Play a Day: Before Evening Comes

Philana Omorotionmwan

Last April I decided to read a play a day from those posted at New Play Exchange, a program of the National New Play Network. The result was joining a community of new writers across America, learning a great deal about where the work is being created, and how good so much of it is. It was an inspiring experience, and I look forward to experiencing (at least) thirty great new plays in this brief period of time.

Whether I can actually manage the time necessary to read a play a day, and comment upon it, in addition to all other responsibilities is another matter.

For Easter Sunday I read Before Evening Comes by Philana Imade Omorotionmwan, an impending graduate of Ohio University's MFA in Playwriting Program. (Bobcats, represent.)

A Dystopian parable, set in a near-future where all African-American men are legal bound to make a very specific sacrifice to maintain their own survival. In days past, those enslaved told of people who could fly (and escape their captors) and that story is wound up in this, a moving and lyric tale of the men who are complicit in the system and the women who sacrifice everything to save their children from it.

This year I have been reflecting on my own life, as I turn fifty in July. As the morning paper reminds me, in three days it will be the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of Dr. King. The world has moved forward in the past half-century, and yet today it feels as though it is spinning backward, or that it's never moved.

Play a Day: Underground

Lisa. B. Thompson

For Thursday morning I read Underground by Lisa B. Thompson, and available on New Play Exchange.

Two men, activists together in college, now in their middle years, have an intense and uncomfortable reunion. Issues of race, class and modern conflict are heartily debated, and exactly what is at stake is not revealed until the final moments.

This work has been in development since 2014, though the subject matter deals with current events in a manner which must demand constant revision from its author. The version I read, which was recently produced at The Vortex in Austin, was uploaded just this morning.

Though they never mention him by name, the men discuss the fate of Tamir Rice. When one rattles off a list of those American cities which have experienced real life uprising and protest in the past few years, however, in "Ferguson, in Baltimore, Oakland, New York," where thousands marched and demanded that Black Lives Matter, Cleveland is conspicuous in its absence.

Because it didn't happen here, not in those numbers. Not with the same impact. Frustration over our community's apparent inability to rise up in protest was a major theme in the recent production of Objectively/Reasonable.

That frustration, the refusal to engage, to participate, especially from those in positions of authority and respect, makes for powerful drama in this play, too.

Play a Day: Running On Fire

Aurin Squire

For Saturday morning I read Running On Fire by Aurin Squire, which is available on New Play Exchange.

Plays about running are weird, because running is weird. A race is comprehensible, but "going for a run" can be entirely alien to someone who does not do that. It can appear the most trivial of athletic endeavors, and I say this as someone who desperately loves running.

But the act of running carries weight, because while running for sport is completely passive and innocuous (no contact, no competition, running for running's sake) most other examples of running are fraught. It is the result of fear or aggression. Running at something, running away from something.

I am a runner. I run every other day. I have run three marathons. I have kept a running blog since 2006. I am a white male and have never been jumped, catcalled, or been implicated in a crime while running. I have runner's privilege.

Squire's play presents a "town and gown" conflict, centering around an announced university-sponsored marathon which will monopolize a city park, a park which was recently the site of a sexual assault. One of the disheartening and unfortunately very real elements of the narrative is how far people of privilege will go to maintain normalcy in the midst of a crisis.

Numerous people of privilege have been made aware of social injustice as a result of the election. They ask each other, publicly, what action they should take. Too many follow the path that they had already set for themselves, and work to fit progressive action into their normative, daily existence. But there's no reason we should have to cancel the marathon!

And you know what? We always get to keep the marathon.