So I do recall promising Becky a good number of posts ago that I would post a poem. I've yet to do that, and I don't really have a poem to post about No Fog West so I guess I'll just say a few things about this amazing summer. (Mind you, my writing style can be a bit incoherent so maybe we all should pretend that this is a poem in which anything goes.)
We all stood on a black stage and recited lines that blurred the lines between us vs. them. We displayed the ambiguity of humanity. We were the waves that washed away the fragile but firm lines in the sand. A lot of lines were blurred this summer.
Sitting in the house of someone I barely knew, I talked until a stranger transformed into a friend. On the front lawn of a hotel, I cried until I forgot who I was and someone was there to remind me. In the seclusion of an non-air conditioned car, we sang to the Killers until I was convinced I was already home. On the stage of a warm theater, I remembered things that had never happened to me and mourned over moments I never shared.
Having spent six weeks in the company of former strangers, I am more confused about my life and being than I have ever been. Because of this, I also find myself in the happiest state I have ever experienced.
There is something to be said about the beauty that can be found in confusion. I'm in the process of finding myself and losing myself all at the same time.
I think maybe this experience was a great thing.
an unforgettable thing.
a beautiful thing.
I think maybe I am the better because of it.
I've been thinking a lot lately.
In process of these 6 and some-odd weeks, I only managed to finish reading one book. In comparison to the numerous books everyone else read, I should probably be ashamed. But lately, I have been thinking that maybe it was the one book I NEEDED to read for this experience. It was the only book I needed to read. All because of one simple statement.
I feel infinite.
I think the author described it best when he said this.
This play has made me all the more aware of my mortality, of my flaws, of my misconceptions, and of my differences with others. Yet, seeing these things in me and in others have showed a humanity that is common in everyone. Whether it be a child rebel soldier, an Irish bomber, a Bethlehem school girl, or a victim of terrorism. This humanity is ever-present in everyone and it never dies. It is infinite.
Because I am apart of this humanity. Because I can see myself in everyone. I feel infinite.
I think thats all I could really ask for.
I'm rambling. But I guess this is my first and final post for No Fog West.
Thank you for such an amazing experience. Every single moment, and every single person has changed me.
Nijae Draine
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Loggersarus Rex
I wanted to share a personal account of the breakdown on the way to Idaho. We were blasting down the road in Adam's car, blasting some Li'l Wayne, Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Angels and Demons when we blasted our tailpipe. It must have had something to do with the sudden change in road quality. We thought the scraping sound was just rocks in our wheels but some dude driving past us indicated that something was very wrong. We got out and played in the dust, most notably filming ourselves with tumbleweeds blowing past. I don't know about everyone else, but I wasn't terribly frustrated by being stranded. The group decided to rescue me and Hilary because we were needed for teching. Grace traded in and we left her, Adam, Mike, and Nijae in the dust- literally. I felt like I was betraying them by leaving them stranded, but they made it back eventually.
Jamie stayed with me in the theater as I tried to figure out this manual lightboard and the funky funky set up at the Alpine Playhouse. The converted church makes for a lovely stage with great acoustics and despite it not being state-of-the-art, I haven't had to compromise the lighting much at all. Tonight was our first show and the actors, perhaps inspired by the new intimate space, put on a jolly good show.
We took a jaunt around the lake today and stopped to jump off cliffs (into the water). It was big fun. Nijae thrilled us all by performing some exquisite swimming moves (for her first time). We think she channeled a big-eared Olympian. Jamie and Max found this gigantic fallen tree that was stranded just off a beach. I commandeered it, making it my steed dragon Loggersaurus Rex and sailed on it to the cliffs. We all proceeded to have a rollicking good time horsing around on it. We could have all fit on it comfortably this thing was so long. And it really did look like a dragon.
You know, after the show tonight I really have to say that these terrorists are choosing violence because of their love. They love their homeland, their families, and when these things are threatened, some of them choose to use violence. It may not solve anything but we have to recognize that we would do the same thing if we were coming under daily attack. Max's grandfather said this and I think it wise, something to be reckoned with. We need to use the knowledge gained from producing this play to spread love and understanding amongst ourselves every day that we can. I believe the message of the play is that terrorism is as human as our ability to love and thus born out of it. We need to "think how to love" everyone around us no matter the context. It is quite challenging but indeed possible. Little things like riding a water-dragon for a half hour are enough to bring us together.
Chris
Jamie stayed with me in the theater as I tried to figure out this manual lightboard and the funky funky set up at the Alpine Playhouse. The converted church makes for a lovely stage with great acoustics and despite it not being state-of-the-art, I haven't had to compromise the lighting much at all. Tonight was our first show and the actors, perhaps inspired by the new intimate space, put on a jolly good show.
We took a jaunt around the lake today and stopped to jump off cliffs (into the water). It was big fun. Nijae thrilled us all by performing some exquisite swimming moves (for her first time). We think she channeled a big-eared Olympian. Jamie and Max found this gigantic fallen tree that was stranded just off a beach. I commandeered it, making it my steed dragon Loggersaurus Rex and sailed on it to the cliffs. We all proceeded to have a rollicking good time horsing around on it. We could have all fit on it comfortably this thing was so long. And it really did look like a dragon.
You know, after the show tonight I really have to say that these terrorists are choosing violence because of their love. They love their homeland, their families, and when these things are threatened, some of them choose to use violence. It may not solve anything but we have to recognize that we would do the same thing if we were coming under daily attack. Max's grandfather said this and I think it wise, something to be reckoned with. We need to use the knowledge gained from producing this play to spread love and understanding amongst ourselves every day that we can. I believe the message of the play is that terrorism is as human as our ability to love and thus born out of it. We need to "think how to love" everyone around us no matter the context. It is quite challenging but indeed possible. Little things like riding a water-dragon for a half hour are enough to bring us together.
Chris
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Nothing is better than swimming in a lake
We have settled into our final destination, McCall, Idaho. And it is beautiful. While every place we have stayed has luckily had a backdrop of mountains, for me, McCall somehow feels the closest to nature. Maybe it is the gigantic lake smack in the middle of everything, with the promise of cliff diving in our future. But this morning, I could have sworn I smelled the familiar fragrance of Cape Cod in the summer while I was walking down the path from my home stay. More likely, I have probably just become delusional from all the traveling.
Our journey to McCall from Salt Lake was not exactly smooth. Adam's car lost his tailpipe (sadly, I had to ask what a tailpipe was and why it was necessary) and AAA informed us that because it was Sunday, no mechanics would be available until the net day. So while the majority of up traveled onto McCall to set up the theater and keep everything on track, Grace, Nijae, Mike and Adam stayed in Boise to wait for the repairs. Thankfully, we were all joyously reunited last night. When you are with people constantly for five weeks, a day and a half felt like a very long time to be separated.
As I type right now in my third beloved coffee shop of the trip, Mountain Java, the rest of the cast and crew are doing a tech rehearsal at the Alpine Playhouse. Its taking some time, since all the lights have to be done manually for every cue. But hopefully we will have time for another dip in the lake before dinner.
I just wanted to end with an article about us in "In Utah This Week." I hope you are as tickled by it as my mom and I were.
Lifting the Fog
No Fog West Theater seeks to clear the mists of silence surrounding terrorism.
by Kelly Ashkettle
kashkettle@inthisweek.com
When Becky Katz’ mother heard that her 20-year-old daughter was going to be the road manager for a touring production of a play called “Talking to Terrorists,” she asked, “Why don’t you do something on gay marriage or abortion �" less controversial issues?” In a red state like Utah, such a question is amusing, which perfectly illustrates the very point of the play: that cultural differences can vastly impact a person’s values. Katz’ mother wasn’t trying to make a joke: She hails from a liberal Jewish Brooklyn community where embracing gay rights and being pro-choice is part of the cultural norm, but it’s too traumatic to face the ideas of the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the deaths of so many of her neighbors. “I witnessed the second plane crash from my classroom window,” Katz recalls. “It affects me every day and every year more and more. I was 12 when it happened, and I went to a Jewish day school. My teacher told our class, ‘Now you know how it feels to live in Israel every day.’ Originally I thought it was a cruel and unnecessary thing to say, but it always stuck with me that for America, for our generation, this was the big moment where we finally felt our safety threatened, and that in these places it happens every single day.” Unlike her mother, Katz isn’t willing to shy away from the emotions behind terrorist acts. “For me, the fact that it’s controversial and that I have such an intensely gut reaction to this play means that I have to talk about it,” she explains. “Every time we want to change the world, we have to be uncomfortable. If something makes you uncomfortable and challenges you and makes you reassess the way you look at the world, then that’s something to pursue; that’s something worthy.”
It was much the same sentiments that led to the formation of No Fog West, the theater company Katz is working with. As a high school senior in Sheridan, Wyoming, Grace Cannon tried to convince her school to stage a production of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the 1998 hate crime murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Although the play is one of the most frequently performed in the country, it has only been staged a few times in Wyoming. Cannon’s high school refused to stage the play, but she took with her the dream of staging it in Wyoming as she went off to college at Vassar. In her freshman year, she met fellow freshmen Max Hershenow of McCall, Idaho, and Madeleine Joyce of Denver, Colo., and convinced them to share her vision. The trio formed a board of directors, founded a company, rounded up some donors and some student actors, and performed the play for two weeks at a theater in Sheridan, Wyo. All by the age of 19.
This summer marks No Fog West’s second season. “Talking to Terrorists” is by Robin Soanes, a British playwright, and it is entirely composed of interwoven testimonies of ex-terrorists and their victims from all over the world. “What this play shows is that terrorism is a much older issue than 9/11 and it’s much more global. Only one of the five terrorists interviewed is from the Middle East,” notes Hershenow, the play’s director. Hershenow was speaking by phone on Monday after newly arriving here in Salt Lake City, where his aunt lives. She and her friends and neighbors are hosting the twelve young actors and crew members in their homes this week for the Salt Lake leg of their “Talking to Terrorists” tour. The troupe spent last week in Sheridan, Wyoming. Next week, they’ll move on to Hershenow’s hometown of McCall, Idaho.
