An
Evening of Drama Cloaked in Sept. 11
By DON SHIRLEY, Times Theater Writer
"A
wave of despondency fell on artists" after the events of Sept. 11,
said Felix Pire, a writer, actor and director. "A lot of them
just wanted to vent their pent-up emotions. It created a reason to
create art instantly."
Art can't be as instant as TV coverage,
of course. But now, after more than three months, plays in direct
response to Sept. 11 are beginning to emerge. An evening of readings
at Beyond Baroque in Venice on Thursday, directed by Pire, was devoted
to that subject.
"The New Millennium Project: Responses
to September 11, 2001" was presented by Levantine
Cultural Center, a fledgling organization that is trying to create
a place where musicians, dancers, poets, filmmakers and other artists
will specifically address Middle Eastern subjects. Part of the group's
mission is to create a spirit of coexistence among the region's often
clashing ethnicities.
However, the play reading also had roots
in other organizations. It began with meetings at the Music Center
Annex under the auspices of the Mark Taper Forum. And it was inspired
by the New York-based Artists Network, which was spearheaded by Tony
Kushner--the playwright whose own "Homebody/Kabul," set in Afghanistan
in 1998, opened this week in New York.
Pire, a Cuban American who is best known
to the L.A. theater community as the solo actor in Guillermo Reyes'
"Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown," not only directed the
readings but also was one of the primary actors in them.
The intense media coverage of the terrorist
attacks and their aftermath didn't give any of the playwrights second
thoughts about whether they had anything fresh to contribute, Pire
said. "A lot of the work is in response to the media. The media is
almost another character."
 The
name "New Millennium" arose from Pire's belief that "Sept. 11 is the
mark of the new millennium. Dark as it may be, this really is the
new age."
A few of the writers directly addressed the events at the World Trade
Center. Shahid Nadeem, a Pakistani playwright and director
who has been working recently in L.A., wrote "Trapped," about two
men who are caught on the 23rd floor of one of the towers, unable
to move. One of the men, who has a Middle Eastern name, borrows the
other's cell phone to call his wife and uses up the battery in the
process. As the scene ended Thursday, rescue still wasn't assured.
In "Twin Telepathy," Nzingha Clarke wrote about a woman who
sees her twin sister in live footage from the World Trade Center.
Padraic Duffy's "Shake a Tree to Shake a Tree" was a much more
oblique look at an office worker who is inferred to be in one of the
Twin Towers, while his wife works in the other.
Other writers' works were set in the
aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
Al Austin's "Muslim" takes place
in an L.A. health club, where one of the weightlifters wears a T-shirt
that says "Muslim," to the consternation of the man who's spotting
him as he works out. A Florida shopping mall, shortly after the attacks,
is the setting for Marc Ostrick's "The Scene," involving a
Jewish mother, her adult son and a fellow shopper who's a Sikh. David
Lewison's "Peace" is a monologue set at least a decade in the
future, when all cities have been either destroyed or simply dispersed
so as to break up possible targets.
Another group of writers addressed Middle
Eastern subjects in general, without particular references to Sept.
11.
Joshua Zide's "On Borders" depicts
an Iraqi Jew who is stopped at the Tel Aviv airport. Barbara Genovese's
"Toy Soldiers" is about a 10-year-old boy who's drafted into military
duty. Two pieces by Heather Raffoare about Iraqi women, the Persian
Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions against Iraq.
Although visual design was bare-bones
throughout most of the evening, "Chador," the opening monologue by
Gita Khashabi, featured Shida Pegahi wearing a chador
woven from small American flags.
Comic relief was provided by Lory
Tatoulian's appearance as an Armenian American "coffee cup fortuneteller"
who works at Zankou Chicken.
Pire said he doubts many of the pieces
will be further developed, but he hopes to put together another evening
of similar material.
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles
Times |
