catapult magazine: unite.learn.serve
Dialectics of the Theatrical
For the poor, the oppressed, the ignored should I shout like the televangelist from the banks of the river Affluence, like the politician reading the speechwriter's words? Should I whisper, slip beneath the noise with a shoulder to cry on and some of the standard phrases advertised by the strong, yet sensitive sort? When living in a live commercial how to convince anyone these screams cannot all be viewed sitting down with a bag of chips? (After all, is not everything proclaimed as true false, and everything exhibited as authentic scripted?) For the beaten, the abused, the imprisoned should I cry saline solution tears or pain my eyes with black mascara or - in an age without concentration camps - wind barbed wire about a bicep and slip into some niche - a bouncer's, a businessman's, an activist's, or whatever other role someone has creatively written up? In the theatre of the mundane, how to convince anyone that there are those spreadeagled under the whip who are not bleeding ketchup? (After all, is not every rebellion a more fundamental act of conformity and every display of compassion calculated in terms of profit?) For those walking in darkness, the seeing blind, the hearing deaf how to convince anyone I am speaking, out of character, to you? Should I act paint my face, memorize my script, put on borrowed finery (for sackcloth and ashes are scarce and, if found, worn only for effect) and so elude the deluded, discomfort the comfortable, enchant the disenchanted, disillusion all illusions, to captivate the free and imprison darkness, proclaim the favor of the Lord's vengeance and the close proximity of the Final Act?
