punishment

Last night D and I went to see this play I had read about. It was an adaptation of Kafka's In the Penal Colony by this young black woman. Adaptation is a stretch; she borrowed the basic premise, and migrated it to an "investigation" of blackness, representation, and performance. I'd read this interview with her where she talked about loving German philosophy and stuff, so I thought I'd go and find my intellectual soulmate I guess.

The play turned out to be incredibly bad; like, on every level terrible. It's not worth going into in detail, especially because D and I already did our bit about it when we met up with Zoe, J, and Natasha after. But it was really depressing. It was so basic and neither provided a compelling structural analysis of prisons nor a psychological, emotionally salient portrait of prisoners. It was like mostly just watching some guys jump around. And then there was this whole monologue at the end where one of the guys said a bunch of stuff about punishment and consumption etc. It was your usual "black bodies black bodies" schtick.

In the NYTimes review of it, they said that it was one of a number of plays in the last year that were offering a racially-charged "theater of discomfort"–the others being Fairview and Slave Play. I got really interested in this tidbit; because the play did feel like some bad Brecht-take. It all got me thinking about projection and alienation; so much of this work relies on the playwright's imagination of their audience. Like identifying white people and working from some imagined concept of what will make them uncomfortable. The big trick is that white people don't feel uncomfortable consuming blackness; it's kind of business as usual. Making a whole play that tries to pin them under that is silly. It's not an intervention, it's just entering into the existing flow of events.

But this bad Brecht thing, it's very compelling. I like the energy, but it's not being done intelligently.  I wonder if these writers have read Jean Genet's The Blacks: A Clown Show. I have it at home and haven't read it still, but in reading about it, it kind of feels like impossible to beat. I think something key to it's success is that it flips race relations around, not in this Fairview way, like "now YOU'RE on display, white man!" It does that but it adds others layers of confusion and race-play such that one is more successfully alienated–not just uncomfortable momentarily, but alienated from one's general and actual position. Genet's prefatory note from the show:

"This play, written, I repeat, by a white man, is intended for a white audience, but if, which is unlikely, it is ever performed before a black audience, then a white person, male or female, should be invited every evening. The organizer of the show should welcome him formally, dress him in ceremonial costume and lead him to his seat, preferably in the first row of the orchestra. The actors will play for him. A spotlight should be focused upon this symbolic white throughout the performance. But what if no white person accepted? Then let white masks be distributed to the black spectators as they enter the theater. And if the blacks refuse the masks, then let a dummy be used."

Seems so fun to me!

Anyway, D and I got a drink at KGB after the show; everyone there was loud, old and drunk. We left and met up with Zoe and J at Clandy. I ran into B and was really worried that I wasn't pleasant enough to him, but he was on a date I think so like what sort of stop and chat would be had? I want to be friends though. Maybe I'll text him. We sat outside and had a drink and it was nice. Then we went to the radio station across the street for this party; the party was curiously boring. I don't know why, but it was just so whatever. Ran into T there, who I think we've all decided sort of sucks. Sometimes he is nice, but he really wants to be such a Cool Guy and who has time for that. I think I still like him because of that time he came to LA and was pleasant; I think because he wasn't on his own turf, he was more humble and willing to play ball. It seems so unfun to be one of these Cool Guys, god.

We left and went to Bacaro, which was far more pleasant. The four of us sat and had a drink. Zoe and J were really cute. Zoe, I am abstaining from telling you this more directly because I sort of doubt it makes that much of a difference to you, but I thought he was really lovely and I'm glad you brought him along. Natasha met us there and Zoe and J left and then we went back to the party which was even MORE boring this time. We saw Dean, though, which is really always a pleasure.

We went back to Clandestino, where Natasha and D struck up a conversation with a table of handsome Europeans who were talking about love at first sight. We all chatted about this; most of the conversation was about this one guy in the group, H, who was English and I guess was saying he wouldn't dance floor make out with a guy? Or he would? It seemed confusing, whatever they were saying. Natasha and H really hit it off and everyone got booted out of the conversation; it turned out, of course, that he knew our friend C and her sister G. Our world is never going to get any bigger, I swear.

D and I left strategically and, as we did, H asked for Natasha's number. We were overly thrilled–generally thrilled for her, but also I think we both miss the psychological drama of trying to sleep with someone so it's fun to play a role in someone else's quest. And I think we are both proud of our collaborative wingmanning skills.

Somehow, in the process of all of this, we'd both become incredibly drunk. So I vomited and whined a lot about feeling awful, and finally went to sleep.