop cooperating, the weaker the regime was. And in fact, that is how the Soviet Union collapsed: not with a bang, but with a whimper.

The problem of "solving" culture is a problem of reducible complexity. It is impossible to change all of culture overnight; that path leads to absolutism. The Soviet Union tried, in one act of revolution, to cure every problem of the Industrial Revolution which had been brewing for a full century, and further to cure every problem of the feudal, monarchal Russia which had been brewing for centuries before that.

At the same time, the Western world was addressing the problems one by one. Today, we have ensured a far higher quality of life than the Soviet Union had, and far higher than the time of the Industrial Revolution. We solved each problem slowly, over the course of the 20th Century. There was a brief period, at the beginning of the Soviet Experiment and during the Great Depression, when actually there was a higher quality of life in the Soviet Union. But because of the absolute and rigid ideology that had created it, the Soviet Union never advanced; in fact, it regressed.

Take for instance, Richard Foreman:

If you’re a big person, carrying your big, heavy, important projects and concerns with you into the theater, when you confront my play it will appear to be an amorphous cloud of molecular particles, circulating in a seemingly random pattern, like Brownian motion. Perceiving it like that, the big person that you are measures the play against the heavy projects you carry around in your head, and you think: ... I want help in resolving such weighty problems, and all this play proposes is an amorphous cloud of circulating molecules, incapable of budging those big solid shapes that fill my life. What I need from a play is a shape bigger and heavier than my own in order to reorganize my own massive shapes.

My art proposes, however, that by shifting your attention to the scale on which atomic events occur...you discover that your own solid shapes are themselves but clouds of molecules in circulation.

Richard Foreman is talking about tackling personal problems on a quantum scale; the model which he's using (metaphorical) is of reducible complexity.

Our society is having trouble doing this. We expect our President to "fix" the education system. But the problems in the education system today are myriad; problems of race, economics, educational theory, and cultural value of education are among many problems which face the education system. Others, seeing the complexity in their face, would prefer to withdraw; give everyone who can the opportunity to flee to private education.

Foreign policy is the same; on the one side, President Bush wishes to attack every problem with an Insta-Solution: democracy. Iran, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Palestine--all of these problems could theoretically be solved by sweeping aside their leadership, and instituting 'democracy.' This ignores their complex histories, the billions of individual forces which are the swirling and pushing in every different directions. Others, currently led by Ron Paul, have a different approach: withdrawing from the foreign policy sphere. While a movement toward disengagement might be appropriate at the moment, isolationism is not how America can use its considerable position in the world to make it better--for itself as well as for everyone else.

What American politicians lack is the care, attention, and complex conversation with the rest of the world which leads to smart foreign policy. When we discuss foreign policy, we don't reduce the problem; we reduce our approach to it. We approach it in reductive terms; that is to say, reductionist. And reductionist thinking is absolute thinking because what reductionism and absolutism share is an inability to deal with complexity. Complexity is caused by different forces in different directions. Iraq is not just Sunni versus Shiite.

If we attempt to solve the problems facing our culture by reducing complexity into simplicity, and attempting to solve those 'simple' problems with absolute principles, we will fail. If we lump problems together into massive, fear-inducing entities (the War on Terror; the War on Poverty; the War on Drugs), then we will fail. But if we, as a community, break apart these problems into small, workable chunks, then each of us can play a part in solving these problems. We can only solve these many particles of problems if we're in conversation about these problems, but it will no longer be like climbing Darwin's Mount improbable.

Politics: Religious Conversation

In my last two posts, I've written a little about how politicians, journalists, and artists should bring themselves into conversation with the greater community as a whole. In the examples of Sen. Rick Santorum (in that appearance), Jon Stewart, and John Cage, I found positive examples of this conversation occurring. Unfortunately, for my next examination of conversations with culture, I'm going to levy some criticism toward a man who is actually far smarter than me, and who is not undeserving of respect, to illustrate what happens when conversation is not pursued constructively.

