Looking Out Windows

Tonys Blog

Written by Tony Adams Thursday, 25 February 2010 16:34

I could hear it in her voice when I spoke to her on Thursday. I had only heard it once before: not when she was about to lose her house; not when times were tight and there wasn’t enough food to feed everyone; not when she was initially give a few months to a year to live.

When I talked to her they had just finished the last radiation treatment on her brain, where it had spread from the original tumors that encircled her aorta. Sometimes the words weren’t coming out right and she’d have to backtrack to get it right. One of the additional tumors in her chest had grown to the point that it was preventing her diaphragm from moving, and the doctors wanted to wait three months to see how the radiation on her head went before proceeding.

“It’s my body”, she said. “I don’t have . . .”

She changed the conversation pretty quickly after that. But I could hear it in her voice. Even while we were talking about ways to get me down to see her, once the festival closed and the income taxes came back. She told me about a program for cancer patients that worked to find cheap flights for immediate family members when it gets . . . She was going to send me a link.

I could hear the fear in her voice. In my thirty two years, I had only heard it once before.  It ended up taking four days for me to make it down.

I stood up with my cup of coffee and looked out the window and put my right hand in my pocket. Our window overlooks a big tree and, across the road onto a huge apartment building. The recently plowed snows created a dark and white swirl much like the ones I remembered separating our house and the woods when I was a kid. I stood there trying to imagine the world contained in those blocks.

It felt familiar.  I used to stand that way all the time growing up. The front window in our house growing up overlooked a big tree and, across the road, onto a corn field and woods behind it. When there was snow, it would mix with the soil in the field and created a dark brown and white swirl leading up to the seemingly endless woods. I would stand and imagine what the world contained beyond those woods.

Friday night Jenn and I had a date, saw a show and went to a bar after with some friends and some of the cast. I quit smoking a while ago, but I was pretty well along and decided to bum a smoke from Juan. Jenn told me not to, I wouldn’t be happy in the morning. But I smoked one anyway.

In the morning, I got an instant message to call my step-dad. My phone battery died overnight so I had missed his call. I had to charge up my phone to turn it on, and as I waited, part of me expected to find out that she had been admitted into the new trial she was hoping for. That wasn’t the call I got.

She got the cancer. And died on a Saturday.

I’ve often been told that when I was growing up, I was never afraid of anything. Usually that preceded some outlandish story about something I did growing up.  There are a lot of those. I can’t remember ever being scared. And until last Thursday I had only remembered my mom being scared once before.

My Dad had a temper and was rarely good for her, so when she decided she had had enough of her marriage and decided to get a divorce, she had a restraining order as well. In case he lost his temper and did something.

She told me about it, and was scared. Not because of him, for all he did, I don’t know if she was ever afraid of him. She was scared because she had no one to deliver it to him; there was no one to help her get out. It was the first time I had ever heard fear in her voice.

I served my dad with the divorce papers and haven’t heard much from him since. He has my phone number.

Twelve years ago, Mom met Pat online playing cards and eventually moved down to Texas and married him. Pat invited Patti to live there for the rest of her life. And she did.

We were at Pat’s house the night before the memorial service and we were talking about memories of her and all of her sisters, and how their paths have been so different over the years.  As they talked, I remembered a time we went to visit an aunt. I was young, probably not even ten. We got to the aunts house and as we pulled up into the drive, we heard a scream. My aunt ran out of the house followed by her husband at the time who was chasing her with a machete.

My mom told me to stay in the car and without a hint of fear went out to help. Thankfully no one got hurt that day, but I never forgot seeing the chase, or the machete, or them talking him down. I had forgotten how fearless Mom was, until I heard the fear in her voice over the phone.

Taking the train home from Texas, something Mom was always telling me to do, I had a lot of time to think as I watched the country wiz by with her reflection appearing in the window.

On Sunday, the day after we found out, and the day before my flight down for the memorial, I was talking to Tony Jr. He asked what was wrong and I said I was sad about Granny, as my mom preferred to be called by her grandkids.