Each performance of “Talking to Terrorists” is followed by a community discussion about the play, and Katz says she thinks the most useful of the Wyoming discussions was the one where she felt the audience was the least liberal. “It’s great to talk about these issues with people who agree with you and really talk about ways we can enact change, but the reason we wanted to do the play is to engage people who don’t think like us, to really have these interesting conversations from different points of view,” she says. “We want people with an open mind, no matter what mind that is.” Hershenow says, “Our whole idea is creating theater about pertinent social issues that begins a conversation. There may be other opinions about the issue, or different ways of looking at it or just different ways or talking about it, but maybe there’s just not a forum in which these things can be discussed. Our idea is to create that kind of environment.” The implication is that talking can lead to understanding of our differences, and that understanding can eliminate the need for terrorism. As Katz explains, “Terrorism has become part of our daily lives, both with the Iraq war and with Sept. 11, but I don’t think we’re having enough honest conversations about what terrorism means and what stereotypes we’re associating with it and how we’re using that word. We really need to start right now. It should have started seven years ago.”
Best,
Becky
Our journey to McCall from Salt Lake was not exactly smooth. Adam's car lost his tailpipe (sadly, I had to ask what a tailpipe was and why it was necessary) and AAA informed us that because it was Sunday, no mechanics would be available until the net day. So while the majority of up traveled onto McCall to set up the theater and keep everything on track, Grace, Nijae, Mike and Adam stayed in Boise to wait for the repairs. Thankfully, we were all joyously reunited last night. When you are with people constantly for five weeks, a day and a half felt like a very long time to be separated.
As I type right now in my third beloved coffee shop of the trip, Mountain Java, the rest of the cast and crew are doing a tech rehearsal at the Alpine Playhouse. Its taking some time, since all the lights have to be done manually for every cue. But hopefully we will have time for another dip in the lake before dinner.
I just wanted to end with an article about us in "In Utah This Week." I hope you are as tickled by it as my mom and I were.
Lifting the Fog
No Fog West Theater seeks to clear the mists of silence surrounding terrorism.
by Kelly Ashkettle
kashkettle@inthisweek.com
When Becky Katz’ mother heard that her 20-year-old daughter was going to be the road manager for a touring production of a play called “Talking to Terrorists,” she asked, “Why don’t you do something on gay marriage or abortion �" less controversial issues?” In a red state like Utah, such a question is amusing, which perfectly illustrates the very point of the play: that cultural differences can vastly impact a person’s values. Katz’ mother wasn’t trying to make a joke: She hails from a liberal Jewish Brooklyn community where embracing gay rights and being pro-choice is part of the cultural norm, but it’s too traumatic to face the ideas of the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the deaths of so many of her neighbors. “I witnessed the second plane crash from my classroom window,” Katz recalls. “It affects me every day and every year more and more. I was 12 when it happened, and I went to a Jewish day school. My teacher told our class, ‘Now you know how it feels to live in Israel every day.’ Originally I thought it was a cruel and unnecessary thing to say, but it always stuck with me that for America, for our generation, this was the big moment where we finally felt our safety threatened, and that in these places it happens every single day.” Unlike her mother, Katz isn’t willing to shy away from the emotions behind terrorist acts. “For me, the fact that it’s controversial and that I have such an intensely gut reaction to this play means that I have to talk about it,” she explains. “Every time we want to change the world, we have to be uncomfortable. If something makes you uncomfortable and challenges you and makes you reassess the way you look at the world, then that’s something to pursue; that’s something worthy.”
It was much the same sentiments that led to the formation of No Fog West, the theater company Katz is working with. As a high school senior in Sheridan, Wyoming, Grace Cannon tried to convince her school to stage a production of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the 1998 hate crime murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Although the play is one of the most frequently performed in the country, it has only been staged a few times in Wyoming. Cannon’s high school refused to stage the play, but she took with her the dream of staging it in Wyoming as she went off to college at Vassar. In her freshman year, she met fellow freshmen Max Hershenow of McCall, Idaho, and Madeleine Joyce of Denver, Colo., and convinced them to share her vision. The trio formed a board of directors, founded a company, rounded up some donors and some student actors, and performed the play for two weeks at a theater in Sheridan, Wyo. All by the age of 19.
This summer marks No Fog West’s second season. “Talking to Terrorists” is by Robin Soanes, a British playwright, and it is entirely composed of interwoven testimonies of ex-terrorists and their victims from all over the world. “What this play shows is that terrorism is a much older issue than 9/11 and it’s much more global. Only one of the five terrorists interviewed is from the Middle East,” notes Hershenow, the play’s director. Hershenow was speaking by phone on Monday after newly arriving here in Salt Lake City, where his aunt lives. She and her friends and neighbors are hosting the twelve young actors and crew members in their homes this week for the Salt Lake leg of their “Talking to Terrorists” tour. The troupe spent last week in Sheridan, Wyoming. Next week, they’ll move on to Hershenow’s hometown of McCall, Idaho.
Each performance of “Talking to Terrorists” is followed by a community discussion about the play, and Katz says she thinks the most useful of the Wyoming discussions was the one where she felt the audience was the least liberal. “It’s great to talk about these issues with people who agree with you and really talk about ways we can enact change, but the reason we wanted to do the play is to engage people who don’t think like us, to really have these interesting conversations from different points of view,” she says. “We want people with an open mind, no matter what mind that is.” Hershenow says, “Our whole idea is creating theater about pertinent social issues that begins a conversation. There may be other opinions about the issue, or different ways of looking at it or just different ways or talking about it, but maybe there’s just not a forum in which these things can be discussed. Our idea is to create that kind of environment.” The implication is that talking can lead to understanding of our differences, and that understanding can eliminate the need for terrorism. As Katz explains, “Terrorism has become part of our daily lives, both with the Iraq war and with Sept. 11, but I don’t think we’re having enough honest conversations about what terrorism means and what stereotypes we’re associating with it and how we’re using that word. We really need to start right now. It should have started seven years ago.”
Best,
Becky
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Salt Lake experience
Hi readers,
Tomorrow night is our last night here! We have averaged around 20-30 people every night, which is both lovely, since many of our friends and family have come out to support us, but also a little bit frustrating, since we do not seem to be attracting very many people who don't personally know us. And those individuals who do come generally do not stay for the talk backs afterwards. I was hoping with all the great publicity we have been getting, we might exceed my expectations for the number of audience members, but my optimistic side has been disappointed. Maybe this Saturday night, we will be greeted with a great rush of people at our doors. I just wish we had more time here to build a momentum, sneakily worming our way into every aspect of Salt Lake life. But thank you so much to everyone who has come and to the wonderful, welcoming community we have found here!
Yesterday, a group of us journeyed down to the Great Salt Lake and the Spiral Jetty (by Robert Smithson). The water looks like a unicorn's fantasy- a beautiful pink surrounded by crystalized salt in perfect geometric shapes. Unfortunately, the tide was low and the sand covered by sharp salt (it felt like walking on shards of glass), so we did not get to do too much floating and swimming. However, it was great coming back feeling the lazy exhaustion of spending a day at the beach.
I wanted to include a link a blog that has eloquently captured the spirit of our play. Thank you so much for writing about us, Davey! Check it out at http://www.dadarobotnik.blogspot.com/.
-Becky
Tomorrow night is our last night here! We have averaged around 20-30 people every night, which is both lovely, since many of our friends and family have come out to support us, but also a little bit frustrating, since we do not seem to be attracting very many people who don't personally know us. And those individuals who do come generally do not stay for the talk backs afterwards. I was hoping with all the great publicity we have been getting, we might exceed my expectations for the number of audience members, but my optimistic side has been disappointed. Maybe this Saturday night, we will be greeted with a great rush of people at our doors. I just wish we had more time here to build a momentum, sneakily worming our way into every aspect of Salt Lake life. But thank you so much to everyone who has come and to the wonderful, welcoming community we have found here!
Yesterday, a group of us journeyed down to the Great Salt Lake and the Spiral Jetty (by Robert Smithson). The water looks like a unicorn's fantasy- a beautiful pink surrounded by crystalized salt in perfect geometric shapes. Unfortunately, the tide was low and the sand covered by sharp salt (it felt like walking on shards of glass), so we did not get to do too much floating and swimming. However, it was great coming back feeling the lazy exhaustion of spending a day at the beach.
I wanted to include a link a blog that has eloquently captured the spirit of our play. Thank you so much for writing about us, Davey! Check it out at http://www.dadarobotnik.blogspot.com/.
-Becky
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Leaving Home
As we spend the day packing up to leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Salt Lake City, it's hard not to get ahead of ourselves. It is weird to really think about leaving Sheridan and Wyoming, especially for me. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to share my home with these wonderful people from all over the country and likewise to share these talented and intelligent people with my community. Our last performance and audience discussion is tonight. I want to savor it, but we've got to plan ahead at the same time.
For right now, though, I want to take the time to thank Sheridan. This community has supported us, challenged us, laughed with us and talked with us. That is all we could ever ask for.
I thought I would also insert the letter to the editor that I wrote to The Sheridan Press, which was not published in time for our performances this weekend.
Dear Editor:
Our world is full of divisions. We distinguish “us” from “them” by country borders, languages, dialects, beliefs and skin tone. It is easy to simplify the “other” and to fear their unpredictably evil acts by virtue of misunderstanding. I have been derided at times for implying that those we refer to as terrorists should be talked to, rather than shot at. I have been told I am naïve not to dismiss someone of a certain skin color and religious belief as animals or otherwise unalterably scary things. I understand why people fall into the habit of hating the unknown. It is so much easier.
Imagine the feat of empathy, of recognizing humanity. For really, there is no “other” that is not also a part of the much larger “we.”