There are many, many, many examples of a breakdown in religious conversation in the United States, because of the dislike of moderate religious figures to speak publicly about religion. The moderate position is that religion is a personal belief, and other than speaking to a small congregation of like-minded believers, is not best suited for large public discussion.

Although I can agree with this view to a certain extent, what that creates is a religious power vacuum, where those who are looking for a religious leader find those who are most vocal: those leaders, on a overpowering national scale, can be extremely negative. Fred Phelps, Louis Farrakand, Pat Robertson, Jeremiah Wright, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, etc.; these names are familiar to us because they typically come with extravagant, hate-filled messages of religion attached, whether it be Phelps protesting at Iraq War veterans' funerals because the Iraq War is a punishment for homosexuality or Jeremiah Wright's invective that 9/11 is a punishment for America's hubris.

I think most of us would prefer moderate religious leaders, who are passionate in their beliefs but holding moderate beliefs, would be preferable: religious leaders cut from the mold of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose religious beliefs inspired him to take on social problems in a manner that was mostly affirming and positive. Of course, sometimes that leadership comes from a non-religious direction; but specifically in religion I believe there need to be leaders who step forward to show what a compassionate, moderate religion would look like, who could bring the flocks of people readily in.

But my post is not about this religious phenomenon: it's about the mirror effect of that phenomenon. This phenomenon is currently happening in atheism, a movement known as New Athiesm. New Athiesm makes Athiesm aggressive and evangelical in the way that neoconservativism makes conservatism aggressive and evangelical. When one asks for prominent athiests, one is led to think of people for whom athiesm is prominent: people who make athiesm into a strong part of their lives.

This is the position of a select few scientists in the current wave of thinking who believe that it is not enough to not believe in God; the mission of an athiest is to spread his teachings (or lack thereof) to as many religious folk as possible. And I feel myself in a privileged position to criticize this New Athiest movement (led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris): I myself am an Athiest, and I have always been an Athiest and will, likely, always be an Athiest. But this New Athiesm is not serving the greater culture--a culture which has both athiests and religious folk, and agnosts and spiritualists.

To take an example of this effect, I decided to take the most concise work on the subject that I felt still represented a whole argument: the introduction to The Portable Athiest which was written by Christopher Hitchens. Perhaps this is disingenuous, and I should have devoted the time to read God is Not Great or The God Delusion or Letters To A Christian Nation before taking this up, but I have seen all three of the authors speak many times and I have a very strong belief that their conversation is a destructive conversation, rather than being progressive it merely embitters and divides.

Take:

It seems to me that there is what the poet Shelley once called the necessity of athiesm. One cannot avoid taking a position. Either one attributes it to a divine design. (You can tell a lot about friend or foe, depending on how he or she answers this inescapable question, and on how he or she faces its implications.)

Or:

Arguments for athiesm can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the ill effects of religion.

Or my favorite:

On the part of civilized people,...the main enemy we face is "faith-based"

The underpinning of both of those passages can be simply states as thus: "you are either with us or against us." This is an extremely divisive sentiment to be held; it pushes aside all of those who disagree with you and closes the door on any sort of a compromise. This isn't to say that there is some sort of a middle ground between believing in a spirit other than existence and not believing in it. People shouldn't compromise their beliefs. But at the same time, in terms of how our culture operates, it needs to have space for both sides to air their views and coexist; in that way, the bad parts of religion can be reformed out and the good parts can be preserved.

Of course, this would overshoot Hitchen's belief about religion: that it is wholly a negative force and has no potential for good.

My own response has been to issue a challenge: name me an ethical statement made or performed by a believer that could not have been performed by a non-believer. As yet, I have no takers. (Whereas, oddly enough, if you ask an audience to name a wicked statement or action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example.)

