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Yellow fever

posted by Shoresh Alaudini on Wed, Oct 8, 2008
in Backstage buzz

We've been doing this show for about a month now. I feel the one-month anniversary of Yellowjackets’ run is an appropriate date to post my thoughts on the blog.

It’s a hard job. Well, actually, with the cast and crew we have at times it feels almost effortless and frighteningly ephemeral – working six days a week to act like an obnoxious teenager? When are you ever gonna get paid to do that again? Really? I think I speak for the whole cast when I say this: hopefully our youthful good looks and general unorthodox charm will bring many more opportunities to indulge in onstage coming of age fantasies and self discovery.

Ben Freeman and me, pretending to be kids again.
(photo courtesy of kevinberne.com)

Speaking just for myself, as the first acting gig I’ve ever been a part of at a major theatre, I hope to relive at least the general state of mind that comes with being in a high school play: that I'm always right, I'm constantly misunderstood, and that I am the most important and knowledgeable entity in my immediate environment. It's very empowering. Because if I don’t feel that way, why would anybody watching give a shit about me?  

As an actor it is this attitude that must come across to the viewer, whether they realize it or not, whether it is displayed overtly or internalized, to allow the range of introspective reflection, or outright youthful audacity, or any expressed emotion between those two extremes on a spectrum that in itself is shouting for attention. Because all these different marks on the line in a way represent varying shades and colors that exist--and for that reason alone scream--to be seen, noticed, loved, appreciated, and cared for.

And so its funny that we’re doing a play called Yellowjackets about Berkeley High School. Yellowjackets--the insects--see so many colors, because of how their eyes function. And really, so do people. And yet we're able to categorize a multitude of hues into a system called race, which in itself is handicapped and requires the crutches of ethnicity and nationality to extend its excuse of nihilistic existence. On its own, racism is fundamentally too limited as an applied theory and is contributing to the mental retardation of humankind. We are living in a state of evolution, constantly changing and adapting to our surroundings for the most savage, primal, complex, and beautiful mission we could have ever asked for: survival. Racism is here. We may have needed it for a second to help us become aware of our simultaneous differences and similarities, a process of individuation maybe.

But snakes shed scales naturally. As people we have the choice to hang on or let go of certain ideas, people, feelings. But we don’t always let go. And often we choose to grasp things that are detrimental to our health and livelihood, voluntarily holding ourselves back in life. We become blinded and fearful. Like we know the truth, but it isn’t what we are accustomed to. And racism could be looked at as a disease. But I would rather look at it as a joke. What would happen to comedy without racism? Well, I guess we’d always find something to laugh at.

I was disturbed by a commercial I saw recently. I can’t remember what company it was for, but it involved robot slapstick humor – oh yeah,  I think it was for Gillette. How the two relate is beyond me. But I remember the robot got hit with something in the area that was supposed to be its groin, and it kind of keeled over and winced in robotic reverb to express pain. But I was like, it doesn’t really have a penis, where’s the humor in that? I don’t really want to expand on that subject because I wouldn’t know where to go and I’m not sure if analyzing all the nuances of humor would turn me into some sort of robot myself…who knows? All I know is racism, as a system that is deemed so concrete in this material world, is full of cracks and has never been able to label me correctly in any way. So I claim immunity and propose a subliminal seed for thought – “hue-man” (and I'm not taking credit for the word, just planting it). If you can’t see more colors than Black, Yellow, White, Red, or Brown when you look at my skin, then you got problems and I feel sorry for you.

We have eyes to see colors and a heartbeat to feel life, and I think a lot of us walk around without that knowledge, or even with it are so polluted with fear and outdated methods of perception that it's easy to get lost and confused and trapped by the limited faculties provided by those archaic idiots who implemented the paradigm in the first place and had no idea how fast and ever-changing the age of information is and how we must take responsibility for our own personal knowledge retention and classification. A discriminating mind is not a bad thing. It's good to be a sponge, but it seems like if you try and soak up everything at your fingertips in today’s world you’d become schizophrenic by nature. I only say this because it is how I feel, and it has been a recent conscious effort of mine to actively choose which information lines I wanna ride, because we have that freedom now. I want to know about these worlds, but there are so many now I have trouble remembering which one I’m standing on or in, where intellectual property is starting to block out the sun, and so-called reality television is the greatest fictional farce in entertainment history. But it’s cool. All that once was reality, in regards to media, is now masked in false Hollywood fervor, except that none of these humanoids get it and those who feel empty of self value and recognition are floating around rootless yet suffocating under caked layers of foundation just to reflect on something so called real…the so-called life…really I should just change the channel, better yet turn off the telly and open a book, but all these color dots are so much more stimulating than straight black and white text…

Back to racism… It is in all of us. We are all victims and perpetrators because of how we think, slaves to this system because of its ultimate control over our emotional triggers. It’s not the gun that kills people. It’s the racism! It’s like that movie Pleasantville, but because we see more than just black and white, we think we see more than just the black and the white. I'll say it again: because we see more than just black and white, we think we see more than just the black and the white. And until you are made to connect beyond resistance through difference and a patterned behavior that has pervaded itself through society and imposed dualities as the most constant truth, right or wrong, stop and go, on and off becomes our judgement and our third dimension, allowing us to actually flatten the depth around us. The world is supposed to get more beautiful everyday… or you are what you eat, or it is whatever you choose it to be – at least in terms of how you feel. The world. Empower yourself so you don’t have to feel like a sucker. Bluntly stated. 

I was asked to comment on the actor/audience relationship. This turned into a bit of rant, but its all good -- the flexible nature of blogs, I guess. But really, all of the above is for the audience; to be able watch the material of Yellowjackets with an open mind and appreciation for everything on stage, not just those elements that appeal or call upon intrinsic affinities, but also those things that tug on a side of resistance, discomfort, and fear. When you step into a theatre, it’s like walking into somebody’s brain. Go ahead and judge, it is your right, but free yourself from that impulse and you gain a much more encompassing experience. It’s called awareness.