I write to you and to the city of Sheridan to invite you to overcome terror and personal fear, to talk about what might make you angry, to laugh and to listen. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm at the Carriage House Theater, No Fog West Theater Company will present “Talking to Terrorists,” a play by Robin Soans.
Our goal in producing this play has been to challenge ourselves as well as our audiences in our preconceptions and our emotions. We hope you will join us this weekend with open minds and open hearts.
There is a lot to be said.
Sincerely,
Grace Cannon
For right now, though, I want to take the time to thank Sheridan. This community has supported us, challenged us, laughed with us and talked with us. That is all we could ever ask for.
I thought I would also insert the letter to the editor that I wrote to The Sheridan Press, which was not published in time for our performances this weekend.
Dear Editor:
Our world is full of divisions. We distinguish “us” from “them” by country borders, languages, dialects, beliefs and skin tone. It is easy to simplify the “other” and to fear their unpredictably evil acts by virtue of misunderstanding. I have been derided at times for implying that those we refer to as terrorists should be talked to, rather than shot at. I have been told I am naïve not to dismiss someone of a certain skin color and religious belief as animals or otherwise unalterably scary things. I understand why people fall into the habit of hating the unknown. It is so much easier.
Imagine the feat of empathy, of recognizing humanity. For really, there is no “other” that is not also a part of the much larger “we.”
I write to you and to the city of Sheridan to invite you to overcome terror and personal fear, to talk about what might make you angry, to laugh and to listen. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm at the Carriage House Theater, No Fog West Theater Company will present “Talking to Terrorists,” a play by Robin Soans.
Our goal in producing this play has been to challenge ourselves as well as our audiences in our preconceptions and our emotions. We hope you will join us this weekend with open minds and open hearts.
There is a lot to be said.
Sincerely,
Grace Cannon
Friday, August 1, 2008
has the day we have been waiting for already passed?
Our first performance was last night! Because we have been having rehearsals in the week leading up to it at the same time as our actual performances would be, the day itself did not feel like anything special. Even after our encounter with the protester, it still felt, for me, like any other day of rehearsal. It only started to feel real when people, actual paying audience members!, began to stream in. Even though I did not have the pressure of being onstage, I still felt that horrible and exciting weight in my stomach. We had around 30-35 people come see the show, a great turn out for a play with our controversial title. Hopefully, one of the actors will write about their experience on stage, but back stage, everything went smoothly. Sadly, I just realized I will never see the whole performance of the play.
I think the play itself is much less explosive than people would expect. It simply presents humans talking to humans, allowing all the propaganda, prejudgments and stereotypes everybody carries with them to take a break for two hours.
Seven people stayed for the after show discussion, an understandable turn out for how late the show ended (one woman told me that it was past her bedtime). I was a little worried that people might be shocked into silence, but everybody participated in the talk back. What stuck with me the most was when one man, who before the show was arguing that talking to terrorists was an oxymoron because terrorists, by their categorization, don't want to talk to anyone, said he became emotional when listening to the I.R.A terrorist's story. His family was from Ireland- he remembered people at Irish bars in Boston trying to collect money for the IRA and thought it was the least he could do for the cause. I guess this is the best example how terrorism is relative. As one audience member wonderfully put it, there is good and evil in every nation, but we would each like to believe we are the ultimate good and our enemy is the ultimate bad.
-Becky
I think the play itself is much less explosive than people would expect. It simply presents humans talking to humans, allowing all the propaganda, prejudgments and stereotypes everybody carries with them to take a break for two hours.
Seven people stayed for the after show discussion, an understandable turn out for how late the show ended (one woman told me that it was past her bedtime). I was a little worried that people might be shocked into silence, but everybody participated in the talk back. What stuck with me the most was when one man, who before the show was arguing that talking to terrorists was an oxymoron because terrorists, by their categorization, don't want to talk to anyone, said he became emotional when listening to the I.R.A terrorist's story. His family was from Ireland- he remembered people at Irish bars in Boston trying to collect money for the IRA and thought it was the least he could do for the cause. I guess this is the best example how terrorism is relative. As one audience member wonderfully put it, there is good and evil in every nation, but we would each like to believe we are the ultimate good and our enemy is the ultimate bad.
-Becky
Thursday, July 31, 2008
we have our first protester
Dear Friends and Family,
Max, Nathan, and I (Becky) were working in the wonderful cafe (that has become my third home, after the Davis's), Java Moon, when somebody told us that there was a protester outside the restaurant. She is holding a sign that says " Talking to Terrorists? Endanger our Military? Shame on You!" The protester, an older woman somewhere between the ages of 60-70, believes a quote on our poster, that says, "I realised that if I had been born in Crossmaglen or South Armagh, I would have been a terrorist. And that's an understanding every soldier should have. None of this is personal," means that we are saying that if we had been born in Baghdad, we would have been terrorists. However, the quote is actually a colonel talking about Ireland (South Armagh and Crossmaglen are both in Ireland. There seems to be this concept that not supporting the war in Iraq somehow translates into not supporting and hoping for the safety of the troops. Maybe it is a repercussion of how terribly the country treated the troops who fought during the Vietnam War. But I condemn the war and support the troops. Yet that opinion of mine does not factor at all into or show up at all in the play.
She was talking to a couple on the sidewalk and after she was finished, I went up to them to explain what our play was really about. I told them that the play did not offer a stance on the American troops in Iraq, but rather presented a British view on terrorism. The man replied to me "The British are dumbasses. That is why we kicked them out out of our country. The British and the French are dumbasses." I just walked away at that point.
To me the protester misunderstood us. Grace saw a tanned man in golfing gear give her a thumbs us. Is this what we should expect from some of our audience tonight? Is there any chance of a true dialogue with the protester and people who share her views? I do not think she will listen to us, to anything we say, for even a minute. I am scared of the people who come to the play with closed minds, there to argue with and shame us for what we are trying to do.
Love,
Becky
Max, Nathan, and I (Becky) were working in the wonderful cafe (that has become my third home, after the Davis's), Java Moon, when somebody told us that there was a protester outside the restaurant. She is holding a sign that says " Talking to Terrorists? Endanger our Military? Shame on You!" The protester, an older woman somewhere between the ages of 60-70, believes a quote on our poster, that says, "I realised that if I had been born in Crossmaglen or South Armagh, I would have been a terrorist. And that's an understanding every soldier should have. None of this is personal," means that we are saying that if we had been born in Baghdad, we would have been terrorists. However, the quote is actually a colonel talking about Ireland (South Armagh and Crossmaglen are both in Ireland. There seems to be this concept that not supporting the war in Iraq somehow translates into not supporting and hoping for the safety of the troops. Maybe it is a repercussion of how terribly the country treated the troops who fought during the Vietnam War. But I condemn the war and support the troops. Yet that opinion of mine does not factor at all into or show up at all in the play.
She was talking to a couple on the sidewalk and after she was finished, I went up to them to explain what our play was really about. I told them that the play did not offer a stance on the American troops in Iraq, but rather presented a British view on terrorism. The man replied to me "The British are dumbasses. That is why we kicked them out out of our country. The British and the French are dumbasses." I just walked away at that point.
To me the protester misunderstood us. Grace saw a tanned man in golfing gear give her a thumbs us. Is this what we should expect from some of our audience tonight? Is there any chance of a true dialogue with the protester and people who share her views? I do not think she will listen to us, to anything we say, for even a minute. I am scared of the people who come to the play with closed minds, there to argue with and shame us for what we are trying to do.
Love,
Becky
Monday, July 28, 2008
Dear Readers,
Sorry we have not posted for such a long time! We moved from our glorious dwellings at Ucross to our home-stays and have been working all day to get our play ready in the Carriage House theater. Yesterday, we had a five hour tech rehearsal ( which I am told is very good, but still felt like quite a long time) and we are going to spend the next couple of days just working out the kinks. Thanks to Nijae and Baize, all of our costumes are set and thanks to Chris's tireless work the past couple of days, we are almost all finished with the lights. Hopefully, we will get our set finished today or tomorrow.
I wanted to post a compilation of of our writings that we were going to use for our epilogue. We realized that it was basically a scripted version the conversations we had been having about the play, which would have curtailed the community discussions we were trying to have. But all of our different writings just came together so easily and nicely that I felt it was a shame for no one to read it. So here it is:
Baize: Where does the value lie in confronting the things and people and ideas you are scared of? Quite simply – why should terrorists be talked to? It has taken me more time and thought to warm up to this play then I first thought I would need. It’s not that I didn’t trust it – I just didn’t really understand. Because I wasn’t listening. These stories are not only fascinating – they are important; important because they are the truth.
Hil: A play, such as the very one we are doing now, has the uncanny ability to present the ultimate truth, the horrifying, beautiful, disgusting, ultimate truth of real people, to an audience, and they can listen without fear or intimidation. Or if they do feel fear or intimidation, it is softened to a point where they will not be distracted into not listening or running away. Theatre can present a truth to an audience poised and ready to listen.
Mad: People would ask if it (the play) was for/against terrorism and I would answer that it did not express any such view but that terrorism is all relative.
Ni: Location. Location. Location.
Mad: One mustn’t lose track of geographical difference and cultural difference when they examine people different than themselves.
Adam: Characters in this play have been called irreparably different. I would argue that although their beliefs conflict enormously, the people, at heart, are fighting for similar goals.
Baize: It is so easy to be scared into silence by the things we don’t understand. And as easy as it is to blindly accept the difference of those and that which we do not understand, with a little thought, it can be just as easy to recognize the universality of our wishes and dreams and hopes as human beings. This is not to say we are all the same – we are all extraordinarily different, often times, irreparably so. But somewhere, across all our nations and histories and wars and wrongs, there lies an undeniable hope, and a undeniable penchant and potential for forgiveness.
Ni: Lines on a map become prejudices in a mind become slanders from a mouth become malice in a heart become lines on a map.
