Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

We had our first day of rehearsal on Tuesday for Bruce Norris‘ new play The Unmentionables. One of the first day rituals at Steppenwolf is something called the “meet and greet”. The entire staff of the theater descends upon the rehearsal room, and after some words of welcome from Martha Lavey, they introduce themselves one by one to the artists involved in the production. Usually standing in a large circle around the rehearsal table, each staff member announces their name and job position. Listening to this litany on Tuesday, I was struck by the sheer number of people it takes to actually present a play and maintain Steppenwolf as a healthy and vibrant organization. Many of these people get virtually no public recognition, except for their names in small print at the back of the program. In addition, as I’m sure most of you know, the financial rewards for working in not-for-profit arts are significantly lower than what one might expect in the commercial or private sector. I was struck by the thought that each person in this circle, from the Marketing Coordinator to the Costume Shop Manager to the Donor Records Assistant was here at least in large part, because of his or her faith in what we do, and a mutual embrace of the challenges we face. It was a remarkably affirmative way to start.

Awhile back, Steppenwolf as an organization underwent the introspective exercise of defining our core values — those things, in the words of Theater Communications Group Director Ben Cameron, that one will “go to the mat for every single time”. We came up with three: ensemble, innovation, and citizenship.

Normally this kind of inward thinking remains internal to the organization. But today is David New’s turn to post on the blog, and he is not available to do it. Why? Because he is currently engaged in his civic responsibility, sitting, as summoned, on a jury in the Cook County Court system. So in his absence and honor, I started thinking about citizenship, and what it means to be a good citizen:

To be thoughtful about the challenges others face. To behave honorably, responsibly, and fairly, even when no one is watching. To communicate honestly and openly. To think and act for the good of others, not just our own. To provoke and be provoked, but civilly and in hope of genuine discourse.

Sometimes, as in Last of the Boys or the upcoming The Unmentionables, the connection between the behavior on-stage and in our civic lives is overt, and at others, it is more subtle and inferred. But we strive to meet our daily challenge to create theater that supports good citizenship, and to act as a good institutional citizen within our community. I hope some of you have found it a worthy aspiration.

Back home. Nasty intestinal distress from some African pathogen, but more or less safe and sound. And if you’ve read this far you’re even more of a glutton for punishment than I am. (I should point out that writing a blog was Steppenwolf’s idea, not mine, so please wait until AFTER my play to cancel your subscriptions.)

In May we begin rehearsal for “The Unmentionables”, the play which motivated my undertaking this trip. And as I anticipate the start of that process I’d of course like to believe that I didn’t go all the way there and back for nothing. It’s all still a bit of a blurry fever dream and yet as I’ve spoken to friends in the last twenty-four hours I feel myself rapidly trying to anecdotalize the experience, to fashion amusing little vignettes that I can share with people - the verbal equivalent of snapshots - but the fact is that the experience truly unnerved and disoriented me, and that feels difficult to share. I don’t want that to be the story of my trip.

A few days ago, standing on the ramparts at Cape Coast castle, as I held my digital camera in place of my ancestors’ whip, and looked down on the locals below, and the lives that they lead, so seemingly alien to my own, I had a horrible feeling come over me. The feeling was contempt. And momentarily, I felt better, as I stood there - afraid thousands of miles from the life I know - feeling this contempt for people because they happen to use the beach as a toilet. How disgusting, I thought, and I felt better, safer, because the contempt allowed me to cling more tightly to my own narrow life as I condemned theirs. Part of what “The Unmentionables” is about is how we behave in a crisis, and why. There are some people, and we all know them, who you’d love to have around in a crisis; self-assured people, the people who always seem to know exactly what to do. But I’m not one of those people. I’m an actor, so I like to give the impression that I am, but internally I churn with self-doubt. I secretly curse and vilify the people who have caused me distress, who have robbed me of control. And luckily the worst I encountered on my trip was temporary confusion and the occasional sneers of the locals. Thank god nothing truly dreadful happened. Because if it had, I don’t like to imagine the kind of person I’d become or what I’d be capable of. Actually, I have imagined it, and the result was the writing of “The Unmentionables”. I’m interested in what kind of people we become when panic (especially the panic of a political and cultural crisis) arises. In recent years I feel like I’ve seen some displays of the worst that humans can do to each other. Okay, I know, I know… we go to the theater for a good time, not to flagellate ourselves. But I happen to be a pessimist. It’s my nature. I focus on what is UN-heroic and IG-noble in myself and am naturally suspicious of optimists and those who talk about the great things that we Americans are capable of. I don’t feel like I’ve earned the right to be an optimist - it’s a luxury I can’t afford. Pessimism doesn’t mean defeatism. It just means looking realistically at what we DO, instead of what we like to SAY we do. And the nice part is, we pessimists are rarely disappointed. Sometimes we’re even pleasantly surprised.

Thanks for reading. See you at the play.

It’s my final day here. I made it back to Benin in one piece which, given the high-speed, foul smelling bush taxi ride that got me here, coupled with the customs officer at the Togolaise border bribing me for admittance to Benin… (”What do you have for me?” is how they put it, and I got through for about two dollars) plus having to pay the driver extra to stop the fistfight he was in with another driver; etc… well, it was a rough return.

