We established this blog to enable an open conversation between Barksdale Theatre and others in the Metro Richmond family. We believe that open conversation is healthy and positive. Progress is never achieved through silence; understanding and respect come with patience and candor.Today we received a comment from an anonymous reader responding to an earlier blog entry about Intimate Apparel. If you go to our archives and click on the “1 Comments” (sic) tab that follows the entry entitled “Intimate” Opening Wins Hearts and Minds, you will find it.
The comment reads: “Why is it that when white drama groups do plays about black people, they always show black women in their underwear and/or in sexually compromising positions with men? Living Word Stage Company, Richmond’s only black drama group, treats black women with respect. That’s why Living Word is so needed. Is this what we want our daughters to see?”
First, I agree with the opinion that Living Word Stage Company is needed. I believe that Living Word is a vital member of Metro Richmond’s cultural community, and we are all richer for their presence. In addition to working as Artistic Director of Barksdale Theatre, I’m the Artistic Director of Theatre IV, Barksdale’s sister company. Under my leadership, Theatre IV helped to get Living Word on its feet by allowing the young company to use our Empire Theatre home for free for their entire 2005-06 Season.
Second, I agree that black women have faced and continue to face cultural denigration that must be addressed. At the risk of alienating those who hold an opposing view on this complex issue, I am among those who support firing or boycotting entertainers who use their celebrity to promote misogyny and racism, whether it’s Don Imus or Snoop Dog or Nelly.
Finally, I applaud any parent who takes his or her responsibility seriously. I believe parents should always speak out when they feel like their child, or children in general, are being exposed to “entertainment” that is potentially hurtful or dangerous.
The deeply held principles that are reflected in the three paragraphs above are the same principles that make me so proud of our production of Intimate Apparel. Beautifully and sensitively written by a black woman playwright, Lynn Nottage, Intimate Apparel is, above all, a play about the respect that is due to every human being, even if an individual seems inconsequential or unimportant within the ruling social context of the day. The play is about the dignity and power of the human spirit, and the strength that can be marshaled by even the most powerless to rise above their circumstances and command their world. The play has universal themes, but chooses to focus on the power and glory of black women.
I do not know, but I suspect that our anonymous commenter has not seen Intimate Apparel. I suspect that she is reacting to photos that appear in our blog entry, depicting, as she says, women in their underwear and in positions with men that have the potential for sexual compromise.
The play uses these images and situations not to define black women as sexual objects or victims, but rather to exalt their ability to rise above the circumstances into which they have been placed by society. The play is about triumph. Is this what I want my daughter to see? You bet.
Perhaps this is a good time to mention my perspective on matters of race as they relate to professional theatres. Although I understand and respect the perspective of the commenter, I do not consider Barksdale Theatre to be a "white drama group" or a "white" theatre. I don't think theatres have color unless their mission specifically stresses a particular racial focus.
Barksdale's mission indicates a commitment to the entire community. It is this commitment that led Barksdale in the 1950s to become the first performing arts group in Virginia to admit racially mixed audiences, thereby breaking the back of the Jim Crow laws of that time. It is this commitment that led Theatre IV to become the first major arts organization in Virginia (with a budget of $1 million or greater) to elect an African-American Board President. In fact, Theatre IV has now been led by three African-American Board Presidents. Anthony Keitt, Barksdale's current Board President, is also African-American.
I thank and respect the opinions of all those who choose to comment on our blog entries. I encourage you to see our work, particularly Intimate Apparel, and hope that our plays will prompt continuing conversation.
Note: Subsequent to this posting, Living Word Stage Company changed it's name to African American Repertory Theatre. We have amended the labels to reflect this change and link this post with future posts for African American Repertory Theatre.
**Please be aware that some of the following comments contain spoilers. Some people who have not yet seen the show should be aware that comments discuss the show's ending.
4 comments:
I did see the play and I don't agree with your response to the commenter. I walked out of the play wondering what the message was- and I certainly don't think that it was about the "respect due to every human being" or the "dignity and power of the human spirit" maybe the resiliency of the human spirit, since this woman had everything she had to give taken and she started over exactly where she was to begin with.
She was strong and able, yet looked to have her needs met by both men (who were completely ill-equipped to handle what she had to offer). Even the "lost love" character would have had nothing to give her in the real world if she had offered herself to him. None of the women in the play were satisfied emotionally or any other way by their men- and no forward motion or growth was shown by any of them in the end. I liked the characters, I wanted there to be more of a positive message about women in general. No, not a message I'd like to have my daughter see.
I would like to add that the Mr. Marks character was beautifully acted with sensitivity and depth. He stole the show.