And I wonder if I would believe what she believed had I only been born across the ocean.
Mad: I hope the audience is able to overcome the thick dialects, the fact over-load and the presentation of so many horrific stories to see through to the characters portrayed. The actors have tried hard to make real people come to life that although you might not want to like them for what they did—you recognize similarities in them of yourself or someone you know.
Max: However, simply by presenting these individuals onstage, separate from their audience, allows for a space to open up that can be filled again with difference. It’s too easy to not force yourself to find those human similarities, and it’s risky to try. Who are we without our beliefs?
Hil: Truth can hurt us not physically, but mentally, emotionally, and subconsciously. Ultimately, if we lose everything, the one thing we still have is our emotions and our subconscious, and if those in turn are marred by something as powerful as the truth, then we are lost. So this is why we fear it so – it is the one thing that can completely destroy us.
Mike: We are all American. We know very little else. The first time WE were attacked on our soil in history I was 14. It was a shock. But in their country they’ve lived with violence their entire lives. But I’m sure they still feel shock and fear when they hear an explosion or gunshot. They choose to obtain the power they lost through violence. And after we were powerless, we attacked them on their soil. We became two opposing groups.
Ni: Am I the terrorist?
Chris: The truth we fight for is “democracy” yet this system hasn’t even successfully functioned at home. We’re just trying to project our idiotic sense of security upon the world’s canvas.
Hil: So in this fight of “terrorism,” truthfully, we are fighting someone’s truth, what they ultimately believe in, and their sense of unity. We are tearing that apart because of our own truths. Truth destroys, yet truth unifies.
Nathan: His is an act of savagery; ours is an act of bad luck. His story will be labeled as coming from someone who is sub-human, whose struggle doesn’t matter; ours will be but a blurb in the timeline of fighting for democracy and the continuation of freedom. Because ultimately what we’re both fighting for is the protection of ourselves and our loved ones.
Mike: When we hear the word terrorist we immediately feel fear, a temporary loss of safety.
Bk: I saw it happen. I saw the second plane crash into the center of our city. And that hurt, the trauma of being a witness to the death of individuals and part of our generation’s hope, feels more real with each passing year.
Mike: The word is the embodiment of misunderstanding.
Ni: We are what we believe because we believe in who we are. I am a liberal agnostic democrat. Why? Because of my experience. All the while, I give credit to myself as if I know something my opponents don’t. But, really I am just a product of circumstance.
Chris: After letting the events of the day soak in, I think I remember feeling annoyed that this had to happen– that normalcy and routine were all shook up. Why did this have to happen to us right now? When I had so much to do. They were dead and nothing felt safe anymore– I felt like I had grown up a lot in a day.
Ni: My character was raped and beaten. She is weak, uncertain, and broken by her experiences. But I keep imagining her in the fields of Uganda, wielding an AK47, and those people would have seen her as the most terrifying thing. They saw her as this monster.
Grace: There is a threshold towards the end of childhood when a child begins to rifle through radical thoughts; imagine that you are again discovering sexuality, challenging your parents and experimenting, or at least thinking about experimenting, with drugs. This is the form an American adolescence takes. Now imagine for the first time that you are working every day just to have enough food to eat or that instead of disobeying orders that are made to protect you and help you grow that you have to make the decision whether or not to stand up to an oppressive force that controls the sense of safety of your friends and family.
Mike: What we want our children to see is who we want them to be
Mad: Youth is powerfully moldable—little kids are shaped and molded to believe what their parents believe so help save youth by providing them with unbiased truths! Like my character Elizabeth says, “You can give adolescents the feeling they’re shaping history,”—you indeed can and so this shaping of history needs to start progressing and break out of this cycle of regurgitation of their parents and elder’s thoughts and prejudices.
Mike: When people fear another group of people, they are less likely to talk to them, to think of them as an equal.
Baize: We are lucky to live in a country where we do not need to fear for our safety and/or lives on a daily basis. We are lucky to live in a place where we do not need to fear our children will resort to pre-existing terrorist groups and movements as a way of survival. But why does that mean that those who live such horrors as a daily reality should be ignored?
Ni: But she was only playing a role. She was just as human and vulnerable as they were. But being labeled a terrorist took away her humanity
Hilary: nothing has just one side.
Mike: Instead they attack them and destroy the original element of humanity in themselves. “Talking to Terrorists is the only way to beat them,” it’s the only way we find our humanity again.
Nathan: In losing this comprehension and communication, we’ve destroyed a method for dealing with terrorists, for if we knew what was angering them, perhaps we would take steps to remove that source.
Grace: The key to safety is trust and the key to trust is understanding. We must work to understand our enemies in order to feel safe against them.
Ni: Terrorists and heroes are the same—depending on which television station you’re listening to.
Nathan: How can they do such things, you might then ask? To begin to answer this, we must begin with truth, and because we’re only truly familiar with our own, lets start by trying to understand theirs.
Hil: It (truth) is the one thing that can save us when nothing else can. No person, place, or thing but our truth and our whole-hearted belief in that truth can save, touch, and free us past any point. Jesus – truth is such a huge and glowing concept, I could go on forever.
Adam: Bridging that separation is a different thing to do, but it starts with understanding your truth (which is harder than it sounds) and understanding your opponent ‘s truth.
Ni: It’s never personal.
BK: This is personal. I feel an obligation to talk about Israel. To stop the bitter taste that might be left in your mouth. This play might shake your conceptions of America and cause you reevaluate your relationship with this country. But it won’t alter a base love of and connection to America, nor should it.
Jamie: It is important to remember that the goal of this play is not to instruct, but merely to expose. The words of the individuals interviewed for this play do not exist in isolation, or as didactic symbol of the beliefs, opinions, or goals of the playwright, this production, or the individual members of our company.
Mad: When we hear the last line of the play we must stop ourselves from hating that little girl but force ourselves to look at her situation as a Palestinian who has been fighting Israelis for her whole lifetime.
Hopefully the little girl, like you, will realize she needs to look at the situation from more than one point of view.
BK: but Israel is different. It does not reserve space in your heart. And this play further batters the country I love in the country I live in.
Ni: How do you examine truth? Well, first you take away the subjective perspective, forget about your beliefs, where you’re from, what you learned, your experiences; make a clean slate. But that’s virtually impossible.
BK: I need to be a balancing voice about Israel, adding my stories about walking around the Old City of Jerusalem and my family’s pride and joy at living and serving there to the other, anti-Israel aspect of the play. I want to be a part of this play because of these controversial issues, because of how it engages fundamental parts of my identity.
Adam: You obviously know that I did not blow up a building in the South of England in October 1984, and you hopefully do not think that I actually believe in using violence to convey a message. However, when I am onstage as this character, I need to convey his truth to show his beliefs and how his truth and other characters’ truths are different.
Ni: Our truth is going to always distort the way we view the truth of others. But realizing that can benefit in our understanding of others.
Adam: Those differences in truth– understanding facts that both do and do not support our beliefs– are the jumping off points for conscious, respectful discussion of the larger problems.
Hil: Ultimately, my point is this – truth is powerful, and can be created easily. Once created, it is harder than anything to alter to take way. Therefore, we must learn and try to understand all truths presented to us because only then will we begin to naturally connect all of our truths to one another.
BK: My pain was a sharp blow- hers is a dull ache that will not end.
Adam: I feel confident saying that I understand the Palestinian schoolgirl’s truth, and I respect the circumstance, of why she believes what she does.
Ni: We each live a flawed existence.
Mike: Do they need help? That’s what we’re being told we’re doing is helping them, giving them democracy. But we never asked them if they wanted help. Even when we’re doing “good” we use a gun.
Grace: The whole wide range of human interaction (from two people falling in love to many nations fighting a war) is based upon communication.
Ni: Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Grace: This exchange of thoughts, which is one of the most distinctly human traits, is brought through I the form of Language. How, then, do we expect to interact successfully without utilizing this most basic principle? We must talk to each other and not just in conspiracy against the “other”, but to the other, as well. For really, there is not “other” that is not also a part of the much larger “we”.
Ni: Am I the terrorist?
Baize: Dialogue – this play is about dialogue – engaging in it, initiating it, and inciting enough knowledge and interest to sustain it. Through such interaction comes the ultimate goal, the most profound step – understanding.
Mad: We meant no harm by this play. We did not want to offend anyone. We apologize for some of the violent stories but why protect your self from the truths of others?
Adam: As Marie-Helene Carlson put it, “Documentary is a way of telling a story you believe there’s truth in.”
Nathan: In a series of essays written by philosopher Judith Butler entitled The Precarious Life, the author deals with the issue of forgiveness and acts of terrorism in the post 9/11 world. Putting forth the claim that our country’s response to the attacks was unjustified because we failed to acknowledge the truths of those who perpetrated the acts, Butler advocates forgiveness and awareness as a way to heal the wounds between “US” and those whom we label “THEM.”
I find this argument to be at once honest and correct, for, as a person who doesn’t wish to define himself by his nation, but the global community in general, I believe that rooting out the cause of terrorism will require a much deeper dialogue about our shared humanity.
Ni: What is a terrorist?
Nathan: And, yes; terrorists are human as well.
Ni: It defines a paranoia; a fear. But does it define a person? It can be applied to a person in order to eliminate the fact that they’re essentially human. Like you. Like me.
We dilute them with this word. It makes it much easier to bomb their homeland. It makes it much easier to disregard their civilian casualties.
They’re terrorists right?
BK: I did not want to end the play with hope. I wanted to end it with her pain, her accusation to us, to me, to both parts of me, Israel and America, for what I have done to her.
Grace: Hope is a mind game--a trick of time. It does not guarantee a better outcome, it exists as much amid destruction as it does when we are at peace. You cannot qualify hope as worthy or not. We must have hope no matter how likely it is we will be right in the end or we will prevail. Hope is how we survive--it is how we counter conflict. A philosopher might call it foolish to expend so much time honoring a false ending, but it is the journey toward that end that we have to account for. How did I live my life? Did I live in fear or did I believe in the possibility of the future?