This disingenuous challenge is moot: you cannot prove or disprove anyone's motives. It is possible to be kind because of religion; it is possible to be kind in spite of religion; it is possible to be kind irrespective of religion. And the same moves in the opposite direction. For instance, if I were to say that Mother Theresa did her good deeds because of her religion, he would probably counter with an example of an atheist who did the same thing because of religion, and say that therefore people don't need religion because they can do good things anyways. And then, on the other hand, if he were to say that the Inquisition could have only happened in an environment of religion, I might counter with Stalin's gulags.

This whole argument is moot, because we cannot tell the difference between coincidence and causality. Most of the major non-violence movements have been religious; holy wars are always religious. Most of the major abolitionist movement have been religious; most people who drink are religious. Hitchens sees violence as endemic to mankind. But he also admits that religion is endemic to mankind. So is it a chain (mankind is religious, religion is violent) or is it a parallel statement (mankind is religious, mankind is violent)?

The argument is also moot because, from the tone of Hitchens' work, we can presume that he is going to shoehorn any of his observations into his beliefs about religion. His work is dripping with contempt for religion and the religious:

What nonsense this is.

If religion is innate in us, then so is our doubt of it and our contempt for our own weakness.

The bare and narrow and constipated and fearful world of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and Osama bin Laden

Children (who suffer worse at the hands of the faithful than any other group)

Logic-chopping polemicist

Considering the polemic involved in this text, and the ways in which his correspondence/causality flaw as well as other logical blunders pervade the text, it is ironic that he levy that charge in particular. But at any rate, the question of the book is not, "How can we make religion better?" or "How can we minimize the negative effects of religion," it is, "How can we force people to get over their ridiculous superstition?"

This is not the way that adults talk about grown-up issues, I hope. If I invite Christopher Hitchens over to dinner I won't call him a logic-chopping polemicist, even if I think he chops logic and employs polemic. Frankly, I doubt Christopher Hitchens would like to come over to dinner with me, because I refuse to join his war against religion. I know plenty of people who take positive ammunition from their faith and make the world a better place in spite of or parallel to or because of their faith.

Politics: Conversations about Politics

In my last post, I discussed the way in which John Cage converses with a commercial audience, as a model of how artists should converse with popular culture and wider audiences. The idea of using the rules of polite conversation as a model for how to deal with culture has been growing in my mind, and I can trace at least part of it back to a very influential source of mine: Jon Stewart.

Although I originally came to Jon Stewart because of the jokes and the commentary, the interview portion of the show has become stronger and stronger the longer I've watched. Part of this has been the increasing number of fascinating and important guests. When I first watched, it was largely actors and unknown authors; but in 2004 John Edwards announced his candidacy for the Presidency on the Daily Show, and the show has been graced by Senators (Obama, Clinton, Specter, Santorum, Lieberman, etc.), former Bush Administration members (Fleischer, McClellan, Snow, Ashcroft, Powell, etc.), current world leaders (Musharraf, Fox, Morales), top-tier journalists (Geraldo, O'Reilly, Matthews, Williams, Russert, Rather, etc.) and many more.

What was most fascinating to me was the high level of discourse. One of the moments which solidified Jon Stewart's transition from 'merely' a comedian into a powerful social force was his memorable appearance on Crossfire. He appealed to hosts Tucker Carleson and Paul Begala to stop hurting America and bring a dignified level of discourse to the realm of politics. It was clear that this was not what they had in mind: the hosts (in Begala's defense, mostly Carleson) dismissed his concerns and tried to make the Daily Show look silly and discredit Stewart's concerns.

The state of discourse on the network news is fairly poor. An incident springs to mind where Robert Novak told James Carville that everything he had to say was bullshit, and got up and walked off the set. This is a slightly extreme example of a fairly onerous way of speaking which is more typified by Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity's notoriously rude interviews. ("Cut his mic!" the cliche goes...). So when I really started to watch Jon Stewart interface with politicians or journalists he disagreed with, I was incredibly impressed by his candor and polite discussion.