“Yeah,” he said, “she’s really sick and she’s in the hospital.” He had seen her over Christmas and knew she was sick. I didn’t know how to tell him. We went down to the Field Museum as we had promised him, he’s all about Dinosaurs right now, and for a while, I half forgot.

Watching Tony Jr. go through the animals and look at all the exhibits in awe it took me back to when I was a kid, curious about the world, amazed at all the things out there beyond my window I had never seen.

When we got to the primate section of the exhibit. Jr. saw a humanoid skeleton and looked at it, tilted his head and said, “Daddy, when did that person die?”

“A long time ago,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

Jenn had gone to use the restroom and returned to find Jr. pointing to all the skeletons in the Field Museum. “And that one died. And that one died. And that one, a whale, died.” I was frozen. I had no idea how to tell him.

When I was little, one of my grandfathers passed away. He wasn’t a very nice man, but it was the first person I knew who had died. I woke up in the middle of the night crying and my mom came in to check on me. I was in the third grade. She asked me what was wrong and I said I missed him. She looked at me and said calmly, “Just because a person has died doesn’t mean you have to forget what they were like in life.” I didn’t have another nightmare about that.

Growing up I was in many fights.  I was sort of an anti-bully. I didn’t back down from anyone and usually I was in hot water at school for beating up the bully. 

Once a kid threw a rock at me, hit me in the shoulder and started running away laughing. I picked up the rock and threw it back at him as he was running and laughing. The school wanted to expel me from the third grade, I guess. The kid’s head was bleeding pretty badly.

My Mom was livid. To her, they were just mad because I had a better arm and better aim.  And to punish me for that and not do anything to the other kid who threw a rock unprovoked would not stand. We both ended up being suspended for a few days.  She didn’t try to get me off the hook, but didn’t think the other kid should have either.

Of all the fights I finished as a kid, the only one that really got me in trouble with Mom was the only one I started.  I believe she brought a paddle into the school herself for that one.

Mom was a force of nature. If she felt something was wrong, it didn’t matter who it was she would fight it. If someone was wronged she would take them in and help them. She had a way of taking over a room and letting everyone know her thoughts on a subject without needing to speak. When she did speak, she didn’t mince words. I am in many ways my mom’s son

Mom was tough, she was stubborn, she was fierce, she was loyal, she fought for what she believed in and could very easily stomp over anyone not strong enough to handle her. She had an extraordinarily tough exterior.  She wasn’t passive aggressive, there was little passive about her.  She was intimidating at times to those who didn’t know her. But under the exterior she was filled with love. She was simultaneously the toughest and most giving person I’ve ever met.

When she was about to lose her house, she worked furiously to fix it up and find a buyer.  When we didn’t have enough food, she’d skip a meal. When the doctors had given up on her she made them work harder and she fought far longer than they had given her.

The only two times I ever heard fear in her voice was when she had no one but herself to fight for.  She made it through the first one. Add a comment

Away From Mamet

Tonys Blog

Written by Tony Adams Wednesday, 10 February 2010 21:40

99seats writes on Mamet beginning with an oft quoted passage from Race:

Mr. JAMES SPADER (Actor): (As Jack Lawson) There is nothing, a white person can say to a black person about race, which is not both incorrect and offensive. No. I know that. Race is the most incendiary topic in our history. And the moment it comes out, you cannot close the lid on that box. That may change, but not for a long, long while.

Mamet likes simple dichotomies. Rarely, for all of his verbal prowess, does he capture a world of any complexity. It is all or nothing. He is a shell of a formerly great writer, still able to turn a clever phrase, not willing to reach for greatness. He'd have to try, rather than phoning it in with an accompanying marketing piece in the New York Times.

In my humble opinion--as soon as you exclude people from a conversation solely because of how they look or where they were born, or their level of education, or their income, you immediately stop any chance of true progress.

Difficult conversations cannot be had in a vacuum--there has to be openness for it to go both ways, or progress cannot happen. That's true in every part of the world.

I can't ever say what it is like to be a black man; however, I do know very well what it is like to be an outsider in a foreign country and think "are they treating me this way because I'm American?"