I, as a viewer, am rather flabergasted by the strong negative responses to what I consider to be a beautiful piece of theatre. What I found in Intimate Apparel was a view of a time when certain restrictions and expectations were placed on people, whether by society, in the case of Esther, our black female character, or in the case of Mr. Marks, our Jewish male character. Neither of these characters are allowed to fully explore the relationship that would most fulfill their lives, not because she is a female and he is a male, because, still today those are the relationships that are acceptable to society (now we choose to place limitations on the relationships of those people that share love and also happen to be of the same gender...haven't we come so far? Oh, wait.) Despite the conditions forced upon them either by society or religion, we see these people press forward and become stronger people. Must we always have a happy ending to see people come farther than when we first encountered them? Can we not see that these people are now stronger, even if they end up in the same physical place at the end of two and a half hours. What lies ahead? What can we learn from them? Or do we choose to remain ignorant and discount their stories because she ended up back in the same room or because he continues to sell fabric? Just to see that such a love is possible is in my mind beautiful and therefore worthy of theatre. So now what do we do with that? Remain stuck in our "happy", "delightful", "That shouldn't happen", "Richmond" state of mind? Or do we learn from them and make our world a better place now that we have been shown where the fault lies?
I love being able to talk about the play like this after seeing it. I'm too shy to speak up in a live question and answer session with the cast. So the anonymous feature of the blog works well for me. I hope more of audience members join in. It's intresting to hear other opinions.
I LOVED the play, and I didn't think that Esther had "everything she had to give taken" or that "she started over exactly where she was to begin with."
The play starts out with her sitting at the sewing machine, sad and lonely, making intimate apparel for someone else. We see and learn that she is shy and has little or no personality that she shares with others. The slide projected on the background says something like "Anonymous Black Seamstress," making her seem like a meaningless face lost in the crowd. And that's how she seems to think of herself--kind of like she had no self worth.
Through her relationships with the other women, she gains a sense of self worth. They see the beauty in her that she can't see. And they convince her that she's worthy of finding love in her life.
But she's still too shy to go after the real men she meets, so she courts a fantasy man through the mail. And it's only after she makes her way through that relationship, and bounces back, that she really finds her self worth.
So I think at the end she's in a VERY DIFFERENT place. Yes, she's sitting at that same sewing machine, but this time she's sewing together the patches of her life to make a NEW quilt for herself. And the look on her face is much more confident and self-assured. She now knows what she has to give, and I'm not talking about the money she gave away. She has herself to give, and at the beginning she didn't know who "herself" was. Now she does. So she's much richer in the end, despite being much poorer in terms of cash.
It must be so hard to play a role of someone who is easily overlooked, someone who has so little personality, and then to discover and to reveal that personality to the audience, bit by bit, during the course of the play.
By the end, Esther knows and loves who she is, and we know and love who she is. She's not a boring nobody. She's a woman of strength, high moral values, and courage.
So I agree with what they said in the Coffee & Conversations audio clip. The starts with an almost defeated Esther, and ends with a triumphant Esther.
That's my opinion. Thanks for a great show.
PS I thought Mr. Marks was great too, but I felt that way about the entire cast. To me, everyone in it gave a Broadway caliber performance.
I did take my daughter to see Intimate Apparel, or it would be more accurate to say that my wife and my adult daughter took me. We all enjoyed it, and had a lot to talk about afterward when we went to dinner.
Any inference that this play projects a negative image of African-American women, or women in general, is foolish, at least from the opinion of this white male. To me, the ones who came off looking bad were clearly the men. And so what. There are a lot of spineless and shifty men in the world, no denying that.
The plays I like to see are musicals and comedies. I enjoyed Mame a lot, and I'm looking forward to Odd Couple. But I have to say I enjoyed Intimate Apparel. I thought the story was interesting, even if the first act was a little long, and I thought it was interesting to see into the minds of the four women.
The only one of the women who was really a victim, I thought, was the rich white woman, and that's because, unlike the three black women, she allowed herself to be a victim. The three black women didn't allow that, and so I thought they came off looking pretty good.
The main woman was, in my opinion, definitely in a better, stronger place at the end of the play than she was at the beginning. That's what the play was all about. It was about the lessons she learned through the school of hard knocks, and the message, if you have to have one, is that the only way you can fully live your life is to jump in and take risks. Not to be passive and shy. You make your life, your life doesn't make you.
No play is going to please everybody. But Barksdale does a good job of bringing in all different kinds of plays that are always good and always different. I'm glad we subscribe because I wind up seeing plays, like Intimate Apparel, I'd never pick for myself, but I always enjoy them.
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