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| re: James Ijames-directed Fairview in Philadelphia (major spoilers) | |
| Last Edit: mikem 10:03 pm EDT 06/20/22 | |
| Posted by: mikem 09:54 pm EDT 06/20/22 | |
| In reply to: re: James Ijames-directed Fairview in Philadelphia (major spoilers) - TimDunleavy 01:12 pm EDT 06/20/22 | |
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| Hi Tim, Shutterbug's description is accurate for the Wilma production as well. You will have plenty of company if you decide not to do it at all, but if you decide to, you are doing the same thing that 200 other people are doing at the same time. None of the audience members are singled out in any way, and none of them are asked to speak, make gestures or do anything else except go up on stage as a group. It's not a whole lot different than a theater production where the cast leads you from room to room, except in this case only the white audience members are going up on stage. I'm finding the comments interesting about how the people of color in the audience were being stared at and under the microscope from the audience members on stage, so to speak. I mentioned before I saw Fairview late in the run in NY, so it was probably different from early experiences. There were a decent number of people of color in the audience, and the actress playing the teenage daughter came down from the stage and actually walked around in the audience seating area while giving the monologue. The attention was on her, not on what was happening on stage. I want to say at one point she was kind of at the far aisle so you weren't looking at the stage at all. My seat was very far back, and I did not feel stared at by the audience members on stage. I think if I had, I would not have felt comfortable with that, and it would have diminished the power of the piece for me. Of course, it's all open to interpretation, but from reading interviews with the playwright, I don't think her primary intent is to have the white audience on stage staring at the people of color in the audience seating area, although I think it's hard to avoid in the real world in a small theater. I think Fairview is about removing the white gaze from the POC, which is not accomplished when the POC audience members feel like they are still under the microscope, just from a different perspective. Jesse Green had an interesting article in the NY Times during the Brooklyn run where he talked about how, when he was on stage, the lights were shining in his eyes so he couldn't really see what was going on, and he couldn't hear the actress well because she was facing away from him, and he felt like the production was happening but the people on stage were being ignored and left out of the whole thing. Then he realized that was kind of the point. |
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