Baize: The last line – it’s scary to hear, but it’s necessary, because for many, many, people in the world, it is the truth. The raw, bitter truth. And while it hits us in our most sensitive places and hurts the past of us that have ceased to feel sore. It is a painful reality we must be strong enough to endure. For it is only through acceptance and an acknowledgement of reality that we will be able to achieve progress; as an individual, as a nation, as a world.
Max: I hesitated to present a play that ends like this one does.
Jamie: This play is, by its very nature, a challenge.
Max: A British play, presented to an American audience about terrorism, especially while it is such a politically and culturally salient concept, seems to be asking a lot of our audience, who is generally free from facing difference.
Jamie: It requires the flexibility, patience, acceptance, and curiosity of both our company and you, our audience.
Max: I was afraid, and am afraid, of buying in to a stereotype that all Middle Easterners feel this way. But, I decided that self-reflection should not imply anti-patriotism, and is, in fact, something patriotic. But that bridge still needs to be crossed, and even built, between you and the Bethlehem school-girl. How do we do that?
Jamie: The stories, characters, and beliefs presented in the past two hours may have been upsetting, difficult, or borderline unacceptable. Yet at the end, you, the audience, and we, the company, stand in a position to accept an invaluable opportunity. We cannot and do not ask you to believe, accept, or even support what you have heard here tonight. But what we do ask is that you continue to listen and question. It is only when we allow our beliefs to be questioned we can truly begin to learn and discuss. Please join us in continuing this important discussion following the show, and in continuing the dialogue even after you leave the theater tonight. Skepticism is crucial to better understanding. Prejudice and assumption is not. We invite you to pick up where the play has left off; to continue this conversation.
Max: If you can’t find your “common ground” with the characters we play, perhaps you can find it with the actors who have embodied these people for the past six weeks. Talk to us.
Love,
Becky
Sorry we have not posted for such a long time! We moved from our glorious dwellings at Ucross to our home-stays and have been working all day to get our play ready in the Carriage House theater. Yesterday, we had a five hour tech rehearsal ( which I am told is very good, but still felt like quite a long time) and we are going to spend the next couple of days just working out the kinks. Thanks to Nijae and Baize, all of our costumes are set and thanks to Chris's tireless work the past couple of days, we are almost all finished with the lights. Hopefully, we will get our set finished today or tomorrow.
I wanted to post a compilation of of our writings that we were going to use for our epilogue. We realized that it was basically a scripted version the conversations we had been having about the play, which would have curtailed the community discussions we were trying to have. But all of our different writings just came together so easily and nicely that I felt it was a shame for no one to read it. So here it is:
Baize: Where does the value lie in confronting the things and people and ideas you are scared of? Quite simply – why should terrorists be talked to? It has taken me more time and thought to warm up to this play then I first thought I would need. It’s not that I didn’t trust it – I just didn’t really understand. Because I wasn’t listening. These stories are not only fascinating – they are important; important because they are the truth.
Hil: A play, such as the very one we are doing now, has the uncanny ability to present the ultimate truth, the horrifying, beautiful, disgusting, ultimate truth of real people, to an audience, and they can listen without fear or intimidation. Or if they do feel fear or intimidation, it is softened to a point where they will not be distracted into not listening or running away. Theatre can present a truth to an audience poised and ready to listen.
Mad: People would ask if it (the play) was for/against terrorism and I would answer that it did not express any such view but that terrorism is all relative.
Ni: Location. Location. Location.
Mad: One mustn’t lose track of geographical difference and cultural difference when they examine people different than themselves.
Adam: Characters in this play have been called irreparably different. I would argue that although their beliefs conflict enormously, the people, at heart, are fighting for similar goals.
Baize: It is so easy to be scared into silence by the things we don’t understand. And as easy as it is to blindly accept the difference of those and that which we do not understand, with a little thought, it can be just as easy to recognize the universality of our wishes and dreams and hopes as human beings. This is not to say we are all the same – we are all extraordinarily different, often times, irreparably so. But somewhere, across all our nations and histories and wars and wrongs, there lies an undeniable hope, and a undeniable penchant and potential for forgiveness.
Ni: Lines on a map become prejudices in a mind become slanders from a mouth become malice in a heart become lines on a map.
And I wonder if I would believe what she believed had I only been born across the ocean.
Mad: I hope the audience is able to overcome the thick dialects, the fact over-load and the presentation of so many horrific stories to see through to the characters portrayed. The actors have tried hard to make real people come to life that although you might not want to like them for what they did—you recognize similarities in them of yourself or someone you know.
Max: However, simply by presenting these individuals onstage, separate from their audience, allows for a space to open up that can be filled again with difference. It’s too easy to not force yourself to find those human similarities, and it’s risky to try. Who are we without our beliefs?
Hil: Truth can hurt us not physically, but mentally, emotionally, and subconsciously. Ultimately, if we lose everything, the one thing we still have is our emotions and our subconscious, and if those in turn are marred by something as powerful as the truth, then we are lost. So this is why we fear it so – it is the one thing that can completely destroy us.
Mike: We are all American. We know very little else. The first time WE were attacked on our soil in history I was 14. It was a shock. But in their country they’ve lived with violence their entire lives. But I’m sure they still feel shock and fear when they hear an explosion or gunshot. They choose to obtain the power they lost through violence. And after we were powerless, we attacked them on their soil. We became two opposing groups.
Ni: Am I the terrorist?
Chris: The truth we fight for is “democracy” yet this system hasn’t even successfully functioned at home. We’re just trying to project our idiotic sense of security upon the world’s canvas.
Hil: So in this fight of “terrorism,” truthfully, we are fighting someone’s truth, what they ultimately believe in, and their sense of unity. We are tearing that apart because of our own truths. Truth destroys, yet truth unifies.
Nathan: His is an act of savagery; ours is an act of bad luck. His story will be labeled as coming from someone who is sub-human, whose struggle doesn’t matter; ours will be but a blurb in the timeline of fighting for democracy and the continuation of freedom. Because ultimately what we’re both fighting for is the protection of ourselves and our loved ones.
Mike: When we hear the word terrorist we immediately feel fear, a temporary loss of safety.
Bk: I saw it happen. I saw the second plane crash into the center of our city. And that hurt, the trauma of being a witness to the death of individuals and part of our generation’s hope, feels more real with each passing year.
Mike: The word is the embodiment of misunderstanding.
Ni: We are what we believe because we believe in who we are. I am a liberal agnostic democrat. Why? Because of my experience. All the while, I give credit to myself as if I know something my opponents don’t. But, really I am just a product of circumstance.
Chris: After letting the events of the day soak in, I think I remember feeling annoyed that this had to happen– that normalcy and routine were all shook up. Why did this have to happen to us right now? When I had so much to do. They were dead and nothing felt safe anymore– I felt like I had grown up a lot in a day.
Ni: My character was raped and beaten. She is weak, uncertain, and broken by her experiences. But I keep imagining her in the fields of Uganda, wielding an AK47, and those people would have seen her as the most terrifying thing. They saw her as this monster.
Grace: There is a threshold towards the end of childhood when a child begins to rifle through radical thoughts; imagine that you are again discovering sexuality, challenging your parents and experimenting, or at least thinking about experimenting, with drugs. This is the form an American adolescence takes. Now imagine for the first time that you are working every day just to have enough food to eat or that instead of disobeying orders that are made to protect you and help you grow that you have to make the decision whether or not to stand up to an oppressive force that controls the sense of safety of your friends and family.
Mike: What we want our children to see is who we want them to be
Mad: Youth is powerfully moldable—little kids are shaped and molded to believe what their parents believe so help save youth by providing them with unbiased truths! Like my character Elizabeth says, “You can give adolescents the feeling they’re shaping history,”—you indeed can and so this shaping of history needs to start progressing and break out of this cycle of regurgitation of their parents and elder’s thoughts and prejudices.
Mike: When people fear another group of people, they are less likely to talk to them, to think of them as an equal.
Baize: We are lucky to live in a country where we do not need to fear for our safety and/or lives on a daily basis. We are lucky to live in a place where we do not need to fear our children will resort to pre-existing terrorist groups and movements as a way of survival. But why does that mean that those who live such horrors as a daily reality should be ignored?
Ni: But she was only playing a role. She was just as human and vulnerable as they were. But being labeled a terrorist took away her humanity
Hilary: nothing has just one side.
Mike: Instead they attack them and destroy the original element of humanity in themselves. “Talking to Terrorists is the only way to beat them,” it’s the only way we find our humanity again.
Nathan: In losing this comprehension and communication, we’ve destroyed a method for dealing with terrorists, for if we knew what was angering them, perhaps we would take steps to remove that source.
Grace: The key to safety is trust and the key to trust is understanding. We must work to understand our enemies in order to feel safe against them.
Ni: Terrorists and heroes are the same—depending on which television station you’re listening to.
Nathan: How can they do such things, you might then ask? To begin to answer this, we must begin with truth, and because we’re only truly familiar with our own, lets start by trying to understand theirs.
Hil: It (truth) is the one thing that can save us when nothing else can. No person, place, or thing but our truth and our whole-hearted belief in that truth can save, touch, and free us past any point. Jesus – truth is such a huge and glowing concept, I could go on forever.
Adam: Bridging that separation is a different thing to do, but it starts with understanding your truth (which is harder than it sounds) and understanding your opponent ‘s truth.
Ni: It’s never personal.
BK: This is personal. I feel an obligation to talk about Israel. To stop the bitter taste that might be left in your mouth. This play might shake your conceptions of America and cause you reevaluate your relationship with this country. But it won’t alter a base love of and connection to America, nor should it.
Jamie: It is important to remember that the goal of this play is not to instruct, but merely to expose. The words of the individuals interviewed for this play do not exist in isolation, or as didactic symbol of the beliefs, opinions, or goals of the playwright, this production, or the individual members of our company.
