Friends and family,
I write to you from Fowler, California. (I know, my expression was also one blank unrecognition when I first read that Cornerstone Theatre Company’s Summer Institute would be held here). In our play, a stranger comes to the town who has recently died in a car accident in the infamous Tule Fog that descends on Highway 99 in the winter months. He breaks down the basic facts of Fowler in the opening of our play:
“Fowler, California… This is what I’ve learned. Location: the San Joaquin Valley, the area of the Central Valley that lies south of Sacramento. Named after rancher and state senator Thomas Fowler. Founded in 1872. Incorporated in 1908. A farming community 5 to 11 miles south of Fresno. Depending on who you talk to. Or your mode of transportation. Climate: hot. Current population: 5,764. The people who make up the population: Latino, Armenian, Japanese, African-American, White, Sikh, Chinese, Korean…”
As I write this, I’m sitting in the Fowler Baptist Church listening to our cast of 37 actors, life-long Fowlerites and theatre-makers from around the world, as they learn the hymns that are scattered throughout our play. These arise from moments of celebration, mourning, and… well, at the end. The end of many things. I realize now that where I am in this moment epitomizes my position in this temporary world into which I have only dipped my toes. I do not know, understand, or find familiar any elements that make up this place. The Fowler Baptist Church. Fowler: had never existed in my world until 90 days ago, and not in any tangible form until 9 days ago. Baptist: is an identity, a community that I understand nearly nothing about. The very small sense I have of this community are my own assumptions. And assumptions are worth very little to me, less and less each day I am here. Church: a foreign place and a community over which I can claim no ownership. There are 14 churches in Fowler. I can travel from one of this town to the other in 20 minutes. By foot. And here I am. Singing “It Is Well With My Soul” in the Baptist Church. And it is.
This is the 9th day. We’ve had 1 day off. We work from 8am to 11pm or later and average 8 hours of rehearsal a day. We also take classes and workshops in which we discuss, question and practice Cornerstone’s method of creating community-engaged theatre. This is what they have to say about themselves:
“Cornerstone Theater Company is a multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company. We commission and produce new plays, both original works and contemporary adaptations of classics, which combine the artistry of professional and community collaborators. By making theater with and for people of many ages, cultures and levels of theatrical experience, Cornerstone builds bridges between and within diverse communities in our home city of Los Angeles and nationwide.
We believe society can flourish when its members know and respect one another, and we value theater made in that spirit.
We value art that is contemporary, community-specific, responsive, multilingual, innovative, challenging, and joyful.
We value theater that directly reflects the audience.
We value the artist in everyone.”
These are some of the smartest, most hardworking artists and people that I have ever met. I feel free to create and to question in ways that I did not even know were possible, were attainable. For the first time I feel that I am beginning to begin to understand what it means to be an artist. I stand in Sequoia national park amongst the giant, the vast, the-farther-than-the-eye-can-see. I feel like I have no idea about this world we live in. We are so small. And so loud. I am experiencing constant eruptions of ideas of ways in which I must bring art into my life, no longer just dismissing ideas as unfeasible or improbable. Do it. Do it now. And embrace those who are watching you rather than fear them. I came here hoping against hope to have an impact one someone’s life, to change someone’s mind. But, we are not social workers. We are theatre-makers. Artists. We’re putting on a play here, in their park. Some will come see it. Some will participate in it. This is all we do. But it’s enough.
My solution to the physical, psychological, and emotional craziness is to share with you just one moment from these last 9 days, if you feel you have the time or the desire to read it.
It’s 4am and we’re in the rear courtyard of our hotel. The courtyard looks out across the train tracks to the ‘bad part of town’. This is the Boy's neighborhood. The Boy is the 16 year old standing in front of me with tears pouring down his face as his story floods violently out of him. It seems unstoppable. I want to run, I want to run away, be away from here. I can’t move. It’s content is impossible to listen to. Impossible to speak. I am listening.
The Boy was one of the first people in town who auditioned for our play, after the playwright and director met him on one of their first trips to Fowler. They were unable to illicit much response from him when they asked him and his dance troupe to share their stories with them. They just wanted to dance. The have since broken up. The Boy was one of the first people to audition for our play. The Boy has difficultly holding a conversation. His way of communicating is that he will stand next to you and rap or dance. It’s how he communicates. It’s for you, the listener, he’s speaking to you. I think he’s just never had anyone respond, or anyone who will listen to him. He doesn’t know how to communicate with another person. He hung around us for four or five days, clearly with nowhere else to go and no one else to talk to, before I found myself in the La Quinta courtyard at 4am listening to his story.
