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On November 22, 2014, twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was shot at close range by police officer Timothy Loehmann outside the Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland’s near west side. Tamir died the next day.
Soon after the incident, “a surveillance video was released which captured the officers drive-up, as well as footage of Tamir’s replica pistol (missing its orange toy-distinguishing cap) which generated the original 911 call.” The grand jury declined to indict the officers on criminal charges. In “April 2016, the city of Cleveland signed a $6 million settlement with the estate of Tamir Rice admitting no wrongdoing.”
Rice joined an ever-growing list of black tweens, teens and men who died at the hands of police officers.
In describing the case, County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty used the phrase “objectively reasonable” to describe the officers’ actions.
Playwrights Local, the area’s newest theatrical group, is presenting the world premiere of Objectively/Reasonable (A Community Response to the Shooting of Tamir Rice, 11/22/14), a script and performance conceived by the theatre.
The authors of the script interviewed Cudell residents, legal experts, teachers, activists and mothers for their reactions to and thoughts about what happened.
Playwrights Mike Geither, Tom Hayes, Lisa Langford, Michael Oatman and David Todd did the interviews to reflect the community’s responses, thus giving a voice to the “silent people.” They wrote the segments for the script, mostly monologues. Todd, as the dramaturge, wove the drama together and the play’s director, Terrence Spivey, bridged the pieces with staging devices, including singing, dancing, electronic media and verbal and nonverbal sounds and actions.
The play created an emotional rollercoaster. Mind-boggling “what ifs,” “why did that happen,” “why was . . .,” and “if only . . .,” thoughts and feelings resulted.
What if the police had stopped when they arrived, not shot within several seconds and tried to talk to the boy? What would have happened if the 911 operator’s words had been clearly conveyed? (The original caller had indicated the gun was “probably fake.”)
If only the police had been trained in how to do non-confrontational actions, or the negative climate of young black male versus police wasn’t the community norm.
If only Loehmann’s past record had been carefully considered before he was hired by the Cleveland Police. It was reported that “he was rejected for a deputy Sheriff job in 2013, and was unsuccessful in getting jobs with the police departments in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights. He resigned in 2012 from the Independence police department, after only a short time in the department, following a poor performance review.”
In this era of high stress, why was a twelve-year-old even playing with a toy gun?
The cast (Ashley Aquilla, Kaila Benford, India Burton, Samone Cummings, Ananias Dixon, Kali Hatten, Jameka Terri, LaShawn Little, Brenton Lyles and Nathan Tolliver) each portrayed numerous characters with clarity of purpose.
A special spotlight must be focused on Ashley Aquila for her emotionally evident, but well controlled monologue of the words of Samaria Rice. Tears flowing, she slowly textured Samaria’s words.
(Little did most of the audience know that Mrs. Rice was in attendance. Following the show, during the talk-back, the well spoken woman indicated that she would be calling upon members of the cast to perform their words as part of her efforts to insure Tamir’s legacy.)
Though a little long, especially with an audience sitting on hard church benches, the script holds the attention with sensitive, curious, straight forward, probing, and highly emotional speeches.
Though repetition led to some redundancy, much of the material works. If further productions are to be done, based on this presentation, the authors might want to consider some tightening of monologues and cutting of some speeches and the adjustment of the ending so that the audience is aware when the play is over.
The use of pictures and video to supplement the story helps add texture to the speeches. When action was not presented on the screen, a picture of the Cudell cupola hung over the action as a sad reminder of the site of the horror.
The talkback which followed the presentation, moderated by former county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, brought out a series of provocative points including that the police culture needs to be changed, a return to neighborhood policing needs to be undertaken, the probes as to whether Tamir would have been shot if he was white and if white members of the audience would like to go through life as an African American male. Cleveland’s segregation pattern: east-black, west-white, much like cities in the South, the drive-by shootings and murders, and the low quality of schools, were also topics discussed.
Capsule judgment: It is the purpose of the Playwrights Local to produce works of North Eastern Ohio writers. If their future efforts produce anything like this painful to watch but well conceived play, their purpose will be well confirmed. This is a must see experience for anyone interested in the real world around them, especially if they are not part of the African American community.
Playwrights Local 4181’s next production will be The 2 nd Annual Cleveland Playwrights Festival to be staged in November. For information go to: http://playwrightslocal.org/
The Cleveland-Akron area has many, many theatres. They each fulfill a missions
Dobama states its purpose is “to premiere the best contemporary plays by established and emerging playwrights in professional productions of the highest quality.” The Tony Award winning Cleveland Play House, the first professional regional theatre, states its goal is “to inspire, stimulate and entertain diverse audiences in Northeast Ohio by producing plays and theatre education of the highest professional standards.” Ensemble’s function is “producing American classics.”
David Todd, Artistic Director of Playwrights Local 4181, recognizes that some theatres have writer’s units which work on the development of new plays, and, on occasion, stage or do staged-readings of original play scripts. He, however, states, “no local organization is dedicated to solely producing new scripts.”
