With the opening of Bohemian Cowboy in LA coming up, my mind is on theater!

Here is my official cardinal shirt, and now that the Arizona Cardinals have made themselves known to the world of football in fine fashion I am thinking how the theater world might do the same. My son Raymond and I have both spent years and years trying to open the doors of theater to local playwrights, and have not succeeded it would seem at this point, since there are no new plays by local playwrights making a stir. But what has happened is that Raymond has taken all the experience he garnered doing new plays by all local playwrights to Los Angeles with him to stage one of his own new plays. Now that has got to catch the attention of everyone, even those who have not been believers in the idea that in order to rejuvenate theater, local stars must be developed, local issues addressed, in short theater needs to become personal and next door, and therefore perhaps not to be missed!
Raymond, despite not being recognized in the press here for years, will carry his Arizona history with him and the theater voice he developed here just may startle the world. Raymond would always try to do the impossible, causing some to think he bordered on the edge of insane. What a tightrope you have to walk to write and perform in a theater piece, bringing it to fruition with a professional sheen. I am so excited by the biggest project he has ever tackled.
The last big play he wrote and produced in Phoenix was Blue Baby which turned out to be too big for the main theater critic in Arizona to handle He did not attend it both times it was produced so therefore had a good excuse not to write about it. It is a landmark play dealing with homosexual assault and rape in the jail system, plus it addressed many more issues in a kind of a memoir and this play even developed somewhat of a cult following despite hardly any critics attending or writing about it. Perhaps they were uncomfortable with the subject matter, who knows, but why? If it is your job to cover theater, you are not doing it when you discriminate, when you black ball a playwright for personal reasons. If a powerful newspaper critic is against you, no other theater company is apt to do your work, since publicity has always been a ncessity for the success of a new play especially which has no built in reputation to help it succeed.
The Arizona State Theater Company is doing Raisin in the Sun which is a very powerful play and I have seen a number of versions of it. That's just it. It is about as safe a choice of a play by a black playwright that you could choose to do. Obviously there is considerable risk to doing new work by local playwrights, but I will tell you what, if you don't take those risks, your theater will never come alie as it could with new work. You will miss the biggest excitement there is to be had in doing theater. All because you knew you had to tackle so many obstacles. Audiences can be arrogant and judgmental. And they will punish you severely if they think you are trying to foist an inferior play on them by someone who does not know what they are doing. Well, Raymond has had to earn his laurels as a playwright.
So now I think all of Phoenix's theater world is looking to see what happens with his great venture in LA, as many know him and have followed his career here for years. They can't help themselves. They have to look.
What will LA theater patrons say about him? Raymond to me has become like a white knight of theater going on a crusade on behalf of all the playwrights in the world. The cowboy is riding his imaginary steed a long way to the promised land. We all can't help but get excited about that. I know him. I know he can ride, he can fight, he can battle, and he can win the hearts of the people. He is a natural born actor who has made himself the conduit for his work. For what he can do.
So I sense magic happening in that dark theater during these last days. The lights are going to come on and a miracle will happen once again on stage. A theater audience will be beguiled once again. A new playwright will be born! Once again.
We cannot always rely on the old ones, who have made it. Their work loses vitality with age. We must have new voices to speak for our times. The old must show respect for the new.

Raymond called last night

Raymond took time out from his busy rehearsal schedule to touch base last night. We talked about theater productions going on in Phoenix which happened to be mostly plays by black playwrights. Artistic director David Ira Goldstein of the Arizona State Theater Company is featuring Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, which is possibly the most famous play ever written by a black playwright, a woman yet! He could not have known that we would have a black president when he chose to do this play. Due to a bus that came up missing I did not get to the Black Theater to see their hip hop musical based on a Shakespeare play. Another theater company iCollaborative is also featuring a play by a black playwright in the Herberger this week.
I wish all these people were as excited as I am about Raymond, who has been part of the theater scene here for over 20 years, taking an original play to Los Angeles to perform in a theater in West Hollywood. We talked a long time about the play which he said probably features his father's disappearance more than anything, but he reminded me of how many times his father would disappear while living with him when something major was going to happen. He disappeared twice just before the opening of a new play by Raymond, adding to his stress, as he had to try to find him. I remember once he was missing for around 10 days here in Phoenix before he finally called. Raymond was taking a photo of him around to local bars where he disappeared to see if anyone had seen this man? There was always tension and worry that he would stay lost. Well, finally he did, just as Raymond was going through hip replacement surgery! Disappearing at critical times might have something to do with him not being able to take the worry and the stress that Raymond was feeling.
And then we talked about how many people become disappearing artists. In fact, disappearing into the shadows figures in my blog title which is why I called it Daughters of the Shadow Men. My dad's disappearing act was highly successful for the most part, but he did not plan on me being so observant that I detected the life he was living in the shadows. I felt constrained to keep his secrets for many years for fear of the wrath from him and disbelief from others I might encounter if I attempted to tell.
So Raymond and I concluded that maybe we are a society of disappearing artists. I do think that if anyone is different there is tremendous pressure on them to keep secret what might disturb those who demand conformity.
I think a playwright must always surface their inner life for a play to have significance and meaning. A risk has to be taken to lay all the facts out there, to bare one's soul so to speak. Raymond who has always wanted to be a singer is doing seven of his original songs in the play at appropriate moments to reveal character. It is sometimes a terrible risk to write and sing songs if you have not been deemed as talented in this area as in others. What a risk! To expose whatever talent you have to be judged! But I am all for tearing down all the barriers put up to keep people from expressing themselves musically 'because they are not good enough.' Dean, Raymond's dad, never encouraged me to sing a speck. I was there to applaud, but he did put up with his son who was more talented than I am, but not as talented as he was, musically. This guy could harmonize with anyone. But I thought his idea of constricting people hurt him worse than it did anybody. He had been raised to judge the singing of others quite severely, and this critical attitude ate away at his own confidence, so that he did not want to take the risk of being judged. He stopped singing for the most part rather than be judged as he judged others. So it will be very interesting to see how the audience judges Raymond efforts to write monologues, act, write songs, and sing! A formidable challenge. Can he pull it off? As my sister Ann said, for this kind of venture you have to have nerves of steel. And you have to understand risk that stops just short of excess, which means you must revise to the bone.