The interview which blew my mind the most was the one appended to the end of this post; that of Senator Rick Santorum. To begin with: let me say that I have a strong dislike of the policies and agenda of Rick Santorum, and was very happy to see him defeated in the 2006 Midterm Election. But I do have to respect that although in other public appearances, where he can be inflammatory and offensive, here he does earnestly complement the mode of discussion which Jon Stewart equally exemplifies.

1. Polite Greetings: The interview begins with Jon Stewart's usual greeting: "Thank you very much for coming here tonight." And that greeting appears to be genuine. This is pretty straightforward, human tactic, but you'd be surprised how often the simple pleasantries are abandoned when vitriol and acerbicism is much easier to sell.
   
2. Common Ground: Then Jon Stewart tackles an important place to begin: that most people were surprised that Santorum would be the guest, and there was a general assumption that they might not agree on a lot of things. He then very directly proceeds to lay some common ground. The tone is, of course, whimsical ("I believe ice cream is a delicious treat, but too much will spoil the appetite"), but it does serve an interesting purpose: it gets the audience (which, as Santorum notes, had booed him before he came on) to cheer in agreement with him. Santorum may hold negative beliefs about gays, but at least we all believe in the sanctity of ice cream. He returns to this point later, in a more serious way, when he agrees with Santorum's point of "character equals virtue"--even though this is a set-up for a point of contention (that sexuality does not equal character). It seems simple, but it creates a very human mode of discussion, rather than discussions between People as symbols, which is what a lot of politics becomes.
   
3. Acknowledge Complexity: Stewart begins talking about the fervor behind certain religous groups regarding positions such as abortion. After he mentions abortion, however, he is quick to say that "other than the ultimate extreme positions at both ends, that's a really difficult issue, a real moral quandry, and I think a lot of people understand that." This is another moment where Santorum gets to nod along with Stewart, proving to the audience that he is not the frothy-mouthed bible-thumping wacko that he can appear to be in the media. And it sets the tone for a debate in which the legitimacy of many different opinions and the inability to objectively establish one morally, absolutely correct position is important. He does this a moment later when, with his first question of criticism, he says, "Or am I mistaking your take on it?" which gives Santorum room to speak for himself, rather than responding to Stewart's impressions of Santorum.
   
4. Talk Impersonally: There isn't a point at which it is possible to isolate this, but at no point does Stewart or Santorum discuss each other or themselves (except in the adult manner in which Santorum's background in psychology is brought to play).
5. Recognizing the impasse: This is the biggest point for me. The interview truly becomes memorable and defining when, just before the commercial break, Stewart says: "Ultimately you end up getting to this point, it's like this crazy stopping point. Literally, like, we can't get any further. I don't think you're a bad dude, I don't think I'm a bad dude, but I literally can't convince you..." and then goes on to outline his own opinion. Can you imagine O'Reilly acknowledging that sort of divide between him and Nancy Pelosi? It is an incredibly mature move to make, and it helps them continue the discussion even when both have made their points.
   

What neither of them say, but I think both of them are aware, is that the point of a debate is not to convince the other person they're wrong. It is, in the end, to educate the observers of both sides of the issue. Although I still don't agree with former Senator Santorum, I can understand the position a lot more clearly, and I can see what a solution to the debate would have to address. When Santorum discusses that government should be designed around the ideal, I can understand why someone would believe that--although I disagree (I think the strength of the Constitution is its pragmaticism) it lends me an insight into a view that I previously couldn't fathom. And this is not just because of the way that Santorum spoke; it is also because of Stewart's permission for Santorum to take his time, to explain himself, and the ways in which Stewart pressed against those explanations without attacking them. Stewart in turn led me to understanding of a position that I agree with that I hadn't understood.

Can you imagine if that was the level of discussion we had everywhere?

Theater: John Cage; The Artist In Conversation

1. Presence: The simplest one of the crucial points is the presence of the host and the presence of the artist. John Cage stands there as a "contestant" and, although he doesn't 'contest,' he is present to take accountability for his work. The host is the host as usual, a familiar figure, and he establishes himself (through his familiar style) as an ally of the audience. He also, early on, holds to the usual format of the game--asking John Cage to slate himself and interviewing him as any other guest.
   