Of course, who am I to complain, really, after spending the previous day touring the forts where slaves departed, in chains, for the West? It’s a little bit, uhh… unpersuasive for me to go on about the difficulty of MY travels, I guess. Visiting the forts of Cape Coast and Elmina is surreal. Not unlike my expierience at a concentration camp outside Prague last May (do I know how to have fun on vacation, or what?) I find myself having a complicated response. First to the fact that, at least during my visit, the white visitors seem to outnumber the black. What have we all come to see? And also to the strange behaviour of pulling out my camera to take pictures of the fantastically decrepit colonial architecture - in the face of overwhelming historical significance my response is still that of the prancing aesthete. While there you are led through the structures in a guided tour that culminates, dramatically, with your passage through the “door of no return” through which slaves boarded European ships. But on the other side, when you do pass through, impoverished locals are waiting to sell you hand-made trinkets, and below the walls, kids and fishermen use the area as a free public toilet. (I watched as one young man dropped his pants and unloaded onto the rocks.) The whiplash of sensations is too fast; trying at once to be at one with the tragedy of history and not to recoil at the smell.

Look, I know what a shitty person I sound like by even raising these questions. But that, to me, IS the nagging question: I can’t figure out how NOT to be myself at these moments. Like the moment while traveling back to Accra when a man offered to sell us what they call a “grasscutter” (a two-foot long BUSH RAT, fresh or, if you prefer, smoked) for my dinner. Now of course, I have friends who would, with great sophistication, place their fingertips together and say to me “Well, have you ever TRIED bush rat?” And it must be lovely to have that degree of openness to experience; to not cling to the same dreary particulars of your life when the opportunity for change arises. There are all sorts of platitudes that would apply and you know, god help me, maybe bush rat is absolutlely delicious. I feel fairly certain, though, that I will not be finding out. (Although I did try the local speciality known as kenkey - congealed fermented corn meal and very nearly threw up.) So what the hell is my problem? Is it fear? Sure. I’d accept that. Is it insufficient acceptance for the other? Yes, guilty of that as well, and I wish I wasn’t like this sometimes, but I’m now forty-five years old and the signs don’t seem to point in the direction of my changing.

So. Tonight, back on a plane. In-flight movies. Headphones. Back to the life I know. No bush rat on the menu. And by tomorrow back in my own little bed. Does the pleasure I will take in my comfortable routine make me smug? Am I limited? Yes, I think I am, and closed-off to experience. I wasn’t redeemed by my experience. I haven’t been transformed. And as a STORY, that is deeply unsatisfying. We like stories to conclude with the rebirth of the protagonist (It’s a Wonderful Life!). But what do you do when you are the protagonist of your own story and you can’t seem to bring yourself to a satisfying conclusion? What if, at the end of Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol” Scrooge said, “Ahhh screw it, I don’t WANT to change”? Would you take your kids to see it? I don’t know. All I know is I’m ready to go home.

So, things go from bad to.. a different kind of bad.

Accra is huge and steaming hot and pretty overwhelming, the most overwhelming part being that, by virtue of it being a big city and by virtue of my sticking out like the sorest of thumbs, I have been subjected to a sort of relentless hustle today. (I should mention that I did leave the grotesque Novotel after one fabulous night; it felt a little like eating an entire cheescake in front of a starving child or something - the contrast between inside and outside was just a little too surreal.) Every street I walk down I meet a new “friend” such as the good friend I just met outside this filthy internet cafe who approached me with all sorts of laudatory comments for my country, how much he loved it, and so forth. I asked, “what country do you think I’m from?” “England?”, he asked. I corrected him and he assured me that his compliments applied equally to the US. In short order it became clear that there was a certain package that I, as his new friend, could carry to America for him…

And that’s about the tenth such encounter I’ve had today. The saddest of all… well, sad for what it says about me, actually, was the young man (and it’s always a young man) named Johnson whom I met yesterday. He trailed me for blocks and blocks, telling me about his gospel singing (Ghana is CRAZY with Christianity) and how he wants to coninue his course of study in… two guesses. Well, of course, in each of these encounters I could just be a hardened, jaded New Yorker by way of Chicago, dulled to the potential beauty of a rare human encounter. Could be. But if so, why did I know so well where it was going? As I turned to the bio-dome, aka the Novotel, he took my hand and requested my email address to help him obtain his US Visa. What would you do? How many different internet scams arise from this part of the world. So, and believe me, I feel like shit about this, completely, but… well, I made up a fake email address. Maybe I just avoided a scam. Maybe. Or the other possibility is that I just deliberately fucked over a poor young man in Africa who was simply looking for a way out. And of course, I’m certain that’s exactly what I did. And as a PS, I ran into him again today and told me how much he looked forward to corresponding.

Tomorrow I’m paying an African man about $150 USD to take me on a private tour of some of the forts and castles from which my ancestors undoubtedly bought and sold some of his ancestors. Feel free to take note of the irony.