The Boy is a foster kid. He’s bounced around from home to home since he was eight years old. His mother is in prison. The same prison in which he was born. She will be eligible for parole this year. His grandmother raised him. She physically abused The Boy for as long as he was under her care. He pulls his shirt up and over his head and asks us if we see the long dark scar on his back. His grandmother would come into his room in the night and cut him with knives from the kitchen. Over and over again the social workers that were called during his hospitalizations refused to take him into their care due to the fact that his grandmother denied his claims. When he was eight years old she drove him to Bakersfield and left him by the side of the road. No food. No money. Nothing at all. She picked him up a week later. He was taken into foster care after that. He bounced from home to home, gang to gang, town to town. When he was 13 him and a friend were walking through a particularly bad neighborhood, where I don’t know, that didn’t seem to matter. The Boy witnessed his best friend get shot in the face. The Boy then proceeded to describe what his face looked like after it had been shot off. He was expelled from Fowler high after punching someone in a fight. He will finally be able to go back to school in the Fall after having received no education of any sort for over a year. He is very excited to go although he doesn’t think anyone likes him and is worried about making friends. The Boy is an outsider here. I think he feels like an outsider everywhere. He was our most volatile cast member and one that was very difficult to trust. He spoke extremely quietly and had difficulty reading his lines and maintaining eye contact. We were all waiting to see if he would be able to pull this off. I was one of the main crewmembers pushing to keep him in the show and to challenge him with a bigger role. I kept wondering and wondering if he was going to be able to adjust, listen, take direction, show up. Finally, our director spoke up. She gave him a direction and I felt the room hold its breath for a moment. Waiting. The Boy immediately adjusted. He was loud, he was friendly (‘the friendliest Iceman ever’), he laughed, made eye contact, changed his tone and the speech patterns that he had been previously locked into. He was not coddled or coaxed, this was not our doing. It was his. We cannot make assumptions about people. We found out yesterday that The Boy’s unofficial foster parent, Malakai, is sending him to church camp on the weekend of the show. He can no longer participate in the play. He was told the same morning he told us. Five days into rehearsal. The Boy does not have a choice to go to camp or to work on the play. The Boy does not have many choices.
I have never seen anyone who has needed so much to tell their story.
Everyday here is full of these moments. Every moment here is full.
I apologize if this makes no sense. It’s late.
Please feel friend to send this to the many people I have unintentionally left out.
Missing you all,
Lily
The second letter is an assignment by the Cornerstoners to do what feels like the impossible. They invite us to write a letter to next years' institute students. We have been reading the letters the previous institute students wrote for us that same time a year ago during the course of the Institute...
Dear Institute Students (and whoever your guru guide is this year…)
It’s very possible that you have only just arrived Lord-knows-where to do Lord-knows-what, if you know as little as I did when I arrived in Fowler. It’s also extremely likely that you are over-worked, weepy, exhausted, conflicted, full of love, and possibly a little bit cynical. Wherever you are and whatever you’re feeling, let it be. Embrace and try not to judge it. It is what it is and it’s a part of you. How often in our lives are we lucky enough to feel so much? If you’re only just starting, well, get ready. I am full of excitement for you.
I have no idea how I got here. A lot of my life has been that way. One thing has lead to another in ways that have been impossible to anticipate. I feel constantly surprised and weirded-out by where I end up. May it continue! I was one of an Assistant Directing tag-team on Cornerstone’s Fowler Institute. I just realized I’m already speaking in the past tense. Don’t do like me! But, I’m already feeling the absence of people that I can’t imagine leaving. So, it is what it is. I’m leaving the past tense where it lies. I was born in Thailand while my Dad was working on a film there. Some pissed-off Producer paid for my entire birth. I enjoy that thought. I grew up in Cornwall, England, a place to which I have not returned since I moved away at 11 years old. I plan to make a trip back there soon. After that I lived in France for 8 years, which is a country I have no history in, but which is quite nice anyway. I wound up in Texas by a series of fortunate events and can call myself a University of Texas alumnus as of this May. And now I’m in Fowler. It is strange that of all the places I have lived in for years, Fowler has become home in ways that the others never were. Something meaningful has happened here, not better or worse than in the other places, but just, perhaps, more full. Something reciprocal. It has touched me and I have touched it. We are both different now.
I came here hoping against hope to have an impact on someone’s life, to change someone’s mind, to be a presence that would inspire new thought or action. I suppose I hope that every day. It feels huge and vague (although I actually believe it can be very simple). It also feels arrogant and sort of self-centered. It’s a tricky thing. Don’t dismiss it because it’s hard. It’s great to dream big. It is just those people who have managed to change the world. However, just like in acting you have to break it down. It’s so much smaller than that. You want to make a difference? How do you do that? What action do you take? I promise you that if you can find the energy to stay present (it’s deep down in there somewhere!), to actively listen, and to ask questions, that action will arrive. These things are, in themselves, action. There are so many people in this world, this country, this state that haven’t had people in their lives to listen to them in the way that you have the power to, now. Listening can be revolutionary. Open your ears and open your heart. I am sure you will hear this time and time again, but it is so important to remember that you are not social workers. We are theatre-makers, artists, facilitators. We’re putting on a play here, in their town, on soil that is not in any way our own. Some will come see the play. Some might actually like it! Some will actually participate in it. For some it’s just a blip on the radar of their life. And that’s okay. For others, this experience will be the beginning.
We put on a play. This is all we do.
And it’s enough.
They are the ones who enable the change, who enact it. The pressure is off. You don’t have to change anyone’s life! You just go along for the ride.
On my first day off, I stand in Sequoia National Park amongst the giant, the vast, the-farther-than-the-eye-can-see. I feel like I have no idea about this world we live in. We are so small. And so loud. I experience constant, volatile eruptions of ideas of ways in which I must bring more art into my life, into the everyday. There is suddenly no time or space to dismiss these wants as unfeasible or frivolous. Do it. Do it now. Embrace those who are watching you rather than fear them. Invite them in. I cannot say this urgently enough.
Swim naked in a river with people you’ve only known for three days, even if it’s cold and even if you are afraid. Stay up late, even when you have to wake up early and face a 17 hour day. Touch your friends, your colleagues, your fellow students, because soon they will be far away. Ask someone about their life. Dare to really listen to the answer. Go on an adventure. Go on them all! Say, yes. This is your time to be free.
Everyday here is full of these moments. Every moment here is full.
As the luscious Laurie Woolery taught me, I dare not say that I have finished. I hope that you will not dare to say it either.
With much love and empathy,
Lily Wolff
No comments:
Post a Comment