2. Suspending the game: The host does not tell the audience that the game has been cancelled--the host asks the producer, and then explains it to John Cage. What this does is establish an atmosphere of respect, of equality. The host, the artist, the producer, and the audience are on the same footing--we have all mutually agreed that we are going to see this interesting work without needing the perfunctory vehicle of the game.
3. Humor is key: Humor is key. Humor is key. I can't stress that enough. When the instruments are listed, the host makes a few silly faces--which serve as an opening to the audience to laugh. Nothing feels worse for a theatrical audience than to feel as though something you are going to do is right or wrong. Discomfort might be used to good offense in some theater (the play Offending the Audience bases its production on that), but in terms of reaching a wider audience, there must be freedom provided to the audience. That is what gives them the freedom to enjoy the work in whatever way they feel fit. Cage also gives permission for humor when the host tells him, apologetically (which is key) that some in the audience may laugh. Cage responds that he "prefer[s] laughter to tears," which is both honest and a funny line.
   The avant-garde has an obsession with having the audience receive its art in a specific way, whereas the commercial merely asks that the audience like it. Cage releases the obligation from the audience to have a 'profound' relationship with the piece; all he asks is that they listen (which, considering how unlike their musical tradition "Water Walk" is, isn't nothing). By opening the door to whatever response people feel is necessary, the audience is unpressured; and thus there is yet again a feeling of respect. Respect between John Cage and the audience, between the host (who doesn't want to belittle Cage's work but is honest about the gap in their tastes and experiences) and Cage, and between the host and the audience (as the host makes sure to defend their interests and protect them from the possibility of hurtful elitism).
4. Talk to the point: Cage's concise, clear way of speaking, and how he does not dodge the questions. It is tempting, as an artist, to attempt to couch your art in terms of mysticism and technical terms, just as an academic enjoys to stuff their papers full of literary terms. And that is perfectly fine from artist-to-artist or from academic-to-academic. But when Cage is asked "seriously" whether he considers "Water Walk" to be music, he says, "I consider music to be the production of sound, and since in the piece which you will hear I produce sound, I would call it music." This answer is straight to the point. (His response, quoted earlier, as to why he titled the piece 'Water Walk' is humorous because it is overly succinct; the expectation of a complex emotional-intellectual history to a title is blown out by his simple way of approaching the piece).
   
5. Room for opinions: The host does not endorse or deny this claim about music ("He takes it seriously, I find it interesting, if you are amused you may laugh"), and Cage does not seem to take a highly emotional stance on the issue. It seems as though if you said to John Cage, "I think there's something more to music than the production of sound," he might respond, "Well, that's interesting," but he certainly wouldn't yell in your face that you're closeminded and that's the reason Broadway is slowly dying, or what have you. Room is given for debate to happen; this is in the same vein as the 'giving space to laugh' point.
6. Union dispute: The charming problem with the radios is an accidental piece of goodwill; it places John Cage in the real world in a humorous way, giving him sympathy from the audience. He does not whine or declare that his piece is ruined; he simply adjusts his game plan. And bonus points because his solution is humorous.
   
7. The stopwatch: the host does well to highlight the stopwatch, and how "each [sound] must fall mathematically at a precise point." Again, he does not say whether or not he thinks this is music, but he respects John Cage enough to communicate that there is something going on beyond a man walking around making random noises. It is up to the audience as to what to make of that, but it is another moment of respect between the host and the artist.
8. Cage's response to the piece of criticism: the criticism the host reads contains both positive and negative aspects; this goes back to the host's role in the situation as a neutral arbiter, and the room for both positive and negative response. Cage does not respond angrily to the criticisms; in fact, he smiles as some of the worst bits are read. He does not seem too affected; this is important. Again, he is respecting the ability of the audience, the host, and the critics to come to whatever conclusions they will.

