I have not been making a lot of visual art these days. Not sure why. I have suffered shut downs before and I know I always return. I made an interesting small watercolor/charcoal piece the other day but it is not worth posting, But it has some good parts to it. I keep reminding myself that sometimes in the summer my creative energy seems to be directed elsewhere and to be patient.
But I wanted to use my blog to talk about art that is impacting me. Two weekends ago my husband and I saw Bedlam’s production of Tony Kushner’s Masterpiece “Angels in America”. The thing about Tony Kushner’s script is that it touches upon big issues of humanity, capitalism and religion. The script is every bit as relevant today as it was when Aids was dominating the news. And in a post-Trump, covid world the messages in the play seem even more significant than ever. Bedlam, whose artistic director Eric Tucker, is known for doing a lot with very little, managed to pull off this epic play with a small cast and minimal set. And one thing I love about such productions is that one is not distracted by the bells and whistles and lights and costumes but can really focus on the language and what is being said. And although I missed Russel Tovey (he played the mormon in the NT production we saw several years ago and I adore him) I felt like everyone in the cast was strong and did a great job.
Yesterday we saw “How to Blow up a Pipeline” based on the Andreas Malm book of the same name. The premise is a group of young people who are so despondent about the failure of anyone to address the climate and environmental crises decide to blow up some key oil infrastructure as a way of sending a message to world that something needs to be done. And having listened to Andreas Malm in a podcast this idea is perfectly rational given the number of lives that are at stake if we do nothing. The movie was thrilling and a fun 2 hour ride. But I found the “Disney-esque” casting of the young people very distracting and it resulted in me feeling a bit of distance between them and the real young people I know who are struggling with these issues today. Roy and I disagree on this one. He felt the casting was fine and probably a result who who came together to make the film. But for me when everyone looks like a model, or an ex-child star who is living a very privilaged existence it is hard to accept them for the complicated people they are representing. The one exception being the Native American Cast member. Still I think it is an important play for anyone thinking about the current state of our inaction around climate change. What are we morally responsible for? If by inaction many die then doesn’t that make us complicit.
The other review is the book “Enter Ghost” by Isabella Hammad. As an American Jew with parents who were immersed in the conservative movement in Judaism I had my share of Zionistic propaganda thrown at me in my childhood. I grew up attending Hebrew school and being fed a diet of romanticized images of Kibbutz and Israeli life. I am not sure why it made me uncomfortable. I was just a child with little knowledge of life beyond my own privilaged upbringing. I suppose in a weird way I was more drawn to the colorful diversity of Sesame Street and the deep green rainy world of England and the vibrant exoticness of India than I was to a land that seemed to my child like eyes unaesthetic and very dry and brown. As an adult my knowledge of complexities behind Israel has always been very limited. I do remember questioning right wing Israeli politics and settlements in college. Even as a young Jew in college who was hanging out at Hillel I found the demonization of Arabs and the assumption that the Israeli Jews were superior to be abhorrent. I have tried to educate myself and I often end up thinking there are no heroes and plenty of guilt on both sides. I find myself asking “Why and How did this happen?” I realize in a post WWII world decisions were made in reaction to horrors but struggle to understand why those making these decisions did not see the problems they would create. “Enter Ghost” takes place in the West Bank among a group of Arabs who want to put on an Arabic Hamlet. The main character is a 35 year old London Actress named Sonia who is returning to visit her sister in her parents ancestral land. Sonia at 35 is confronting being a childless middle aged divorcee and no longer a young woman. She arrives in the west bank as a European but with a family who has a history and relationship to the crises that she herself must confront. And Isabella Hammad delivers a compelling story about Sonia’s journey using Hamlet as a backdrop for her to confront all these issues while also educating readers about what life is like for educated Arabs living in the West Bank, including the theater of propaganda that gets sent out into the rest of the world from the region. I am so glad I read this book because in addition to giving me some interesting insights into Shakespeare due to the Shakespeare being translated first into Arabic and then back into English, it educated me about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the struggles of those who are living with it every day.
Now the question is 3 works of art that all deal with issues I am passionate about: Capitalism and the problems it creates; how we ignore those who we deem as other and allow them to suffer; The failure of religion to provide any true moral guidance and minimize suffering; And the persistence of Angels and Art and Spirit despite all the horrors in the world. So what is next for me? I need to find a way to express this on paper? HELP….Well stay tuned.