Theater’s Woke Circular Firing Squad

A reader sent me a link to a pretty great podcast by Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. At some point in it, they bring up a new movement by BIPOC (pronounced “bye-pock”) theater makers, challenging white people in theater. They have written an open letter, called We See You, White American Theater. Here it is:

Go to their website here, if you like.This is not a minor thing. Some very big names in American theater have signed on, including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Suzan-Lori Parks. The petition has 60,000 signatures.

Weinstein and Heying also point to a three-night “Town Hall For Racial Reckoning” that the Atlanta theatrical community is staging (the last one is July 1). Check out the “rules of engagement”. You can only speak if you are BIPOC (black, indigenous, person of color). More:

Golly.

I am not a theater person. I have no idea how legitimate the bill of complaints are against White American Theater, whatever that is. I would not have thought that the theater was a hotbed of race hatred, but maybe it is.

Looking from the outside, though, that WSYWAT (pron. “wizzy-wat,” because I say so) letter is incredibly provocative, a list of harsh accusations. Are they true? I don’t know how a White-Theater-American would even start to defend himself from them. They are not intended to invite dialogue of any sort. Likewise, it sounds like the racial reckoning townhall is meant for White-Theater-Americans to sit there silently while they are subjected to a Maoist struggle session.

What good can come out of this? Again, I don’t know the theater world, but if people really do have racial grievances, of course they should be voiced, and the community should work them out. That does not seem to be what is intended here, though. At all.

The timing is bizarre, too. The other day, all 41 Broadway theaters announced that they would remain dark for the rest of 2020, because of Covid-19. Everybody else is in the same sinking boat. In May, the Atlantic ran a piece speculating that the theatrical business may not survive this pandemic. It’s about the British theater, but the same lessons apply here. The piece points out that not only will the long shutdown kill some theatrical companies and venues, but those that survive will be so weakened that when they return, they will almost certainly have to stage sure-fire audience-pleasing productions at first (in other words, good luck trying to mount an eat-your-broccoli-bigot play). There will be a lot of unemployed actors and other theater professionals, and it may take years to rebound.

And into this unprecedented crisis — virtually an existential crisis — these BIPOC activists are staging a highly antagonistic racial drama against an industry that is one of the most progressive in the world? A drama that is going to heighten anger, mistrust, and discord, at a time when theatrical community needs to be pulling together? I don’t get it. It seems suicidal to me, but again, I’m not a theater person. If you are, help me understand the rationale here.

 

 

 

 

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