Mad: When we hear the last line of the play we must stop ourselves from hating that little girl but force ourselves to look at her situation as a Palestinian who has been fighting Israelis for her whole lifetime.
Hopefully the little girl, like you, will realize she needs to look at the situation from more than one point of view.
BK: but Israel is different. It does not reserve space in your heart. And this play further batters the country I love in the country I live in.
Ni: How do you examine truth? Well, first you take away the subjective perspective, forget about your beliefs, where you’re from, what you learned, your experiences; make a clean slate. But that’s virtually impossible.
BK: I need to be a balancing voice about Israel, adding my stories about walking around the Old City of Jerusalem and my family’s pride and joy at living and serving there to the other, anti-Israel aspect of the play. I want to be a part of this play because of these controversial issues, because of how it engages fundamental parts of my identity.
Adam: You obviously know that I did not blow up a building in the South of England in October 1984, and you hopefully do not think that I actually believe in using violence to convey a message. However, when I am onstage as this character, I need to convey his truth to show his beliefs and how his truth and other characters’ truths are different.
Ni: Our truth is going to always distort the way we view the truth of others. But realizing that can benefit in our understanding of others.
Adam: Those differences in truth– understanding facts that both do and do not support our beliefs– are the jumping off points for conscious, respectful discussion of the larger problems.
Hil: Ultimately, my point is this – truth is powerful, and can be created easily. Once created, it is harder than anything to alter to take way. Therefore, we must learn and try to understand all truths presented to us because only then will we begin to naturally connect all of our truths to one another.
BK: My pain was a sharp blow- hers is a dull ache that will not end.
Adam: I feel confident saying that I understand the Palestinian schoolgirl’s truth, and I respect the circumstance, of why she believes what she does.
Ni: We each live a flawed existence.
Mike: Do they need help? That’s what we’re being told we’re doing is helping them, giving them democracy. But we never asked them if they wanted help. Even when we’re doing “good” we use a gun.
Grace: The whole wide range of human interaction (from two people falling in love to many nations fighting a war) is based upon communication.
Ni: Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Grace: This exchange of thoughts, which is one of the most distinctly human traits, is brought through I the form of Language. How, then, do we expect to interact successfully without utilizing this most basic principle? We must talk to each other and not just in conspiracy against the “other”, but to the other, as well. For really, there is not “other” that is not also a part of the much larger “we”.
Ni: Am I the terrorist?
Baize: Dialogue – this play is about dialogue – engaging in it, initiating it, and inciting enough knowledge and interest to sustain it. Through such interaction comes the ultimate goal, the most profound step – understanding.
Mad: We meant no harm by this play. We did not want to offend anyone. We apologize for some of the violent stories but why protect your self from the truths of others?
Adam: As Marie-Helene Carlson put it, “Documentary is a way of telling a story you believe there’s truth in.”
Nathan: In a series of essays written by philosopher Judith Butler entitled The Precarious Life, the author deals with the issue of forgiveness and acts of terrorism in the post 9/11 world. Putting forth the claim that our country’s response to the attacks was unjustified because we failed to acknowledge the truths of those who perpetrated the acts, Butler advocates forgiveness and awareness as a way to heal the wounds between “US” and those whom we label “THEM.”
I find this argument to be at once honest and correct, for, as a person who doesn’t wish to define himself by his nation, but the global community in general, I believe that rooting out the cause of terrorism will require a much deeper dialogue about our shared humanity.
Ni: What is a terrorist?
Nathan: And, yes; terrorists are human as well.
Ni: It defines a paranoia; a fear. But does it define a person? It can be applied to a person in order to eliminate the fact that they’re essentially human. Like you. Like me.
We dilute them with this word. It makes it much easier to bomb their homeland. It makes it much easier to disregard their civilian casualties.
They’re terrorists right?
BK: I did not want to end the play with hope. I wanted to end it with her pain, her accusation to us, to me, to both parts of me, Israel and America, for what I have done to her.
Grace: Hope is a mind game--a trick of time. It does not guarantee a better outcome, it exists as much amid destruction as it does when we are at peace. You cannot qualify hope as worthy or not. We must have hope no matter how likely it is we will be right in the end or we will prevail. Hope is how we survive--it is how we counter conflict. A philosopher might call it foolish to expend so much time honoring a false ending, but it is the journey toward that end that we have to account for. How did I live my life? Did I live in fear or did I believe in the possibility of the future?
Baize: The last line – it’s scary to hear, but it’s necessary, because for many, many, people in the world, it is the truth. The raw, bitter truth. And while it hits us in our most sensitive places and hurts the past of us that have ceased to feel sore. It is a painful reality we must be strong enough to endure. For it is only through acceptance and an acknowledgement of reality that we will be able to achieve progress; as an individual, as a nation, as a world.
Max: I hesitated to present a play that ends like this one does.
Jamie: This play is, by its very nature, a challenge.
Max: A British play, presented to an American audience about terrorism, especially while it is such a politically and culturally salient concept, seems to be asking a lot of our audience, who is generally free from facing difference.
Jamie: It requires the flexibility, patience, acceptance, and curiosity of both our company and you, our audience.
Max: I was afraid, and am afraid, of buying in to a stereotype that all Middle Easterners feel this way. But, I decided that self-reflection should not imply anti-patriotism, and is, in fact, something patriotic. But that bridge still needs to be crossed, and even built, between you and the Bethlehem school-girl. How do we do that?
Jamie: The stories, characters, and beliefs presented in the past two hours may have been upsetting, difficult, or borderline unacceptable. Yet at the end, you, the audience, and we, the company, stand in a position to accept an invaluable opportunity. We cannot and do not ask you to believe, accept, or even support what you have heard here tonight. But what we do ask is that you continue to listen and question. It is only when we allow our beliefs to be questioned we can truly begin to learn and discuss. Please join us in continuing this important discussion following the show, and in continuing the dialogue even after you leave the theater tonight. Skepticism is crucial to better understanding. Prejudice and assumption is not. We invite you to pick up where the play has left off; to continue this conversation.
Max: If you can’t find your “common ground” with the characters we play, perhaps you can find it with the actors who have embodied these people for the past six weeks. Talk to us.
Love,
Becky
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Equality of the Sexes
Hi! This is Chris DiGennaro Vassar '09, also known as the Great Enabler. I'm going to be doing light design for Talking to Terrorists with this outpost of extraordinary artists.
It couldn't have been more than a minute since I had walked off the plane that I was looking down a long staircase at my new friends Hilary and Becky. They had traveled 2.5 hours to the airport at Billings, MT to pick me up only to immediately bring me back to UCROSS in Wyoming. I felt like a celebrity. B and H filled me in on their way back. Their excitement for the project really got me antsy to begin work, or at least to eat the UCROSS food they'd been expounding about. As we zoomed down into Wyoming, the skies slowly darkened, offering us a gorgeous pink sunset, heavenly clouds, and an all-encompassing darkness by the end. Out here it didn't get completely dark until maybe 9 pm. Whoa. While the open roads were dark, the plains not far away flashed with sporadic lighting. It was scintillating.
After being freaked out by an owl flapping near the road, we pulling into UCROSS and everyone was there. Honestly, I couldn't have imagined or prayed for a warmer welcome. How wonderful it is to see old friends in a completely different area of the country. Equally wonderful is meeting these non-Vassar people who make you realize how powerful art is to bring people from the great expanses of this world together. Speaking of equality, we are now 6 males, 6 females, so anything can and will happen.
Yesterday we encountered the thrillingly quaint Carriage House Theater where we will be performing our first run. They have an extensive costume closet and an interesting backstage area. I'll let someone else gush about this because this post is getting long. Oh yeah, we tried to make cubes.
It couldn't have been more than a minute since I had walked off the plane that I was looking down a long staircase at my new friends Hilary and Becky. They had traveled 2.5 hours to the airport at Billings, MT to pick me up only to immediately bring me back to UCROSS in Wyoming. I felt like a celebrity. B and H filled me in on their way back. Their excitement for the project really got me antsy to begin work, or at least to eat the UCROSS food they'd been expounding about. As we zoomed down into Wyoming, the skies slowly darkened, offering us a gorgeous pink sunset, heavenly clouds, and an all-encompassing darkness by the end. Out here it didn't get completely dark until maybe 9 pm. Whoa. While the open roads were dark, the plains not far away flashed with sporadic lighting. It was scintillating.
After being freaked out by an owl flapping near the road, we pulling into UCROSS and everyone was there. Honestly, I couldn't have imagined or prayed for a warmer welcome. How wonderful it is to see old friends in a completely different area of the country. Equally wonderful is meeting these non-Vassar people who make you realize how powerful art is to bring people from the great expanses of this world together. Speaking of equality, we are now 6 males, 6 females, so anything can and will happen.
Yesterday we encountered the thrillingly quaint Carriage House Theater where we will be performing our first run. They have an extensive costume closet and an interesting backstage area. I'll let someone else gush about this because this post is getting long. Oh yeah, we tried to make cubes.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I apologize for that dramatic ending...
But I was called away for our group call to Micah Garen and Marie-Helen Carelton, two UCROSS residents who wrote "American Hostage," the story of Micah's captivity in Iraq and Marie Helen's efforts to free him. They are simply amazing people. I want to be them when I grow up. They are documentary filmmakers, authors, reporters (for the New York Times) and, I believe, photographers as well (and Brooklynites!). Micah told us about his complex relationship with his captors, young men 20 years old or even younger. He said given the chance, most of them would take a visa to America and be gone the next day. They were the sons of farmers and manual laborers. Some hated him and America- other's didn't. While he explained his drive to understand his captors as a result of his occupation, his empathy and lack of anger in his voice was still incredible to hear. Both Micah and Marie-Helen remarked on the loss of control and the little things they did to gain it back. Serendipitously, they both relied on statistics to give themselves hope.