Todd and his supporting group present themselves as “a playwrights’ center,” which means they will “develop plays (and playwrights), produce plays, and otherwise provide our dramatists with a long-needed home.” They also intend to “offer classes, host projects in the community, and arrange special events.” They intend to “provide a style of playwright-driven theater” similar to those “found in New York and Chicago.”
The theatre’s battle cry seems to be, “all-new, all-locally created work.”
Those unfamiliar with how a play gets on stage should be aware that the starting point is usually a script. It may be the sole creation of a writer or writers, inspired by an idea, an incident or some source such as a book or poem or even a work of art that has inspired the writing of a script with the intention of getting it presented on a stage.
On the other hand, a writer may be hired by someone, usually a producer, who engages the writer to create a script.
In some instances an organization may encourage or employ someone to produce a document which places the spotlight on the organization’s purpose or some cause they wish to place in the public’s attention.
Once the script is written, it is common to have others read and comment upon the material. Sometimes an expert, a dramaturge, is hired to work with the writer on developing the project. Often, in order for the playwright to hear what the script sounds like, a group of actors read the material aloud and breath life into the characters. The writer may find that the script holds up well or, that it needs rewriting.
Often, the next stage in the production process is to have a staged reading where actors, usually using scripts and podiums prepare an oral presentation, usually under the guidance of a director. That reading is usually done before an audience. A discussion often follows which allows for additional evaluation of the material. The play may also receive a staging. This process may be repeated again and again until the script is “set,” vetted to the place that the playwright is satisfied that it has jelled into a final product, ready for staging, with no expected changes to be made.
In rare instances a writer prepares a script and, without any evaluations or readings, it is staged. This is rare, but does happen.
Playwrights Local 4181’s first staged production is Les Hunter’s To the Orchard. According to a representative of the organization, Mr. Hunter’s play is set…”in its final form.”
To The Orchard, according to Kelsey Angel Baehrens, who plays Rachel Bergman, the central character, who is a young gay Orthodox Jewish writing student at Brooklyn College, is “about seeking the courage to live your own truth.” “It’s a sad show.”
Author Les Hunter adds, “All of the characters are wrestling with their pasts and who they are, and looking for ways to go forward.”
Dale Heinen, the play’s director says, “the play deals with the aftermath of the death of Rachel’s mother and what it means to her husband and her daughter.” She adds, “there’s an element of magical realism to the play, and a lot of humor.”
As for the production, itself, Heinen indicated she needed to understand the world that the author, Hunter, constructed. “There is a lot we didn’t know, that we had to learn in order to give the world its proper dimensions.” “The life of this community [Orthodox Jewish in Brooklyn], the life of this family [who recently lost their female lynchpin], the way the religion is practiced [often turning to their rabbi, their religious leader, for guidance and wisdom], the set of beliefs that go with it [how to honor the dead, what foods to eat, what the philosophy of Orthodox Judaism is regarding homosexuality], the history of the religion [the theory of the wandering Jews, the Eastern European roots of this particular family and religious leader].”
As a former dramaturge, professor of theatre, director, actor, playwright and theatre critic, I found the script to be wanting, in need of further refinement.
The script is mainly a dialogue. There is little to no action. The way the script was staged, or since I didn’t see the script, it may have been the way the writer formatted the material, the staging was static. Scene stage right, scene stage left, often simultaneous stage left and right staging. It often felt like we were watching a tennis match.
The was much movement of stage furniture, breaking the flow of the action. Much of that was seemingly unnecessary. Use of spotlights to accent certain areas would have fulfilled the same purpose. In fact, this is a script which doesn’t appear to need a staged production. A reading would have done just fine as this is a word play, a closet drama. Very little of the stage action added much, if anything.
The script contains many concepts of Orthodox Judaism with which many in the audience were probably unfamiliar. Even myself, who was brought up in a tradition almost identical to that of the characters in the play, found myself confused as to some of the speeches and actions. Giving the audience a list of vocabulary words did little to help. It is the responsibility of the author to invent ways of writing dialogue to take care of this problem.
The staging left much to be desired. The use of electronic graphics to create the set was interesting, but often disconcerting as the actors often were absorbed by the visuals or cast shadows on the “scenery.” The actors (Kelsey Angel Baehrens, Andrea Belser, Robert Branch, Michael Regnier), though they clearly knew their lines and put out full effort, didn’t always stay in character or texture their parts to the point of making the people real.
Some of the dialogue seemed forced, unnatural, a written rather than an oral style. Whether this was the script, the director or the actors’ fault, is unclear.
One might ask, who is the audience for this script? To whom does it speak? For whom does it speak?
Capsule judgment: Playwrights Local 4181 should be lauded for filling a void in the Cleveland theatre world. Their goal of producing locally written and developed scripts is admirable. Their initial production, To the Orchard, was a valiant try. Though the final outcome left much to be desired, every new undertaking has to have a place from which to grow. The organization has laid its foundation and it should be encouraged to showcase what hopefully will be a successful and fruitful future.
Playwrights Local 4181’s next production will be Objectively/Reasonable: A Documentary Play on the Shooting of Tamir Rice. It will be directed by Terrence Spivey, the former Artistic Director of Karamu in August, 2016. For information go to: http://playwrightslocal.org/