How can we tie these bits of advice together? Suffice it to say that John Cage's presence on I've Got A Secret is conversational.

The model of the relationship between the artist and the audience should be that of a conversation.

When you talk with friends or colleagues, even if you think their opinions are 'low brow' or 'misinformed,' it is considered rude to tell them so directly. It is far more constructive simply to help inform them, to talk to them, to feel out their positions. In America, sometimes the elite believes that because their opinions and feelings are backed by more information, they are more valid. In one sense, that is true. But in the emotional sense, that is incorrect, and in terms of a healthy speaking relationship, the emotional equality must be preserved.

Again, the content of the conversation does not need to be altered. The same happens in politics (and I'll return to this point later by discussing the Daily Show's interviews); it is possible to have a conversation where political opinions are expressed without it becoming ugly, partisan, and personal. Sure, shows like the ill-fated Crossfire or Hardball or Hannity and Colmes makes it seem as though when people talk about politics, they get angry, but if we want to go back to the legacy of William F. Buckley, or watch discussions on some of the better shows on the BBC, you can see that is possible to discuss your own opinions while still giving space for other's opinions.

This is not an easy task, and I want to emphasize that it is difficult. Art, politics, religion (see this again when I discuss Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins), etc. are all very emotional subjects, but they can still be discussed rationally without the emotional violence inflicted on one another. And too often the theatrical avant-garde lashes out at what it sees as conservative theatrical views; the "masses," the great unwashed.

If we want to bring the average person with us, we must remain in conversation. That conversation may be confrontational and still respectful (think of an intervention for a friend, perhaps). That conversation may be emotionally charged, and still respectful (although if emotions run wild, it may not remain respectful for long). But it must remain a conversation; what we mean when we talk about the 'ivory tower' is artists who have left the conversation. And when we talk about 'elitism' in the pejorative sense, we mean artists who dominate the conversation, and yell alot.

I wouldn't invite them to a discussion at dinner, and I certainly would feel irritated if that was the tone their art took.

Review: Pericles, Prince of Tyre

The most exciting part of seeing a rarely produced Shakespeare production is that it is a rare event--although we may see plenty of Hamlets or Macbeths in our lifetime, we will only see a few shows like Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This is a risky proposition: the reason that these plays are less produced is usually because they are simply not as good as their more-produced counterparts. But as New York University's Classical Studio proved this weekend, even the Bard's less brilliant plays can still be excellent productions if they are produced with care.

The pitfall of the script of Pericles is that, though it has an interesting, Shakespearean plot, the language does not have all of the bells and whistles of Hamlet. Yet on the other hand, the sparser, plainer language actually lends itself to being understood easier. Indeed, Director-Choreographer John Farmanesh-Bocca has tackled the production in a way which makes it far more accessible than the average Shakespeare play. The movement pieces are cunningly arranged to break up the play without disturbing the flow, and to illustrate elements of the script which (without the movement) would be too briefly hit upon.

The other support which this production leaned upon was the humor. The script is not a particularly funny script to begin with, but Farmanesh-Bocca teased out a lot of humor in ways that, although not necessarily the original intention, harmonized with the script and made it even better.

The cast was extremely talented in bringing these visions to light. Jabari Brisport, Michael Eisenstein, and Juan Grafton-Delgado, playing the role of the Fates, performed the movement pieces with grace and intensity, and managed to invest themselves in all of the portions of the play which they were silently observing. Terence Stone, as a Bill-Pullman-esque Pericles, was also well-performed, and although sometimes he had trouble keeping up with the boundless enthusiasm of the rest of the cast he usually served as an excellent straight man against a background of exciting and enticing characters.