As for the rest of the weekend, we went to the rodeo on Friday night. It was an adrenaline rush. I didn't know what happened, but suddenly I was screaming for every rider, roper, and wrestler on the top of my lungs. I thought it was strange that Brooklyn social workers of Eastern European descent had produced a girl who loved to watch cowboys trying to stay on bucking horses, but then Kim (Grace's father) told me that one of the greatest bull riders was from Brooklyn. Maybe it is something in the air. The only part of the rodeo that was pretty horrific to watch was the calf roping. When the lasso went around their necks, the calves were jerks at a sickening angle. Then, they would try to get up, but kept falling down because their feet were tied. Mike had told us we wouldn't like that event and I wanted to prove him wrong. But he was certainly right.
And I think this is a nice segway into Mike:
This is Mike, So far its been really great out here at Ucross. Loosing my voice, getting the flu and being on the toilet forever because of it has been overshadowed by the great people I have met. Everyone's great and I've already learned so much from them. I've also become a pool junky and some of the cast has become addicted to mad men so I am happy.
Hello, this is Becky again. I just wanted to leave you off with some photos of the parade.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Hi Family and Friends!
Unbelievably, our residency is half over. Well, its only been a week and a half, but to me, time seems to be going unusually quickly. Our weekend was very up and down (like the Big Horn Mountains!). We awoke early on Friday and marched in Sheridan's Rodeo Parade. Warming up next to us were a many, many people in pig costumes. At first I was sad that we were not also into pink, fluffy onesies, but I think we looked pretty smart in matching red t-shirts sandwiching Madeleine's red car. Susie provided us with bandannas and cowboy hats and we were on our way. Mostly it was a positive reception, especially when we passed Grace's family and friends. But as we passed, one woman glared at me and said "no talking to terrorists."
And now I will leave you in suspense and with this photo.
Love,
Becky
Unbelievably, our residency is half over. Well, its only been a week and a half, but to me, time seems to be going unusually quickly. Our weekend was very up and down (like the Big Horn Mountains!). We awoke early on Friday and marched in Sheridan's Rodeo Parade. Warming up next to us were a many, many people in pig costumes. At first I was sad that we were not also into pink, fluffy onesies, but I think we looked pretty smart in matching red t-shirts sandwiching Madeleine's red car. Susie provided us with bandannas and cowboy hats and we were on our way. Mostly it was a positive reception, especially when we passed Grace's family and friends. But as we passed, one woman glared at me and said "no talking to terrorists."
And now I will leave you in suspense and with this photo.
Love,
Becky
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
we have arrived
Hello devoted readers!
As I type this, less than ten feet away, Max and Grace are working on accents and characters. The actors' mornings have been devoted to blocking the two acts and their afternoons are spent on character development. It seems weird to fall into schedule or any sort of normal routine at a place as beautiful ( and perhaps just a little bit magical compared to the concrete and steel of cities) as Ucross, but we have fallen into a nice rhythm. We each have our own rooms, a luxury I didn't even have at Vassar, in three different buildings with common rooms, coffee makers, little libraries and laundry machines. But I think my favorite part is our red, wrap-around porch. I did some work out there this morning and even enjoyed being erratically hit by sprinklers.
We had our first group discussion today about the last couple of lines in the play. A girl from Bethlehem speaks about her friend having been killed by Israeli soldiers and then her feelings about September 11th. They are hard, hard lines, to read, to feel, to think about and finally to perform. And of course, this made it a hard discussion. Everybody has different gut and intellectual reactions to those lines and I struggle to articulate mine in a cohesive, understandable way. I actually, very strangely, felt myself close to tears at one point. But it was also an important, stimulating, exciting discussion (I know there are too many adjectives in that sentence, but the conversation took so many different turns and tones I should include even more to fully describe our dialogue.) We have a long way to go to reaching any sort of decision about the lines- and I am really happy about that. I think these might turn out being some of the best discussions we have.
On a completely other note, we had a little photo shoot today by the mosquito congested river. As we were walking over, the cotton falling from the trees looked like steady flurries of snow. For some reason, I cannot post the lovely group photo from it, but it will be up soon! Amazingly, we actually all look happy (not one awkward half-closed eye in the photo!)
-Becky
As I type this, less than ten feet away, Max and Grace are working on accents and characters. The actors' mornings have been devoted to blocking the two acts and their afternoons are spent on character development. It seems weird to fall into schedule or any sort of normal routine at a place as beautiful ( and perhaps just a little bit magical compared to the concrete and steel of cities) as Ucross, but we have fallen into a nice rhythm. We each have our own rooms, a luxury I didn't even have at Vassar, in three different buildings with common rooms, coffee makers, little libraries and laundry machines. But I think my favorite part is our red, wrap-around porch. I did some work out there this morning and even enjoyed being erratically hit by sprinklers.
We had our first group discussion today about the last couple of lines in the play. A girl from Bethlehem speaks about her friend having been killed by Israeli soldiers and then her feelings about September 11th. They are hard, hard lines, to read, to feel, to think about and finally to perform. And of course, this made it a hard discussion. Everybody has different gut and intellectual reactions to those lines and I struggle to articulate mine in a cohesive, understandable way. I actually, very strangely, felt myself close to tears at one point. But it was also an important, stimulating, exciting discussion (I know there are too many adjectives in that sentence, but the conversation took so many different turns and tones I should include even more to fully describe our dialogue.) We have a long way to go to reaching any sort of decision about the lines- and I am really happy about that. I think these might turn out being some of the best discussions we have.
On a completely other note, we had a little photo shoot today by the mosquito congested river. As we were walking over, the cotton falling from the trees looked like steady flurries of snow. For some reason, I cannot post the lovely group photo from it, but it will be up soon! Amazingly, we actually all look happy (not one awkward half-closed eye in the photo!)
-Becky
Friday, July 4, 2008
Manager Madness
Hello all!!
Managers unite! Hilary and Becky here, No Fog West's Stage and Road Managers, sitting in the Cannons' beautiful living room in Sheridan, Wyoming. We have been in Wyoming for two days now, and have been loving every minute of it. After arriving, we headed straight out to the UCROSS foundation where we will be rehearsing and staying starting on Monday, for an Independence Day Eve Ho-Down. Madeleine and Grace got jiggy with an adorable old man, but we all joined in with the sweaty dancing. After dark, we watched a fireworks display with musical accompaniment. Strangely, The Who's "Pinball Wizard" was mixed in with "Proud to be an American" and Toby Keith's heartwarming song about shoving American boots up people's "asses." Maybe they were paying homage to our British past?
For our first night here, the two of us decided to sleep outside -- our first managerial meeting of sorts. Everything thought we wouldn't be able to make it outside, but we did! We had a wonderful time in the tent enjoying all of the wonderful Wyoming sounds around us, while everyone else slept in warm beds inside the house. Around 8 am this morning the tent became a sauna under the rising sun, and so we headed inside to sleep for another two hours.
Nijae interlude: "I'll write later...I'll write a poem..."
Jamie interlude: "Word."
Then this morning, we celebrated America's birthday by going on a pilgrimage to one of our sacred institutions, Walmart. There, we funded one of the most liberal and American businesses of our society by buying ingredients for baking cookies and brownies for a Donor party we are having tomorrow evening at the Cannon's house.
Tonight we are heading to another ho-down in Sheridan, Wyoming to celebrate the 4th. We are bonding as a company and have grown incredibly close already. Our first production meeting is on Sunday, and Monday we will have our first read-through of the show. Excitement is building!
Talk to you soon!
Much love,
Becky and Hilary
Here are some photos of our antics so far:
Leaving Denver!
Nijae and Baize at the ho-down.
Getting jiggy!
Managers unite! Hilary and Becky here, No Fog West's Stage and Road Managers, sitting in the Cannons' beautiful living room in Sheridan, Wyoming. We have been in Wyoming for two days now, and have been loving every minute of it. After arriving, we headed straight out to the UCROSS foundation where we will be rehearsing and staying starting on Monday, for an Independence Day Eve Ho-Down. Madeleine and Grace got jiggy with an adorable old man, but we all joined in with the sweaty dancing. After dark, we watched a fireworks display with musical accompaniment. Strangely, The Who's "Pinball Wizard" was mixed in with "Proud to be an American" and Toby Keith's heartwarming song about shoving American boots up people's "asses." Maybe they were paying homage to our British past?
For our first night here, the two of us decided to sleep outside -- our first managerial meeting of sorts. Everything thought we wouldn't be able to make it outside, but we did! We had a wonderful time in the tent enjoying all of the wonderful Wyoming sounds around us, while everyone else slept in warm beds inside the house. Around 8 am this morning the tent became a sauna under the rising sun, and so we headed inside to sleep for another two hours.
Nijae interlude: "I'll write later...I'll write a poem..."
Jamie interlude: "Word."
Then this morning, we celebrated America's birthday by going on a pilgrimage to one of our sacred institutions, Walmart. There, we funded one of the most liberal and American businesses of our society by buying ingredients for baking cookies and brownies for a Donor party we are having tomorrow evening at the Cannon's house.
Tonight we are heading to another ho-down in Sheridan, Wyoming to celebrate the 4th. We are bonding as a company and have grown incredibly close already. Our first production meeting is on Sunday, and Monday we will have our first read-through of the show. Excitement is building!
Talk to you soon!
Much love,
Becky and Hilary
Here are some photos of our antics so far:
Leaving Denver! 
Nijae and Baize at the ho-down.
Getting jiggy!
greetings from Wyoming!!!!
we are HERE!! I am sitting at the Cannon's kitchen table in Big Horn, Wyoming with Jamie and Nijae. I think I can speak for all of us when I say how absolutely marvelous it is to finally be here together!
