The epic proportions of EverydayAfroplay—its variegated forms,
from the empty stage to the edge of the cosmos; its vast array of
characters, from foppish beekeepers to singing cellos; the
expansiveness of its central consideration, blackness and the black
body right here and now—bring with it a series of inherent
challenges when translating the work into performance. It is likely
that you will want to pare down from the seventy odd plays that
comprise Everyday Afroplay,
which triggers subsequent questions about focus and perspective,
intent, duration, space, logistics, and structure. The difficulty of
winnowing the body of work is amplified by the method of production
Daaimah Mubashshir has so far employed: to enlist
a sizable cohort of collaborators. With numerous directors to
identify and divvy up the material amongst themselves, selecting a
set of pieces and defining a framework—if there is to be any—become
longer but more vital processes.
For
the performance of Everyday Afroplay
as part of the Bushwick Starr Reading Series, these challenges were
navigated with simple, organic solutions. Without deciding on any
sort of structure beforehand, the directors ranked a personal
selection of pieces—with overlapping choices allotted by strength
of interest. Once the list of plays was decided upon, the pieces were
arranged to create a dynamic flow, alternating the plays by length,
form, and director, though some pieces, like #36 and #37, were
bundled in order to create a unified image or narrative. Everyday
Afroplay #30 was broken into
three chunks, two smaller sections and a lengthier conclusion, and
disbursed throughout the production as a sort of refrain.
Along with that
repetition that grounds us in a contemporary discussion of the ideas
at hand, a cellist, Lester St. Louis, was given leeway to respond
during, before, between, and after each play or coupled plays, with a
few predetermined exceptions. What manifested was a coherent,
real-time response, a flow of accents, themes, variations and
counterpoint—uncovering hidden connections, underscoring or
contrasting moments of drama and comedy, and lending the work the
natural unity of the solo artist. More than anything, his playing
provided the movement from piece to piece and the context through
which we could view each part or the entire affair; it was the artist
sitting down with his muse.
The
process for assembling the text to be used in the upcoming
performance of Everyday Afroplay
started with a similar strategy then diverged significantly into new
territory.
A
large team of directors once again individually assembled lists of
plays that interested them. Anticipating a desire to fit the pieces
together under some theme, structure, or idea, the directors arrived
to the pertinent meeting with extensive lists, designed by both
interest and flexibility in mind. It was immediately clear that the
selections could not be entirely fixed until some through-line or
structure—often called the axis—had been decided upon, though a
general consensus developed around a few of the individual plays
quickly through mutual or acute curiosity. Ideally, this axis would
also determine, or strongly suggest, the order, whether pieces would
be linked, whether they might be repeated, in a series or sprinkled
throughout the evening, or whether they might happen simultaneously.
The
first strong impulse was to frame the production as a singular event,
a carnival or circus-type big top that could encompass a wide breadth
of Everday Afroplay selections.
At the center of this event would be a kind of master of ceremonies—a
role played perhaps by Daaimah herself. From this initial thrust, the
playwright stitched together a first working draft. Whereas the first
presentation of Everyday Afroplay
included no additional production specific text, Daaimah this time
created an entire web of interstitial material, a narrative of
forgotten priorities and lost sustainability but tempered by
unexpected expansiveness and a sifting of history and knowledge for
dual treasures: what has been lost and what might be gained.
These
ideas played out across several dramatic strands, including a set of
back up dancers contending with a young protagonist over the glories
of cotton candy, the upheaval of an entire social ecosystem, and
Egungun squeezing through the clamor of it all to dismantle the whole
affair. In the course of furious drafting and redrafting, these
various ideas were distilled into a single convention, a contention
between two characters, Naj and Dandy, over what is true and valuable
about being human and living black. This development reinforced an
already stated curiosity about the dark skinned intellectuals of #14,
who were slowly subsumed into the Naj and Dandy characters. Their
endless searching atop a mound of books served as a visual
manifestation for that accruing and scrutinizing of history and
philosophy that appeared as a common link for the various pieces. A
world filled with books, additionally, became an obvious and
convenient location in which the afroplays might reside, accessed by
the survival-driven and perfectly human curiosity evidenced by Naj.
In place of Lester's sonic commentary, this searching, missteps and
all, becomes the focal point through which each piece is channeled
and the current that makes them each flow.
The
exact order of the plays has changed frequently (and could still
change again) in pursuit of rhythmic dynamism, staging needs,
thematic cohesion and development, intuition, the natural chaos of a
large scale collaborative undertaking, or any number of different
reasons. However, like the previous production, this text is
structured to alternate styles clearly from piece to piece and
features repetitions that remind us clearly what is at hand, but in a
visceral redirection, what was an incantation has been substituted
with the matter at hand, the black body itself, dancing a formless
dance. (#31).