It is difficult to highlight all of the actors who should be highlighted; suffice it to say that there was not a single performance, from Pericles all the way down to the three prostitutes, which was not performed with a grace, enthusiasm, and delicate handling of language which brought what on the page is a mediocre production into full life.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre was being performed in Rep with a production of Hamlet which I saw last fall and is being performed again, and this production succeeds in every way that I thought that production of Hamlet had fallen short. But the growth and grace of the cast was such that I regret not being able to go back to Hamlet to see if it has become a completely different, effortless production.

Review: El Grito Del Bronx

According to Aristotle, the aim of tragedy was to evoke pity and fear by watching a noble character have his life torn apart through a series of tragic incidents, fueled by character flaws; on the other hand, Migdalia Cruz's play El Grito Del Bronx (a New York University mainstage production) places a serial killer at the crux of the tragic formula. But by joining the story of a killer with the story of his sister, by pairing his cruelty with his tender love, and by showing the roots of his past, this story manages to evoke pity, fear, and even humor.

The play begins by splitting the story between Jesus and his sister Magdalena into two sections, one taking place in 1977 and the other taking place in 1991. In 1977, Jesus (Anthony Souza) and his sister Magdalena (Monserrat Barrera) watch their mother Maria (Nicole Ramos) being abused by their father Jose (Norberto Briceno). In 1991, Jesus is now named Papo (Ismael Enrique Cruz Cordova) and is in prison for a string of murders. Meanwhile, Magdalena, now called Lulu (Audrey Esparza) is attempting to move on with her life with her fiance Ed (Alex Fast).

This production arrives to existence from last spring's Hot Ink Festival, which stages readings of new plays from across the globe. The school was right to recognize the potential of Cruz's work, although it might have been profited by pushing Cruz to rewrite some of the earlier scenes. One of Cruz's talents is an ability to shift from tragedy (of which there is much in this play) to humor and back in short spans of time. Usually this is effective, both in preventing a dreary march of constant sadness and in humanizing characters who without these moments of humor would be unsympathetic, but in the beginning of the play this shift happens often too rapidly, lurching from humor to abuse without giving the audience time to adjust. The early part of the play also has other problems in the way it is produced; director Candido Tirado chooses to portray a rape onstage, but it seems shoehorned into the moment, and is not properly dealt with.

But the production is overall powerful and touching. One of the most striking, successful elements is the set design provided by Andy Yanni. Eschewing the usual floorplan of the Loewe Theater which this Mainstage took place in, Yanni chose to create a long, narrow set which heightened the tensions and created distinct separations between the 1977 plot on one side and the 1991 plot in the middle and the other side. The prison which Papo is serving his sentence is especially effective; it is a long and thin set which rotates to change the diagonal of the space.

By far the most effective element of the production was the high caliber of performance from most of the cast. Although Audrey Esparza's Lulu was somewhat histrionic and at times tiring, Ismael Cordova's Papo was a stunning and gut-wrenching performance. It is difficult to encapsulate both violence and tender love; Cordova's Papo had not only both but even managed to eerily demonstrate them at the same time. Papo's cellmate, played by Josh Segarra, was a fantastic addition to the production. His stage presence was imposing and his gentleness and strength was a fantastic complement to Papo. The three mothers in the production, played by Stacy Osei-Kuffor, Morgan Lynch, and Nicole Ramos each brought a very different pathos to the production, whether it was Osei-Kuffor's haunting lack of comprehension in the face of tragedy, Lynch's sad humor, or Ramos' all-forgiving love.

There were many "hot-button" issues throughout El Grito Del Bronx; spousal abuse and its effect on its victims, the criminal justice system, and racial relations between the latino community and its neighbors. El Grito Del Bronx did not treat them as subjects to be expounded on, but rather as facts of life which establish a backdrop of the deeply personal life of a single family. The only statement on politics which El Grito Del Bronx seemed to state unequivocally was that all of politics comes down to human lives, that all of these issues are mixed in a deeply woven tapestry of emotion. And although the characters have a wide pantheon of groups to blame, whether justly or unjustly, the most tragic thing about El Grito Del Bronx is that in the end, there is no one to unload blame on or to completely absolve.