Or to be the only white person in a neighborhood deeply mistrustful of whites and think "Are they treating me this way because I'm white?"

Or to be the only one whose native language is English and think "Are they treating me this way because I don't speak their language?"

I can't ever say what it is like to be a black man; however, there are common experiences that can be grasped across color lines.

I also grew up around some very outwardly racist people. My father was just about as racist as you can be, and I knew people that I'm pretty sure are/were in white supremacist groups.

But, I also know that most of the people I knew were not racist. Or they changed their views once they actually met someone who was different than them. “White people” may not be able to grasp the “Black Experience”; but just as there is no one black experience, there is no one white people.

I am not ignorant enough to think we are in a post-racial anything. But if no one is willing to find common ground, progress is near impossible. If folks are too busy waiting for the other person to reach out a hand to shake, progress is near impossible.

Most of us are in the same boat. The systems of inequality are not tied to color. We are told that the white majority oppresses the black minority. But the dominant power structure includes some blacks, and excludes many whites.

Five minutes listening to Eastern European immigrants or poor white kids in a trailer park would make that pretty clear. There are a lot more similarities between people than differences.

We all have different connections to the swirl of chaos and pain that is life. Most Americans have felt loss, have felt like an outsider, have been hurt and have felt anger and frustration at a system that is unfairly rigged so that a very few have benefited from the many. There is common ground that can be built on - if we look for it.

Without many different voices being willing and able to listen; to talk; to make mistakes; to learn, progress is near impossible.

The true legacy of slavery is that it enveloped everyone. There were black slave owners and white abolitionists wearing cotton clothes made with slave labor. Ships built from wood that was cut by men just trying to make their way, and put together by shipbuilders just trying to feed their families, carried slaves captured by chiefs of rival groups in Africa through the middle passage.

The triangle of trade was globalism in its earliest, most morally bankrupt phase and it left a stain on everyone. It would be nearly impossible to escape the system. It was far from being as simple a dichotomy as we are usually told.

We live in a complex, nebulous fabric woven from interconnectedness and perceived oppositions. And yet Mamet's world, and how a rag he sneezed in would be picked up by theatres around the country, is an apt metaphor for many of the conversations we have amongst bloggers and with audiences, and for much of what is thrown up on our stages. We avoid complexity, instead relaxing into repeating the arguments we know well. Lashing out at others we don't understand and all claiming the high moral ground.

Race is the most incendiary topic I know of in America. It is not as simple as black or white. There is an entire range of humanity fumbling for connection. And our theatre and many of our artists seem to be incapable of fumbling towards a conversation.

I know what it is like to feel lost in a sea of corn, alone and isolated, when no one around seems like you. I know what it is like to feel lost in a sea of faces, alone and isolated, when no one around knows you. Everyone I know has felt that. Love and Loss, Loneliness and Fulfillment, Isolation and Connection are the great dichotomies of humanity.

And yet while we can speak in great rhetoric of how art can expose the human condition, do any of us know what the human condition means? We speak of how great artists have the ability to bare the nakedness of our souls, but do we examine ourselves enough to know what we contain?

I have said before that a healthy theatre should be a gathering place, like the town-squares of old; one that provokes and entertains, wounds and heals, challenges and affirms. We need to open the closed-loop of theatre folk primarily/solely doing theatre for other theatre folk. The image of the lone artist needs to give way to the image of an artist communicating with his/her community. If theatre can truly peer into our collective consciousness, our nightmares and ecstasies, the tragic and comic—it must be done collectively.

Jenn, though not Jewish, used to work at a synagogue that every year has a fantastic children's gospel choir sing for MLK day. When I first heard of it I scoffed. The notion of a temple having an MLK day celebration seemed to be exactly the trivial sort of gesture most of my black friends cringe at. “One day a year is better than none, but really?”

But then the Rabbi told me why they do it, to celebrate the speech Dr. King gave at the temple when he was in Chicago. I had no idea this had happened and had never seen or heard anything about it.

