Executive Director, Ginny Louloudes // Photo by Robert Kidd
Last week at Curtain Call, I discussed my concerns for the health and spirit of our city after the Eric Garner verdict, the shooting of Officers Liu and Ramirez by a mad man in retaliation, and the behavior that followed these events. I explained that, for me, the image of the Woods in the Sondheim musical, Into The Woods, symbolizes a place where we can take risks, learn about the deepest parts of ourselves, and grow. I also shared that I have found myself stumbling in the Woods, and invited you to come with me, so we can demonstrate the power theatre has to foster necessary conversations on race, inequality, and diversity together. I noted that post-performance discussions could enhance the power of plays with themes of social justice to a greater level, and cited examples. I also mentioned Darren Walker's essay, “A New Testament of Hope”, in which Darren shared the resurgence of hope he felt during the protests at the sight of hundreds of diverse young people who joined the marches.
Then, this week I got to see all of those themes in action when A.R.T./New York Board Member and Artistic Director of Downtown Art, Ryan Gilliam, invited me to her production of To Kill A Mockingbird. One of the joys of attending a Downtown Art production is that Ryan always shares her motivation with the audience through a written thought piece. For To Kill A Mockingbird, she wrote this:
Atticus Finch says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
There’s both hopefulness in that…and tragedy. Tragedy because you know and I know that this is the only skin I’ll ever actually wear. Hopefulness because it means that understanding relies on imagination – a detailed, in-depth, fully realized imagination. And that’s hopeful because human beings love imagining.
Read the rest of Ryan Gilliam's speech
We can’t stop ourselves from imagining – imagining tomorrow, next year, dinner tonight, the speeches at our funeral, what it is to be wealthy, famous, holy, beloved. Each night imagination takes over – we dream and in our dreams climb into many different skins to walk around. Culture engages our imagination – through stories, dance, music, film. Politicians, ministers and activists seek to persuade us to imagine our world from their perspectives, its greatness and its failures, its promise and its possibilities. Every single ad we encounter relentlessly aims to hypnotize us into buying one more thing guaranteed to deliver the life we fantasize.
Atticus speaks directly to actors. Actors are thoroughly enchanted by the idea that they will fulfill their own hunger for experience by climbing into someone else’s skin and walking around in it. In our staging of To Kill A Mockingbord, we’ve taken this idea pretty literally. Every actor is moving in and out of almost every part of the story – spending time as Scout, as Jem, as Atticus, as Tom Robinson. How does it affect their perception of the story to inhabit so many parts of it? And how does it affect yours to see seven young women inhabit the skins of characters who mostly differ from them in age, experience, gender, and race?
Harper Lee assumes – as I believe most of us do – that developing a deeper understanding of someone else’s experience changes us. But more than that – she suggests that a change inside us will trigger change outside us. If we can imaginatively experience injustice, we will be more ready to eradicate it.
When I was a child, I felt very proud of Americans who fought the Revolutionary War. They were the underdog and they perservered and I was proud of them. But I was ashamed and horrified by America’s history as a slave owning nation. It’s hard to have such conflicting feelings about your country. It’s been 150 years since Emancipation was proclaimed, but the legacy of slave-owning still affects all of us. This has all been on my mind as we worked on To Kill A Mockingbord – and we’ve had many conversations in our rehearsals about the issues it brings up and how they resonate today.
Lyndon Johnson is not the President I admire most, but fifty years ago he said something that I can’t shake out of my head. He said.. “Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues, issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself….. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.’
To help demonstrate this point, Ryan directed a cast of seven girls, (black, white, Asian and Latino), who seamlessly moved from one part to another. Through this method, each girl got to know what it felt like to be in the skin of all the characters, from Scout to Atticus, to Calpurnia.
The simple yet beautiful production was followed by a moderated post-show discussion, with special guests from El Puente’s Center for Arts and Culture. El Puente’s young actors come from all 5 boroughs, and their teacher taught them to question everything. While the young artists from Downtown Art and El Puente saw that in some cases, the racism depicted in To Kill A Mockingbird continues today, they also saw hope. "I always say good morning to the police who watch my building," said one girl, adding, "I posted on my FaceBook page that the police helped a lot of people on 9/11." Like Darren Walker, these young people gave me a burst of optimism.
According to Ryan, Downtown Art had several local activists and organizers there who also chose to stay silent in order to listen to them. She told me, "It was a night I will definitely remember for quite a while."
And so will I.
-Ginny Louloudes, Executive Director
