Final Blogpost
Actions are
things that we must carry out every single day. Our survival depends on
carrying out actions: to eat, to walk, to pee, etc. In our modern world: to
work, to shop, to chat… There is, however, more than just the action itself,
for every action is carried out in a specific way. With a certain style which
is repeated over time. Due to the fact that humans are programmed to learn through
imitation, we often copy these styles. The way we dance. The way we speak. The
way we walk. The way we sit. The way we reach out for things and then pass them
over to the next person. They are all carried out with a specific style. They
can be energetic and lively, or they can be slow and elegant. When we find
ourselves within a group that carries out actions in a style that is similar to
ours, this is not something we often keep in mind; but when an outsider sees
these actions, they tend to categorize the actions to the bodies performing
them. This is how we begin to perceive certain races, certain biological sexes
as behaving in a specific way, as having a specific style to the way they do
things. Judith Butler mentions that these perceptions of particular races and
sexes are performed in a “mode of belief.” In other words, the style has become
so engrained into the minds of the people performing the actions that it is no
longer an attempt at an imitation. It has become their reality, their belief.
The
production of Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment is all about racial constructs,
pointing them out for the audience and then acting them out. The production is
divided in two distinct acts, both of which are separate in terms of the plot
that they follow. Similar to Hell House, where the audience is taken
through a variety of different plot-disjointed scenes which portray sin, the
fact that the two acts of The Shipment are separate allows the play to
address a certain narrative instead of just providing some sort of escape for
the audience through a plot that provokes empathy. This Brechtian element of
addressing a narrative, rather than a plot in the Aristotelian sense, allows
the play to make the audience think about what it is they are seeing. It also allows
them to perceive the actions they see as something that pertains to a more
general condition, both on stage and in the outside world, rather than to a
specific situation.
Young Jean
Lee’s The Shipment’s cast is comprised of only black actors. 4 male, 1
female. The first act opens with a frantic dance performed by two of the male
actors wearing a suit. In the dance they move freely, keeping the their limbs
stretched out, free; liberated. There is no picture of sophistication in this
dance. It is therefore something that would be commonly associated with the
perception of a black person: vigorous and thoughtless. This is followed by a
rap song – a genre of music commonly associated with black people – and then
one of the male actors playing a comedian comes on stage and begins a routine
in which he complains about white people and racism, clearly pointing this
theme out for the audience, prompting them to be more conscious of race in the
production. The actor blatantly points out that some people have accused him of
playing on stereotypes, and then he says that it is true. The comedian makes
many sexual jokes and swears constantly, both of which are ideas typically
associated to black bodies. The skit that follows this moment in the comedy
show is done in a way that is heavily Brechtian: there are jumps in the plot,
the movement and voices of the actors is not aimed at being realistic, but it
simply tells a plot in an energetic and effective way. It tells the story of a
young black man who wants to be a rapper, who goes to prison for selling drugs,
gets famous out of nowhere, and ends up depressed at the grave of his best
friend saying that he hates his life. This is continued by a song that
essentially summarizes what happened. All of this constructs an image of what it
means to be black: vigorous movement, loud expressions, religious inclinations,
sexual vigorosity, etc. Throughout the act and the rest of the play, the actors
are dressed in formal attire, which is not closely linked to the scenarios
being played, and thus keeps pointing out to the audience that what they are
seeing is just a performance. One where all their expectations about what a
black person should be like gets realized.
The first
act is very interesting in the way that it condenses time. The temporality in
it, created by the skipping from scene to scene and showing actions that are
not necessarily linked to the plot being told at the time; it is more
orature-like. Yet this is carried out in a frantic way. Time jumps and moves
around crazily, which is mimetic of the way black people are often perceived:
frantic and disorganized. This contrasts heavily with the second act, which
follows an entirely continuous “plot.” In the second act all of the actors play
the stereotype of white people: the care for diet, the worrying about being
punctual, the formal movement, where limbs are held closer to the body, the
worrying about being politically correct, arguing whether Berkley or Stanford
is more prestigious, when both of them really are. On top of that, they change
their accents to a more neutral one, which is more commonly associated with
whiteness. And the concerns and “tragedy” that takes place is all due to the simple
fact that none of them have their relationships in order. And all of this is
done in a form that is similar to that of a sitcom, a form of entertainment
that favors white people and is largely part of white culture. All of this
highlights the way in which white people behave and puts it in direct contrast
with the style of actions black people follow. On top of this, the temporality
in the act is continuous, it follows a single scene. This gives a sensation of
the act being performed in an orderly fashion; everything is controlled and
well-planned, which is something that is also commonly associated to white
people. The act itself is also hilarious, which keeps the audience form
empathizing too much; which Boal argues makes the play more effective in
creating change among the audience’s minds.
The entire
play highlights the heavy contrast between the way in which we perceive white
and black bodies, but also does something important, which is suggesting that
it does not have to be that way. In the second act, the actors don’t explicitly
reveal they are white until near the end when they say that there is no black
person among them. The audience sees black bodies engaging in white
performance. This can have the power to suggest to the audience the breaking of
stereotypes. Especially when this is seen in the theater; a medium which is
usually the one setting the standard for the way in which bodies should behave;
yet also has the power to change the way in which we see this. Adrian Piper
writes about how art that can involve an observer with the “other” in the
indexical present causes us to see this “other” as something different, makes
us think about it. The audience in this case does not only perceive what is
happening on the stage, thus brought to think about their expectations on race,
but they also perceive the other audience members; especially in such an
energetic performance where the audience was so often cheering and laughing. As
the comedian in the first act pointed out, there is white people in the
audience; and it is very likely that there are also black people. Theater is a
place where people can come together within a single space and see each other,
think about each other. It is a medium that truly allows for change to be
effected effectively, as the audience can directly make connections with the
real world from what they are seeing. Just the way in which Ta’aziyeh can involve
the audience with the community, bringing them together in the form of
laughter; The Shipment brings the audience together in laughter and joy.
The audience beholds itself enjoying the same thing, brings them closer
together. And therein lies the true power of theater. But it is not only the
ability to convey narratives that can make people come together under a common
sensation. It is also it’s power to address a narrative as a whole, in a direct
way. It is really the power of orature, in transmitting directly from oral to
aural receptions. The fact that many black bodies with different genders can
exist, in a suit, in a high-end theater, entertaining a mixed race audience
from probably a high-end society means that the audience can really be changed to
think differently; to think that bodies do not necessarily have to be in the
way they always perform.