I can't find the text, I'll see if I can get a copy from the Rabbi. There is a phrase in the speech he gave that, for me, towers over the rest of his formidable legacy. He began by saying there is a great deal of anti-antisemitism in the black community he knew, and that it is wrong, for: “anti-antisemitism is not anti-Jew, it is anti-human and anti-God.”

We are all human, and yet if we allow a Mametian worldview-- overtly simplistic, provoking for a mere punchline, cruelty without the possibility of redemption, shame without the possibility for honor, with clever turns of phrase disguising mere caricatures and an unwillingness to challenge our own assumptions-- to pervade our stages and online communication, we rob ourselves of the richness that makes our stories, our theatre, and our communication remarkable.
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Following Up With Some Clarifications

Tonys Blog

Written by Tony Adams Monday, 08 February 2010 21:13

I wanted to follow up on the last post to clarify a few things that may not be clear, lest y'all think I'm shooting 100 proof bitch-slapping-haterade with a redbull back.

A few folks have cautioned that I should shut up and back off for fear of retribution.  Many have agreed with what I've written, some disagree, and a few want to pile on. Negatives always get more play than positives. This doesn't mute my criticisms, but I want to clarify that disagreeing with a piece of writing doesn't mean I'm trying to vilify someone.

I should have noted that the posts on The Theatre Loop only go back two years, and The Tribune Archives are more accurate than the categories on the sidebar. To make the case that Jones has never stepped foot in a small theatre, which I have heard, is not true. He has for years with New City and The Tribune. And it's easy to forget that. And if Chris is reading, I want to apologize for not making that more clear. Whether he should more often is debatable. I probably feel differently than the executives at The Trib.

I know a lot of people compare Jones to Richard Christiansen. It is unfair. The city is vastly different and the scene is much, much larger than it was then. I have been here for ten years, and it is much larger even than when I got here.  I don't know, at times it must feel like being Steve Young. No matter what he did, he would never be Joe Montana. Often folks forget both Montana and Young are in the Hall of Fame.

I have never said the Tribune shouldn't cover Broadway, or BIC. What I have argued for is more balance between stories about shows there and stories about local houses. Some folks agree, some disagree. I actually think Broadway in Chicago is good for the City.  I think that we get into trouble though when it it favored over all but the two largest non-profit theatres in town. Broadway in Chicago is a good thing, it towering over everything else is not.

And lest it be interpreted that Jones was responsible for the recent troubles of The House or Congo Square, that is not accurate either. The push to become a major institution before they have the organizational capacity to sustain it is what hurts companies like them. And Jones was not alone in that push. In the case of Congo Square, they never got their feet under them and they grew in a way that was not sustainable. 

In the case of the House, I don't hate the House. I don't think the shows I've seen are as well written or acted as they are hyped up to be, but many have been so much fun that it negates those concerns for many people.  I have criticized some of the things they have done, and some of their less than stellar shows; but the energy they are able to generate in their work is actually pretty incredible. I think if the scripts/stories they tell catch up with their ability to tell them it will be a pretty incredible thing to see.

I don't dislike Chris Jones. I've only spoken with him a couple of times, but he seems like good people. I don't think he's a hack. When he is on, I think he is as good as anyone in the country, if not the best. I truly believe that. One of my favorite pieces of writing on theatre I've ever read was one of his. It's pretty extraordinary. 

I just want to be clear I'm not attacking him as a person. I still completely disagree with a lot of his writing. Add a comment

Doubly Invisible

Tonys Blog

Written by Tony Adams Friday, 05 February 2010 22:56

Chris Jones has a post up about the many African-Americans prominently featured on stage right now for Black History Month. "As many of Chicago's black theater professionals wryly observe, theater in this city would much better reflect the makeup of the people who live here if only our arts leaders carried over this kind of programming commitment to the other 11 months of the year."

But it's also a fairly problematic post, beginning with: "In the last week or so, I've seen four different Actors' Equity-affiliated Chicago shows with almost exclusively African-American casts. Demonstrably, it's February."

He also says "they reveal the remarkable depth of the card-carrying African-American acting pool in Chicago." According to AEA's 08-09 Annual Report, 86% of card holders are white. Not only are black artists shut out of most of those institutions Chris writes about in his post most of the year, the emphasis on an Equity Card for validation further pushes many extraordinary artists into the margins.

