Speaking on Our Thoughts...

SPOTLIGHT: MAYBAIL

the character Maybail is an amalgamation of several women of the movement, but also of history. she is both real and ethereal. exoteric and esoteric.

Exo:
in a very real sense, maybail is a maid. she cleans white folks houses in a suburb of Nashville, and catches the bus all over the city. her feet hurt. her arms ache. and still, she presses on. why? because she has no choice. she doesn't have a formal education. she goes to work, she goes to church, and she works hard to raise her children, particularly a son who she has to weaken ("it hurts me/ to teach my man-child/to cower/ i do it/ because i want him/ to /live") in order to keep him alive in a racist world. she represents a legion of day-workers who outwardly don't fight racism, but do their best, through their prayers and support of family, to keep the next generation nurtured through adulthood.

Eso:
it's the name. commonly misnomered "Maybelle" by some who hear it aloud, it is really spelled "Maybail." why? because she may bail at any time. using the common hip-hop colloquialism of "bailing" or "bailing out" (which means to leave at an instant), she represents the worker who could--at any given moment--turn on their employer and violate the "employer-employee code" in order to hand down justice. note the similarities between Maybail and Celie in "The Color Purple," during the scene where Celie receives joy out of the tiny retributive act of spitting in Mister's drink. sure, it didn't harm him. no one knew about it except her. yet, it was a tiny victory.

Maybail does not do this, but she has considered it, as have many black domestics dating back to slavery times. she is in a position of viewing the ultimate contradiction ('how can you/ spit on black people/ and practice/evil/ then find your way home/ and ask for some/ tea/ prepared by a/ black person/ like/ me?"). yet, she maintains her dignity ("i've got to treat you/ better/ than you/ treat/ me.") for the sake of the larger good. she represents the love of Christ.

note that you may have witnessed her being "nailed" to the crucifix of her position. penetrated with a dishrag, a broom, a crown-of-thorns-headrag, etc. these implements were handed down to blacks from whites, so that the blacks themselves could hand them to Maybail. such is often the case when we see figures like her--especially as we move up the ladder of "class." we can look down on people like Maybail without realizing that they have played their role also.

MUSIC

Maybail starts, with the rest of the cast, in the Spiritual tradition ("Oh Freedom"), representing the next leg of Afrikan music that influenced early America. but when she speaks, make no mistake, she IS The Blues. her whole monologue is one flowing Spoken-Word Poem. i write to jazz, blues, and gospel most of the time, and Maybail is very much a ripping tenor saxaphone wailing like Big Bill Broonzy on a steel-string guitar. Delali Potakey works the language to make it seamless (a credit more to her interpretational skills than anything else), but it is a poem written in blues meter. if you remove the physical words and listen to the rhythm and tone, you can hear the music. so, in Essence, she represents the longing of those in pain to express themselves in a productive way--which is what the blues is. a cathartic moan of reconciliation.

what did you feel when you watched Maybail? did you find some of what she said humorous? frightening? let's rap.

this is the first of a few deep revelations about the characters you will find making up the fiber of the Civil Rights play, "Ordinary Heroes." if you haven't seen the play yet, take these next few entries as an opportunity to explore the diverse cultural perspectives of one particular story that, hopefully, you can experience vicariously through this writing. if you've seen the play, these characters are familiar to you. i hope that after reading more about them, you will like-or dislike-them even more (i love it when everyone sees something different in a piece of theatre!).
so... to the task at hand. i promised some ladies at a big event yesterday that i would talk about some of the characters in detail, so here goes...

MULT-EYE

that big old TV dead center stage. yep, it's a TV. and it's a major part of the entire play, just as television itself was a major part of the Civil Rights Movement. many would say THE major part of the movement. the advent of the widespread availability and growth of the television was the factor that tipped the movement of nonviolence in the oppressed's favor. for the first time, people all over the nation and the world could turn on that box and witness for themselves the horrors that were taking place in the southern region of the "land of the free and the home of the brave." it was a huge embarrassment for America, one that grand architects like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend James Lawson took full advantage of.

the TV is called "Mult-Eye", Esoterically, a play on the current trend in "Multi-Media." i originally planned on using that big TV, in conjunction with giant radios and other projection methods, to weave this character even more into the story. there is a debate in theatre, especially as it pertains to young people, over whether or not the old "Narrative Linear" model of standard storytelling rules over the "Visual Associative" model, that incorporates the technology of the MTV generation. i personally stand in the middle. i think both work and both are necessary. because of space and other limitations, we went with basic projection this time around. it has gone over pretty well--i think--to tie the present to the past. we need to see some of the images we see on Mult-Eye.

