All The World's A Stage

A playwright is like God. She looks down on her world sets the scene, populates it, plots it decides it's outcome. If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy, If it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. She or He gives us a passport to a new world, exotic, mundane, impossible, beautiful and sometimes very very ugly, just like life, only at the theater we are the audience and that makes it more comfortable.

We have just had the privilege of attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. We did not get tickets to one of the Bard's classics , 12th Night, or the Merchant of Venice, playing in honor of the Festivals 75th anniversary. No, Honestly I am not a fan of Shakespeare I respect the man greatly, but it's too much work for me. I liked The film Shakespeare In Love more than I liked Romeo and Juliet. It's hard to admit that, but it's the truth. We stayed on the fringe of the Festival and we were lucky to see the World Premiere of American Night, a collaborative creation by the legendary socio-political comedy team known as, Culture Clash . In it, We follow, or maybe chase would be a better verb, the story of a young Mexican father, Juan Jose, separated from his Wife and new baby, still in Mexico, while he jumps through hoops of hope and prepares himself for the exam to become an American Citizen. Set against a simple steel backdrop, first graffiti'd with the phrase, "Borders are scars on the Land", in Spanish Juan Jose's journey begins with his trek across the dessert as the Projector screen shows us how Juan walked to America. We catch up with Juan Jose' the night before his exam, cheered on by his two new Mormon friends hoping that he not only switches countries, but deities as well, to help them spread the good word to his gente latino. This is just one minor, yet sharp note in this brilliant Operatic Comedy that takes us on a fantastic journey to the center of American History through the dream state of our Hero Juan Jose'. This play, a by product of over thirty years of collaboration between richard Montoya, Herbert Siguenza, who also star, and Ric Salinas of Culture Clash, think Latino Mime Troupe, In American Night we are given a thorough History lesson, peppered with pernicious pop culture, beginning at the end of the Mexican American war and the Signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago where upon doing so Mexico surrenders lands from California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. In his dream, as the signature on the treaty, Juan Jose makes himself a fugitive in what just five minutes ago was HIS country The irony starts there and does not stop as Juan travels through the time line as if on a skate board through the ages pausing only to mark undocumented moments in history that give a more diverse sense of who we are as Americans like, Viola Pettus the Black Florence Nightengale of Texas, who in the days of the Spanish Influenza even treated KKK members , deftly delivering the notion that there are good people in the world even if they don't make history. And even though our country is fraught with racism with the modern likes of Sherif Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer and divisions that linger from the original buying, selling, and stealing of American, this is still a place where dreams can come true. The metaphor of the dream of Juan Jose, conjures the current day, Dream Act, that would give undocumented immigrants a new lease on life. May it be so. Then Last night we attended, in the same theater, miraculously transformed into the Congolese Jungle. a chilling thrilling work of Pulitzer winning playwright, Lynn Nottage, called Ruined. This Play harkens to Brecht's Mother Courage, yet is set in Present day Congo, where Coltan ( a main ingredient in our precious cell phones) is the new Gold and Soldiers and Rebels Kill and Maim with impunity to control the resources and extract revenge for the taking of their indigenous lands. We are at Mama Nadi's place deep in Jungle Land. She provides a refuge for girls, young women who must flee their villages for their fate is sealed. They will be killed or worse they will be raped in such violent sadistic ways that their bodies are ruined for life. Mami offers them her protection, but at the same time they are for sale to soldiers who come to drink the beer and eat the maboke. Though this work is deeply disturbing, painful to witness for 2 and one half hours, it penetrates the audience, completely. The story revolves around Mami and three women who are under her wing. Sophie, Ruined at the edge of a soldiers Bayonet, Salima, who's body was not only ruined by soldiers the day her husband went to buy her a much wanted new pot, but her baby, Beatriz, is killed under a soldiers boot, and Josephine, once a chief's daughter,now a beautiful play toy for hungry ugly men. Kimberly Scott, who was also a member of American nights ensemble, portrays Mami Nadi with enormous courage, presence, and moral ambiguity, yet exudes an unflinching strength in the art of survival. She is a huge presence on the stage, tending her bar, unabashedly catering to the militia men, at the same time aptly feathering her own jungle nest. the arc of this character is so strong we know that life will go on, no matter what. I am heartened when not only am I in tears at the end of the play, but I see men crying as well. Especially regarding this subject matter and the brilliant thing is, though we witness the terrifying irrational, chaos of men with guns and unintelligible conflicts that change from day to day, somehow, out of this endless quagmire the playwright shows us human beings are ultimately resilient, alive and willing to love. that's the thing of life, which art imitates or vice a versa, if one can find humor and love then it's worth the trouble. We can sustain ourselves not only through our own testimonies, but in the theater we bare witness, and safe in the audience we can experience lives we can only imagine, or couldn't possibly. It is good to remember in these unpredictable, somewhat unbearable times that this is just a story we live in and everyday we turn the page. I invite you to become the playwright, director and Actor in this life. I guess Shakespeare said it best in As You Like it, "All the World's a stage"