I left a comment, but as I've said, my comments only make it through on The Theatre Loop if I use a fake name so I'll be surprised if anyone sees it.

my comment follows:

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I know this comment probably won't make it through, as most of mine don't, so no sense mincing words. 

I so want to agree with this post, but the push to be Major Equity Institutions before they've had a chance to get their feet under them is what breaks many companies like Congo Square. 

As Adam Thurman commented on the last post on Congo Square, there are big questions to be considered. The push to institutionalize without the organizational capacity to sustain it, without the support  to do so,  prevents that from happening.  Chris, don't get me wrong, I don't think hurting the growth of any company is your intention,  but I think that push has hurt the long-term growth of The House as well.

A quick look at the posts by category on the side says:
Broadway in Chicago-170
Broadway-115
Steppenwolf-100
Goodman Theatre-89
Court Theatre-22
Black Ensemble-11
Congo Square-10
Silk Road-5
Teatro Vista-2
16th Street Theatre-1
Teatro Luna-0
Rasaka-0
MMPACT-0
ETA-0
Urban Theatre Company-0
Albany Park Theatre Project-0
Free Street-0

There are many more multi-cultural/inclusive companies and culturally specific companies at zero as well. I hope this won't be written off as sour grapes because I run a small non-equity company. I know that Kerry and Nina review a lot of those companies and do a very good job at that. But one would never know that from looking at the Tribune's website.

285 posts on Broadway or Broadway-in-Chicago. 10 on Congo Square, 2 on Teatro Vista. There are many, many who need to step up. Pronto.

It saddens me that you think this is how the system is supposed to work. It saddens me that the Trib doesn't cover most of those companies mentioned in the comment above.  It saddens me that your response to OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE was to write everyone off as whiners. It saddens me that every time you favor a work tied to New York, try to push a work to New York, or review through the lens of “Will it be a hit?” or “Can it play in New York?” it further isolates theatres that look like Chicago.

It is a sad slate. We as a city are the poorer for the companies that are largely ignored.

Tony Adams
Artistic Director
Halcyon Theatre

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Thoughts?
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Reader Review of the Fest

Tonys Blog

Written by Tony Adams Thursday, 04 February 2010 16:25

I've been remiss in not posting this review already. 

Highlights from the review are:

• (Manual for a Desperate Crossing) " . . . To describe the difficult journey, Fornes transforms the everyday speech of the refugees into surprisingly poetic, incantatory choral passages. Marooned on a small platform in the center of a blank stage, the cast of seven in Coya Paz's staging present a moving picture of human dignity amid suffering.
• The festival's highlight is What of the Night? (1989), a collection of four masterful one-acts that chart the coarsening effect of greed and dog-eat-dogism on an American family over several decades. Progressing from Depression-era poverty to postwar plenty to postapocalyptic economic collapse, Fornes uses increasingly grotesque and unreal scenes to show how constant scrapping, scrounging, and selling deform and dehumanize. By the end the characters are fighting over scraps of meat like animals. Margo Gray's grimy, savagely acted production is pitch-perfect and harrowing."

Check out the full review when you can. It's pretty incredible The Reader made it out for whole fest for the second year in a row. Even more so that Zac Thompson took in the entire Festival in one weekend. (Last year it was split up among three critics)

I think they're pretty accurate on how the opening week went. I think Letters has gelled a little more since opening, which is good. The first week was a bit rocky for that one.

I'd quibble about Gossensass being inert; but as I told Zac over on the twitter, coming the day after Sarita and the same day as What of the Night, I can totally see that. I think Gossensass is the one that our audiences will respond completely differently to than industry folks, it's definitely a different side of Fornes from what most folks know. (It's really really fun.)

I realized afterwards this makes nine shows Zac's reviewed of ours in the past calendar year, including both the successful and not as successful ones. Which is pretty damned neat, I think. As he said, he's probably seen more of our work than anyone outside the company.

What do y'all think? Add a comment