SPACE

the opening monologue is a Spoken-Word poem. without a doubt. there are two things to keep in mind here now (and these are things i want to point out because, if executed well, you should not be thinking about them consciously, you should just be hearing words):

1. Star Trek. yep, it's an instant, blatant homage: "space/ our final/ frontier/ these are the voyages so/ dear/ of a people/ with enterprise/." Gene Roddenberry was a visionary in the field of race relations. for you Trekkies AND Trekkers (there is a slight difference of course), you know that he was one of the first to envision a future where race did not matter, where whites and blacks, russians and scots, purples and browns were able to get along with one another with one common purpose. so it's a nod to that concept. a nod that turns the corner, just as the images change from the ridges of planets and universes to the ridges on a slave's scarred back: "keep in mind/ i speak not of/ places/ in/ spaces/ where a spark/ causes a galaxy to/ begin/ i speak of spaces/ in /places/ where light/ and dark/ men/ can't /begin/ to be/ friends/." there's the duality of the moment we explore in the play--that new space called race in the America. the "Space" being the distance between us.

2. The Music and Rhythm. Mult-Eye begins with the "Space" monologue. the poem is written in the rhythmic meter of the Djun Djun. an African drum that calls us to the circle, it bops aloud and proud and speaks to the energy of the earth and creation, moving in time and meter to move the energy from the ground to the top of the head. when i write, i write to music (more on that when we get to "MayBail" tomorrow). most importantly, for this piece, it had to begin with an African tone. one, because we're talking about the discrimination of African people, yes. but MOST importantly, because of the contradition. we all came from Africa, the mother of civilization. how sad is it, then, that we have allowed some very human architects of the social construct of "Race" to divide us thusly, no more prevalent than in the United States of America?

Mult-Eye has its place. it's earned its place on that stage.

so, what do you think? here's your space to talk back. we gave school kids the chance and they responded well. tell me how you felt about Mult-Eye. helpful? intrusive? what about the images? see anything you haven't seen before?

i look forward to hearing from you and rapping about it all.

Tomorrow: The Secret of Maybail The Maid

Man,
"Ordinary Heroes" is becoming THE place to be in Nashville. we're now on to operation PACK THE FISK CHAPEL for the last two weekends of the play.

today i spoke at the CABLE luncheon. CABLE is a fabulous networking organization for professional women in Nashville and they were very gracious and responsive to the two scenes we did from the play.

Saturday night, two actors did a scene from the play at the packed NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet at the downtown Sheraton. it went over well also, so we're looking for a lot of people to come from that event.



and last week, we packed the house with kids grade 5-12, who responded well to the play. this is an exciting time, because some of the intiatives i've been planning for years are starting to bear fruit, and it really has been a blessed process.

so... one of the greatest things possible has happened--some people don't love the play. they like, but not love. they disagree with some of the structure, some of the language. and i LOVE it!! it means that you've put together a decent piece of work when people can have debate and discussion on things like theme, structure, timing, meaning, symbolism, and the like. if everyone left the theatre thinking the exact same thing, i would've failed HORRIBLY as a playwright.

so if you haven't seen the play, go see it, and let's rap about it. you know me--i love a good debate. and if you're around on this 'net thing for a minute, click on my NPR link to the left. "Ordinary Heroes" has a full 20-minute feature on News and Notes on February 12th. so set your time and alarms if the show airs in your market. if it doesn't, stop back here and click on the link to listen to the archived story. it's the scene in the play that i think capsulizes the contrasts in race and perspective.

beginning tomorrow, i'm going to attempt something that requires a new level of discipline: i'm going to blog on the characters in Ordinary Heroes. i'll rap about their exoteric AND esoteric meanings (yeah, some of ya'll didn't know that they aren't just historical, but metaphorical, characters). it ought to be fun and insightful.

at least, i hope it will be one or the other.

have a great one--watching "Lost" in a minute.

joc

hey all, hey ya'll
it's been too long, but i'm still here, still standing. day before yesterday marked the opening of "Ordinary Heroes," that landmark Civil Rights play i've been grappling with over the last couple of years. through all of the unique challenges that have arisen with this work, i must say--it has been worth the struggle. if you are anywhere near or around Nashville during the month of February, come and check it out. information is available at:

www.ordinaryheroesplay.com

so, let me share some great memories from the process... i'll probably pitch a fit later on about stuff, but that's the nature of a blog, huh? stress relief. in the meantime, in between time, i'm going to pretend that it's 2 a.m. at the world premiere of the play the other night, i ran into Evans Donnell from stagecritic.com. he reminded me that late night blogging is, arguably, the most honest. when you're that tired, that late at night, and you have something on your heart, you have nothing to do BUT be honest. i love it, so E.D., thanks for the reminder.

