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Representation and Resistance Through the Arts
Mark Cryer, Theatre Dept.
This year the Southern Accents program, chaired by Lydia Hamessley and brought to Hamilton by the Kirkland Project, will showcase works of artists whose art has been influenced politically and artistically by the south. I don't believe this is meant to be a "be-all" to "end-all," but a very nice beginning to a useful dialogue so that we can begin to explore the real and diverse artistic diaspora of the south.
This discussion about influences and arts and politics is as old as art and politics. What is the purpose of art? Should art educate, inform, organize, influence, incite to action or simply be an object of pleasure. Aristophanes thought the artist should not only offer pleasure, but should be the teacher of morality. (Arrenstenes) contradicted him saying that the function of the artist is to charm the spirits of the listeners, never to instruct them. Plato took an even more right wing position when he stated that all artists should be expelled from the perfect republic. I have encountered a few critics who felt the same way about me and my work.
As an African-American artist my work and the work of other artists of color have been influenced both politically and artistically by the south. Throughout the struggles and maturation in African-American history the line between the arts and politics have mirrored each other and the southern influence cannot be overstated. Read the "Drama of King Shotaway" and you will learn the story of a mis-placed people struggling to find their way through the politics of a post-civil war America. The southern influence is felt most keenly in African-American music as Ragtime came of age, and the Blues were gaining their own voice, nourished from its southern roots. It can be found in the poetry of the Black renaissance and leading up to the civil rights movement and African-American quest for the American dream in the works of poet Langston Hughes who asked, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and run?" It can be found right here in the photo montages of Romare Beardon, in which the viewer is compelled to see the fractured faces within invisible Americans. It can be found in the works of Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson, through the dreams and struggles of his characters with almost exclusive ties and themes to the south.
My work too as an artist has strong roots in the south and is strongly based in representation and resistance and in many ways has mirrored the social and political climate of this country. My work ethic comes directly from my foster mother and father who were from North and South Carolina respectively. They were what we call today, "old school," with old southern values which they instilled in us kids. Their spirituality became mine and I was taught that if you had a talent, you had to use or lose it. So I act because I can; it's liberating to portray an absolute butt-munch on stage and then, once offstage, return to a loveable chocolate bear that I am. I write, however, because I must. I have something to say. For me, my work as a playwright is both a creative and positive reaction to the current social and political institutions I encounter. For me, the personal is political. As an artist, as an African-American male and at times a matter of survival I've had to learn that seeing is believing, but the beliefs don't have to be valid or commonly shared. Example: The twelve members of the Simi Valley jury that saw the video taped beating of Rodney King and then concluded that he, not the police, "was in control from start to finish"; they were led to believe the opposite of what most viewers of the video tape saw. Now yes the defense attorneys benefited from hundreds of novels/movies and TV shows depicting the police as protectors against violent criminals, as I believe most are……..just not in this particular case. They also benefited from oral as well as written stories portraying Blacks as violent and criminal. As an artist I understand that narratives and images govern seeing, if this works in the negative, it most certainly works in the positive. Which is why I wrote "Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear" in response to the Rodney King beating. At first read the producers weren't keen on the ending because the young Kamante is beaten to death by the police and the entire north side of the city erupts in violence. They asked "where was the hope?" I explained that the hope was in the resistance, that those who felt abandoned by a system would lash out at whatever was nearest, even if that was there own neighborhood. We were six weeks from going into rehearsal when the verdict came out and the riots began. I never heard another word from a single producer who did my play. The southern influence in that play were most evident with the male patriarch named VC, the owner of the barbershop where the play takes place who I based off my father. His diet was southern, collard greens and fish rolled in corn meal and fried in lard. His language such as, "That's the problem with the Negro today, give em a pot to piss and he want a window to throw it out of." All spoke to VC's southern roots. The critics called it as taught as a muscle, as powerful as a gunshot. For me it was my way of representing and resisting through my art. Who can tell my narrative better than I? Create the images if I don't? And should I choose not to, do I then lose the right to stand in protest if I disagree? My parents would argue yes. If I can, then I should.
I will share with you a rather personal story which prompted me to write my last play "No Other People"; it wasn't because I had too much time on my hands! With the exception of that show, I focused exclusively on my students and teaching them what I could about the craft of acting and some days it was all I could handle. It was an incident at what will be an un-named local grocery store which prompted me to write and perform that play. I had gone in to purchase my weekly groceries which I am sure consisted of a six pack of soda, a bag of Bugles, coffee and a loaf of bread. (My wife wasn't with me last year.) The grand total was $11.74, and yet the cashier looked at the signature on my debit card as if I had purchased a Lexus. I endured this micro-aggression as I do so many keeping my dignity in tact. Not more than thirty feet from the front door I realized that I had forgotten half n half and my ice cream. Back in I went; not more than two minutes had passed I assure you. The total this time, $4.14, the same cashier, the same result and examination of my signature which would have made the FBI cringe. As I left the store, a little worse for wear, from the back of the parking lot of the local video store I heard the screams of the high schoolers who frequent that corner of the parking lot yelling "Mandingo Nigger"! Either incident by itself would not have pushed me to action; combined, I realized I had to do something. That something became "No Other People," a play that covered three hundred years of Black history. I asked the management of the un-named grocery store to put a few posters in the window and to be sure to let the rest of their staff know that there was going to be a play about Black history with real live Black people, in living color, pun intended. I made several attempts to involve the local high schools, even going so far as to reserve an entire performance for their student body. That they unable to attend doesn't lessen the impact it had on those who saw the show or those who performed in it. Nor did it alter my very personal resistance and representation through my art. This is a powerful program contained in Southern Accents this year and you will see and hear stories from various artists who have answered the call to resist and represent through their own art, with their own southern roots and in their own way. What is the purpose of art? To lay bare the answers hidden by the questions.
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