Kota Ezawa "Taking a Knee"

Visiting Kota Ezawa's Taking a Knee, presented by Deborah Ronnen Fine Art at R1 Studios (1328b University Avenue), is the perfect way to dip one's toe back into the act of visiting an art gallery. This tiny space, normally a photography studio, has been transformed for a limited time to display an extremely powerful and timely exhibit of a very important living artist, whom I had never heard of. The collection includes several watercolors, two light boxes, and an animated video, that stitches together these images and many more. 

Each painting is based on a photograph from actual football games, and portrays the act of taking a knee during the national anthem. Colin Kaepernick's initial act of protest was so controversial that it cost him his job. Sadly, the racial injustices that sparked those protests have not abated. Thankfully, more people have come to understand and participate in the protests, and that might actually lead to long-needed structural change.

I've never been a fan of the national anthem. Not just because the range makes it difficult to sing, but because of the lyrics. Why does a national anthem need to reference war? And why are we singing about "the home of the free," when at the time this poem was written, only White men were free? Black people were slaves. White women were essentially the property of their husbands. Indigenous people were hunted like animals. The Star Spangled Banner only became our country's national anthem in 1931. I can only hope that by 2031 a new, more inclusive, more peace-loving (and more singable) national anthem will be created. Oh, and that we will have dispensed with this ridiculous show of patriotism before sports games and opening nights of the RPO, etc.... 

The video plays to an instrumental version of the national anthem - Ezawa chose to let the images speak for themselves, knowing that viewers would have the lyrics running in their subconscious. The video is only about 90 seconds long, and runs on a loop that gives you the perfect amount of time to digest and consider before it starts again, and you can look for subtleties you missed the first time through: the pulsing of colors, the shifting of eyes, the fact that the only people who seem to move through the film are the photographers. 

There is a much more in-depth description of the exhibit on the Deborah Ronnen Fine Art website. This is the type of exhibit you would expect to see in a gallery in New York City, and we are lucky that Ronnen has shared this rare opportunity with us in Rochester. It only runs through November 7th, and I urge everyone to see it in person.

“Cry it out” at home

No, I’m not suggesting that’s what anyone should be doing in this time of social distancing, although I have cried a couple of times, and I think that’s OK - this is a really stressful time, and there’s no certainty of when it will end. In the meantime, it would be inconceivable to go through this pandemic without having the internet to help keep us connected. We have meetings using Zoom and cocktails with friends on FaceTime. You can stream movies and TV shows, and though the internet was already a rabbit hole, it’s more so now - it’s just too easy to go from one funny YouTube video to another, especially when it features a dog...

(photo from Geva's website)

A month ago seems like a lifetime ago. A month ago, I was contemplating going to see Geva Theatre’s Once for a third time. And I was going to see Cry It Out, even though I thought I wouldn’t identify with the characters – new parents. Unfortunately, both shows had to close prematurely. But fortunately, Geva was able to get permission to video both shows and is now offering them for rental for a limited time (for $35 each, until April 15). So the day they were released, I purchased and watched Cry It Out. If you don’t already have a Vimeo account (I didn’t…), it’s a bit of a process initially, and of course requires yet one more password (I won’t tell you mine, but let’s just say that Vimeo and Coronavirus will be forever linked in my mind!). While I missed being part of an audience watching the play (there’s no substitute for that shared experience), it was kind of nice to be comfortable on my couch, with no distractions. 

As is frequently true, you shouldn’t always believe the things you think, and I didn’t have to have had children to empathize with the characters. The play isn’t just about new moms, it’s about choices. And not just about the choices we make, but the choices we don’t have, due to whatever circumstances limit those choices. There’s always someone worse off and someone better off, with more or different alternatives at their disposal. And you never really know what other people are going through, so it’s easy to make excuses for your own choices (or lack of choice) and to blame others for theirs.

“Crying it out” refers to letting a baby cry itself to sleep, instead of the parents rushing in to soothe the child. The parallels to today’s Coronavirus crisis aren’t hard to miss - so many people are sick and dying, or are or will be out of work. What do we, as a society, choose? Do we follow those who say we “can't let the cure be worse than the disease”? Do we let people die to save the economy? Or do we collectively shut down, to “flatten the curve” for everyone? When we get to the other side of this crisis, do we return to business as usual? Or do we take stock, and finally address some of the problems that exacerbated this crisis – e.g., the lack of investment in and respect for science and medicine; the lack of affordable and accessible health care for everyone, not just the rich? Do we choose to do nothing, and let a huge segment of our society “cry it out”?

Here’s the link for Cry it Out:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cryitout

As well as the link for Once:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/once

"Once"... twice

One of my greatest pleasures since moving to Rochester has been joining the board of Geva Theatre. And one of the myriad benefits is learning the lineup of the next season’s shows at the board meeting that directly precedes the season announcement. Last year, when Mark Cuddy unveiled the list, he asked if anyone had seen Once. Not one hand went up. In a group of avid theatregoers, that was remarkable, especially for a show that had won Tony’s for best musical, best book of a musical, best actor in a musical, best direction of a musical, as well as best orchestration, scenic design, lighting design, and sound design. As he began to describe the plot, it dawned on me I had actually seen it – at RBTL (in 2014). It obviously hadn’t made an impression on me! That made me curious to see the show at Geva, to observe whether it would be a different experience.

And it was.

It is always a relief when musical theatre is cast with trained musical actors (instead of actors who also sort of sing... Catherine Zeta-Jones and Glenn Close come to mind...). And it is awe-inspiring when those actors also play instruments. And real instruments, like the violin and cello and drums. Oh, and dance. Because musical theatre usually involves choreography, as well. No standing at the apron operatically declaiming. 

Geva’s Once did not disappoint. The actors were all extremely talented, and the staging was simple and effective. It’s a Guy meets Girl story (literally – those are the names of the main characters), but with a bittersweet ending - much as in real life. My first favorite moment was near the beginning, when the three ensemble women sang a song in Czech, because I have adored the harmonies and style of Eastern European music (to make a Western-ear generalization...) since my first introduction to the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir almost four decades ago. And my last favorite moment was near the end, when the company sang “Gold” (a cappella). The contrast from the rest of the string-accompanied pieces was powerful, and made even more moving by the song’s dynamics, or rather lack thereof – the entire piece is sung piano, and requires the audience to respond in kind, and kind of lean in. And we did. 

I tried to think about why I responded differently to this production than the one I had seen several years ago, and while I can’t recall the quality of acting or staging then, I do note one big contrast. The Auditorium Theatre seats 2400 – that’s larger than the largest Broadway house by 650, or almost 40%. You could fit all of Geva’s 522 seats in that difference. And that makes all the difference. At Geva, the experience is more intimate. There isn’t one seat from which you cannot see the actors’ expressions. There’s a special connection that’s made between actors and an audience when they can actually see and hear each other, and that opportunity doesn’t exist in a cavernous theatre.

I am sure that my memory of this production will last longer than six years. As long as my general memory remains healthy that long!