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O World, That is What You Are.
The evening of my first month in Sicily, I ventured to an outdoor amphitheater located on a marina to the Mediterranean. Ciminiere, an old sulfur-refining factory, closed after World War II, has been recast with its original industrial foundations into a modern, glass, steel and redbrick arts center. Something you may find on the piers of San Francisco. Ten minutes from scheduled show time, I scale the stairs leading into the pit of the open-air, performance area. Coliseum seating semi-circles the rear. I forego solidarity with the casual youth who scatter on these concrete steps and I follow the old women in lacey dresses accompanied by men with walking sticks who are hurrying for the straight-back chairs that line the orchestra level. I find a chair, off to the left of the stage, in the last of twenty-odd rows. I sit, cross my left leg over right, Armani wingtip dangling in the aisle. I roll up the three-button sleeve of my Turnbull shirt and hope for a breeze to enter my collar and soothe my sun burnt shoulders. As with all Italian encounters with the clock, the show starts late. Fifteen minutes or so pass before the backlights dim and spotlights shine on the stage. A stark set emerges with a few pieces of white furniture - a couch, a bar, and a soapbox - insignificant in front of a large, black screen made of textile. Seven actors enter the stage. Four female, three male. They stand silently as single notes from a flute, whistle above our heads like bottle rockets in the still night air. When the notes fade into our ears and are almost forgotten, a picture is displayed on the backdrop for visual contemplation. The lives and places of many characters - celebrations and sadness, courtships and children, broken homes and elegant offices, cobbled streets and tree-lined suburbs - identifiable and simple stories told through a kaleidoscope capturing old and new, life and death, modern and yesteryear images. The music stops and so do the pictures. The female lead, steps upon the soapbox and in a harrowing voice, the stories begin. What happens next, I could only retell through my previous reading of the book. The words were in Italian but the plotlines on the pages of my memory were English. I am here to witness a recitation of Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology. Written during the early 1900s, the book is a page-by-page account of a fictitious Illinois town called Spoon River. The characters are now deceased and inhabit a small cemetery on a hill. The book tells the story of these folk through the poetic epithets written on their tombstones. One can argue that Masters wasn't poetic at all in his writing. But neither were the lives he was trying to portray. This is the art in the book's structure. Masters was holding a mirror to the then and now. Presenting lives wrought with alcoholism and adultery, greed and grief interacting with affection and love, responsibility and opportunity. His story reveals the effects one's actions have on those left behind. He projects the memories and emotions that are created with a loved one's passing. These motifs are timeless and the play did a wonderful job presenting modern images to prove this point. However, the play ended with a curious cartoon - a short history of the United States in the South Park style. With all the actors on stage staring into the crowd, the story begins with a ship crossing an ocean, the pilgrims landing. Frightened by the smiling Indians, the pilgrims shoot them. The pilgrims rejoice. The Monarch of Mother England sends her stable of soldiers to instill order. Upset with regal rule, the pilgrims shoot their brethren from abroad. Overwhelmed by the vastness and opulence of their new surroundings, the new world inhabitants set sail for Africa and take nets upon slaves. The slaves harvest the land and then revolt. Their owners shoot them. A battle of right and wrong ensues. The war ends with the character of Abraham Lincoln hoisted on the shoulders of the slaves. The story crescends with clips of commercial industrialism and culminates in a parking lot of a strip mall with our cast of cartoon characters entering Wal-Mart. Without argument, I am the only American in the crowd and I hesitate to bring my hands together in applause. To Take Away
Post 6 - July'05 Back to home...
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