7 of us drove from Denver to Big Horn yesterday, about a 6 hour drive up the entire length of Wyoming. Jamie and I each had the experience of driving the fabulous No Fog West van, a vision of white as it tore up Interstate 25. we christened the van with a dashboard hula girl but have yet to name it. we'll keep you posted.
about 30 minutes after we arrived (hugs and hysteria and happiness abound!) we all piled into Adam and Grace's cars and drove about 30 minutes to Ucross, where we will be living and rehearsing as of Monday. the Ucross Foundation hosts a big 4th of July hoedown every year, complete with a live band and ice cream cones and elephant ears (a HUGE piece of fried dough, which Jamie and I most willingly split) and fireworks and it was a BLAST! tonight we are doing some more fireworks and 4th of July festivities in Sheridan.
hope you are all having a happy holiday!
love,
Baize
7 of us drove from Denver to Big Horn yesterday, about a 6 hour drive up the entire length of Wyoming. Jamie and I each had the experience of driving the fabulous No Fog West van, a vision of white as it tore up Interstate 25. we christened the van with a dashboard hula girl but have yet to name it. we'll keep you posted.
about 30 minutes after we arrived (hugs and hysteria and happiness abound!) we all piled into Adam and Grace's cars and drove about 30 minutes to Ucross, where we will be living and rehearsing as of Monday. the Ucross Foundation hosts a big 4th of July hoedown every year, complete with a live band and ice cream cones and elephant ears (a HUGE piece of fried dough, which Jamie and I most willingly split) and fireworks and it was a BLAST! tonight we are doing some more fireworks and 4th of July festivities in Sheridan.
hope you are all having a happy holiday!
love,
Baize
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Parts!
Hello!
It's Max again. Adam and I were just talking and he said that it was nice to have the parts everyone was playing on the blog last year and suggested I do it again, so here we go:
Nathan Birnbaum: an Ex-member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Matthew, a former Secretary of State, Aftab
Baize Buzan: Phoebe, Michelle, Caroline, Momsie
Grace Cannon: Rima, Another former Secretary of State, Linda
Adam Colton: an ex-member of the Irish Republican Army, an Archbishop's Envoy, Dermot
Nijae Draine: an ex-member of the National Resistance Army, Uganda, the wife of a former Secretary of State, a Bethlehem schoolgirl, a Waitress
Madeleine Joyce: Edna, Nodira, Ingrid, Marjory
Mike Marshall: a Colonel, an ex-member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, John, Jad
Jamie: an ex-Ambassador, an ex-member of the Kurdish Workers Party, Faiser
That's it! Everyone shows up in Wyoming today and we leave for the artists' colony on Monday! We've very excited.
See you soon!
It's Max again. Adam and I were just talking and he said that it was nice to have the parts everyone was playing on the blog last year and suggested I do it again, so here we go:
Nathan Birnbaum: an Ex-member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Matthew, a former Secretary of State, Aftab
Baize Buzan: Phoebe, Michelle, Caroline, Momsie
Grace Cannon: Rima, Another former Secretary of State, Linda
Adam Colton: an ex-member of the Irish Republican Army, an Archbishop's Envoy, Dermot
Nijae Draine: an ex-member of the National Resistance Army, Uganda, the wife of a former Secretary of State, a Bethlehem schoolgirl, a Waitress
Madeleine Joyce: Edna, Nodira, Ingrid, Marjory
Mike Marshall: a Colonel, an ex-member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, John, Jad
Jamie: an ex-Ambassador, an ex-member of the Kurdish Workers Party, Faiser
That's it! Everyone shows up in Wyoming today and we leave for the artists' colony on Monday! We've very excited.
See you soon!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Westward Bound!
this is Baize Buzan excitedly saying hello hello hello! I am a member of the company for NFW's 2008 tour and I am writing today from gray Boxford, Massachusetts bursting with excitement and anticipation as I look towards next week!!
hard to believe that in just FIVE DAYS! from today we will all be together, beginning our Western theatrical adventure. the amount of people that have stopped me when I am explaining my summer plans to exclaim how amazing and beautiful and fantastic Wyoming is has been pretty noteworthy. I have no doubts in my mind that it (and Colorado, and Utah, and Idaho!) will live up to the tales that these people have shared with me. I am extremely thrilled to be spending so much time in a region of the country that I have never before been to - so excited, in fact, that among all the line preparations and research, I have been planning my wardrobe as well -- shocking for those of you that know me! I was shopping with my sister a few days ago and tried to find a Wyoming cowgirl shirt, but alas! no luck. guess I will have to wait until I get there.
the amount of information I've learned doing research for my four parts has been extremely intriguing and enlightening. I'm really looking forward to uniting with this wonderful, talented group of people and dissecting all of the complicated bits and pieces of the text and truly making this play ours.
so -- until next time, at which I anticipate (and pray) that I will be fully memorized, packed (or unpacked?), and prepared....ciao!
love,
Baize
hard to believe that in just FIVE DAYS! from today we will all be together, beginning our Western theatrical adventure. the amount of people that have stopped me when I am explaining my summer plans to exclaim how amazing and beautiful and fantastic Wyoming is has been pretty noteworthy. I have no doubts in my mind that it (and Colorado, and Utah, and Idaho!) will live up to the tales that these people have shared with me. I am extremely thrilled to be spending so much time in a region of the country that I have never before been to - so excited, in fact, that among all the line preparations and research, I have been planning my wardrobe as well -- shocking for those of you that know me! I was shopping with my sister a few days ago and tried to find a Wyoming cowgirl shirt, but alas! no luck. guess I will have to wait until I get there.
the amount of information I've learned doing research for my four parts has been extremely intriguing and enlightening. I'm really looking forward to uniting with this wonderful, talented group of people and dissecting all of the complicated bits and pieces of the text and truly making this play ours.
so -- until next time, at which I anticipate (and pray) that I will be fully memorized, packed (or unpacked?), and prepared....ciao!
love,
Baize
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Just a little introduction....
Hi, I am Rebecca Katz and I will be the road manager this summer! Right now I am at one of my favorite places, a tea lounge in Brooklyn, doing some research on grants and potential sponsers. The Rolling Stones just started playing from the loudspeakers, making it a pretty perfect enviorment to get excited about the summer. It is hard to get back in the swing of working again, especially since I have come to associate work with extreme stress and final crunch. But this should be a completely different experience, one of driving passion and fun. I have already had some interesting conversations with people about what we are doing this summer. My mom and I had a really intense discussion about terrorism. We have never talked about what September 11th meant to her. I live in Brooklyn and my mom worked in downtown Manhattan when it happened. I have actually just been sitting here for a while trying to figure out what to say about the discussion. For me and my Jewish, New York community, terrorism and its ideological and practical relationship to Israel and the World Trade Centers is the controversial issue. Terrorism is not a remote concept or experience, but one that has personally affected every person I know. My mom asked me why we were addressing this issue, questioning if maybe perhaps terrorism was too controversial and complex and should be left alone. My mother, a former social worker and an amazing, open woman, has never encouraged me to not talk (and talk and analyze, and then talk some more) about anything. But there she was, raising the idea that maybe some things were too emotionally heavy and dangerous to be explored. I was actually shocked for a moment. To me, it was so instinctively necessary that we needed to open dialogue about terrorism. I am still struggling to articulate that base reaction. If terrorism meant something to me and to others, if it changed our generation and our society, it must be explored. Its rawness as a subject only proved its necessity. We, as a post-9-11 America, have a newly intimate relationship with terrorism than before that day. Yet we have not taken the time as a society to explore what that all means. Has our definition of terrorism changed? Should it? Can a discussion of terrorism ever be divorced from its emotional connotations? What does that mean about the way we, as a country, approach terrorists?
I think that conversation between my mom and I was one of the most adult and interesting conversations we have ever had. It further emphasized the importance of the discussions after the performances and how much heart and sensitivity we need to put into them. But I think within those discussions will be moments and ideas that will change the way we look at the world.
-Becky
I think that conversation between my mom and I was one of the most adult and interesting conversations we have ever had. It further emphasized the importance of the discussions after the performances and how much heart and sensitivity we need to put into them. But I think within those discussions will be moments and ideas that will change the way we look at the world.
-Becky
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
We're back!!!
Probably nobody checks our blog anymore as it's been a really long time since anyone wrote on it. But we've been doing things like crazy and are very excited to announce our summer 2008 project, a tour of "Talking to Terrorists," a play by Robin Soans.
The verbatim play is complied from interviews conducted with terrorists in different organizations from around the world, foreign service workers, hostages and others whose lives have been affected by terrorism. We are inspired by its journalistic approach to theater and the discussion topics it provides.
After a three-week rehearsal residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming in July, we will go on a three-week tour, stopping in Sheridan, Wyoming at the Carriage House Theater, Salt Lake City at the Rose Wagner Theater, and McCall, Idaho at the Alpine Playhouse. We cast the piece last month and will be taking eight Vassar students, one student from the University of Puget Sound and one from Sheridan with us. We will begin our fundraising process later this month. To get on our mailing list or to donate, email company@nofogwest.org.
We also have a new website up, www.nofogwest.org, that has a lot of information about our last production and the company, so check it out!
This will be another amazing summer! And we will update the blog more regularly.
Max
The verbatim play is complied from interviews conducted with terrorists in different organizations from around the world, foreign service workers, hostages and others whose lives have been affected by terrorism. We are inspired by its journalistic approach to theater and the discussion topics it provides.
After a three-week rehearsal residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming in July, we will go on a three-week tour, stopping in Sheridan, Wyoming at the Carriage House Theater, Salt Lake City at the Rose Wagner Theater, and McCall, Idaho at the Alpine Playhouse. We cast the piece last month and will be taking eight Vassar students, one student from the University of Puget Sound and one from Sheridan with us. We will begin our fundraising process later this month. To get on our mailing list or to donate, email company@nofogwest.org.
We also have a new website up, www.nofogwest.org, that has a lot of information about our last production and the company, so check it out!
This will be another amazing summer! And we will update the blog more regularly.
Max
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