life has been full as of late. from roughly November, 2006 through this month, i had things scheduled back to back: "Sho' 'Nuff Nativity" in December, "God's Trombones" in January, and "Ordinary Heroes" in February. March is reserved for a much needed nervous breakdown. LOL. i really do need a vacation, though. i'm going to just drive somewhere and just chill. there are a million new and old ideas swimming around in my head and i want to get them out and into the fresh air before they erode my eyelids away during the few moments of REM sleep i do get.

GREAT MEMORIES:
1. having a stellar cast and meeting great people along the way.
2. performing again in the Fisk Memorial Chapel. what history!
3. seeing what came from inside my head go from the page to the stage.
4. jeff lewis. if you ever meet him, you'll be blessed--he's HILARIOUS. see him in the play
5. charles "Ptah" huddleston's breathtaking effect for the show. u gotta check it out at the end.
6. watching the team come together and fill huge gaps effortlessly

and a few more in post-mortem. stay tuned.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:

my kiddie had a bout with pneumonia recently. parents, if you have a kid that's coughing a lot--TAKE THEM TO THE DOCTOR! i took mine and she had some crud in her lungs. i put her on bedrest and assumed a lot of extra, time consuming duties that divorce and distance robbed me of for more than a couple of years. now that she's back here, i've had that awesome responsibility of full time dad thrust upon me. i've done all the school pickups/dropoffs, extracurricular, medication schedules, building school projects, wrapping up, cleaning up, etc. after going through an intense, lengthy dose of this kind of meticulous planning, execution, and support, i've come to a conclusion...

I LOVE IT!!! being a parent is a huge blessing ya'll, especially for you men out there. i don't see how any cat could walk away from any life he contributed to making. sure, i see how you could consider it based on some of the drama. but you just gotta love being a pops, man. there's nothing better. well... being a husband? hmmm... you know... i'll come back to that one. maybe sooner than later. ;-)

PROFESSIONAL REFLECTIONS:

last night, after a showing of the play, THE Reverend James Lawson (one of Dr. King's top aides who launched the sit-in movement in Nashville and whose insights were a foundational principle of the play itself) was a part of a panel of real life heroes. he endorsed the play--a huge statement--and then he spoke of the need of this generation of adults to step up to the plate and teach the youth. he's right.

one of the things i've had affirmed more than ever over the course of the last few months is the need for people to push themselves to grow. sure, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. it's how we are able to be prepared and positioned for success. however, we can't just rest on the accomplishments of previous generations. we have to grow our own contributions and build on previous ones.

in the same vein, we can't rest on previous artistic successes as artists. sure, "Sho' 'Nuff" was a grand success; "Trombones" set the bar even higher. so "Heroes" has to be even bigger, even better, even more transformative. i say that because (rant coming) i've encountered more than my fair share of people in the craft of dream-weaving who are content with mediocrity. mediocrity in presentation; mediocrity in development; mediocrity in vision.

mediocrity sickens me to the very marrow of my bones.

let's be honest... what if Robeson had decided that it was alright to be mediocre?

what if Langston Hughes had let his pen rest after the first major publishing of a poem of his?

what if August Wilson had been happy with seeing one play produced on Broadway and then resting on its laurels?

so i've encountered people over the last few months who have been content with making excuses and tossing away responsibility, all the while being okay with "okay-ness." i say that this kind of mentality is a blow to the face of the many dream weavers who came before us and put us in a position to live our dreams in this day and time.

that said, i don't judge those with low standards, i feel sorry for them. and yes, i pray for them. you will know a tree by the fruit it bears, and all of us are God's children, more than conquerers, who have the ability within us to dream and to make those dreams real. if we strive high, we achieve high; if we strive low, well, you know the rest...

THE PRESENT FUTURE
today is Sunday, the Sunday of what's tabbed as the "Soul Bowl," where two black coaches will meet in the Super Bowl. either way, a good thing will happen.

it's sunny outside--though a little cold. i'm getting ready to eat a little breakfast, then make a stop into one of my coffee haunts for a midday cup, my one allowance for the day. later on, i'll head over to the theatre for an evening performance of the play.

maybe tonight, i can catch a movie that's groovy. i've heard good things about "Pan's Labyrinth." i like wildly creative stuff, so that might be fun. or maybe "Last King of Scotland."

food's ready. i'm out. talk to me!

in peace
obafemi