Hamlet & Me (Part X)

Player Queen, Player King
Lee T. Wilson & Pandora Robertson
"Dumb Show" choreographed by David Shimotakahara
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999

Twelve years ago, Cleveland said good-bye to its last full-time theater critic. At that time, I expressed concern over the larger implications of that vacancy. Love critics or hate them, they write theater history.

Thomas Cullinan & Brian Pedaci

Upon the recent announcement that Peter Marks is stepping down from his position as critic for the Washington Post, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman expressed a similar lament.

“The historical record will also suffer. Losing this spot in my opinion matters more than losing a film or book critic because theater is ephemeral. My memories of shows I saw in DC as a kid have faded. The only thing that keeps them alive is the archive of reviews. Reviews mean that theater art lives forever and can keep getting discovered.” - Jason Zinoman on Facebook 12/18/2023

Looking over my journal for Hamlet, I was shocked at how much direct communication I had with members of the print media over that period; calling them on the phone, accosting them in public. It was 1999, and promoting your show exclusively online was not yet a thing. We had a website, yes, but we could only drive people to that through our print advertisements!

No mass theater email lists, no NEOPAL, no social media, none whatever.

Ours was a new theater company and we needed coverage, in print, on paper. Plain Dealer Theater Critic Marianne Evett wrote a preview piece, mentioned our fundraiser in her column, and reviewed the show.

I harangued the guy who wrote a weekly theater round-up for the weekly Free Times to include our events in his column, and was simmering with rage those weeks he said he didn’t have the space. Without coverage, we didn’t yet exist.

But they did cover our work, the critics did come to see our independently produced show. They all came on the same night, which was terrifying for me, what if the power went out? In that space it was entirely possible. But the lights stayed on, as did the heat (another concern) and we were reviewed by the Plain Dealer, the Free Times, and Scene Magazine.

Over the past ten days, I have described several productions of Hamlet. This is how the historical record describes ours.

Jay Kim, Jason Popis
Gary Jones Christine Castro

David Hansen – Cleveland's champion of twentysomething madcap intelligentsia; founder of the antic subversive Guerrilla Theatre (sic) and the edgy Night Kitchen – has happily sought new horizons with his Bad Epitaph Theater Company. [5]

Hansen, Thomas Cullinan and other BETC co-founders Alison (Garrigan), Brian Pedaci and Sarah Morton met at Dobama's Night Kitchen, where the quintet discovered compatible tastes and aims. As maturing, ambitious theater fanatics invariably do, they concluded, "It was time to take the next step." [3]

The group's creative esthetic will be expressed through an unslavish fidelity to texts and a reasonable respect for what's valuable in traditional performance practices. "People coming to us," (Hansen) cautions, "expecting some wild, shocking interpretation will be disappointed." [3]

The Bad Epitaph Theater Company will present their very first production, "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," opening April 9 at the Brick Alley Theatre. [1]

Directed by Hansen, Hamlet features Thomas Cullinan as you know who, Alison (Garrigan) as Gertrude and Brian Pedaci as Claudius, supported by a 13-member ensemble. [1]

Alison Garrigan, Tom Cullinan

You’ve got to admire the guts of a new theater company giving birth to its baby with a whack at "Hamlet." [4]

A judicious cutting of the script (reduced by a sixth and shaped into three acts that average an hour each), primarily reliant on following the narrative’s progression with an emphatic clarity, occurring in stripped-down, unspecific, but modernized setting and dress. [4]

Featuring an eclectic and dynamic cast, more grounded in Stanislavsky and psychological realism than in plumy vowels and exalted emoting, Hansen's "Hamlet" emphasizes fast-paced storytelling over poetry and pathos, yielding a robust, energetic production. [5]

The production… is a good one, given clear and thoughtful direction by David Hansen. The publicity has labeled it “in-your-face,” but in fact, the interpretation is straightforward and not at all confrontational or experimental. And the production shows how potent the play can be on its own, with the simplest possible set and costumes. [6]

Using modern dress, ingenious economy, and performers who know how to captivate a wide variety of audiences, this interpretation reproduces in spirit the immediacy and vitality that the original cast production likely flaunted. [5]

Christine Castro

It’s a decided relief and pleasure to report that the Bad Epitaph Theater Company’s most respectable production of the hallowed classic not only justifies a touch of audacity, but, much more crucially, earns the genuine anticipation of the group’s next, hopefully less historically perilous, project. [4]

The guiding force here is clearly director Hansen, who demonstrates a well-defined and knowledgeable understanding of the play, apparent in the production’s major strength — its sharply etched, thoroughly lucid story line. [4]

Hansen propels his three and a half hours without a single traffic jam. [5]

We seem to be reviewing posters lately, so I must say that if (Thomas) Cullinan acts half as well as he looks as the all-in-black modern-dress Hamlet, well, he ought to be dynamite. [1]

Cullinan immerses himself in the complex role, pacing it well and letting you see the fluctuations in Hamlet’s moods. His terror at meeting with his father’s ghost (a strong performance by Hansen), his easy banter with Polonius or the spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, his anguish in confronting his mother – all add up to a moving performance. [6]

Marie Andrusewicz

Cullinan is first of all the right thirtyish age — not too callow to have had the required depth of experience nor too old, which would upset the balances of various character relationships. The blond actor’s unmarked features additionally generate a still boyish, brooding self-interest — not to say self-indulgence — that perfectly suits this most unheroic hero. Intelligent, word-obsessed, the often petulant eternal student is caught in an endless analysis of his own inaction until he’s forced to erupt in a violent release. The appealing Cullinan has these aspects well in hand and delivers a secure and sustained characterization. [4]

This is a family drama, whose anguish builds throughout the evening. When Cullinan’s Hamlet dies, having finally brought about his vengeance on Claudius at the cost of so many other lives, you feel genuinely moved, touched, as you should be, by the waste of a promising young life. [6]

In a fearsome performance of finely carved detail that delineates a blighted soul, Brian Pedaci effectively evokes that vital something that is rotten in the state of Denmark. [5]  Pedaci is suitably conniving and slimy as Claudius, who has killed his brother, the old King Hamlet, married the queen and seized the throne. [6] Pedaci’s Claudius is commendable and particularly strong in his devious calculation. [4]

David Hansen

Alison (Garrigan) is also very good as Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. Looking beautiful and rather lost, she rises to the emotion-filled confrontation with her son in which she learns of her new husband’s treachery. [6]

As Ophelia, Christine Castro is touchingly and authentically sweet. [4] When Ophelia flips her lid, she pistol-whips the entire court with her flowers. As her petulant big brother, Laertes, Jay Kim is boyish, brash, and impetuous. [5]

Some unconventional casting provides new insights into the play. Gary Jones is a stout, vigorous Polonius, a bustling middle-aged snoop rather than an old busybody. Marie Andrusewicz is quietly effective as Hamlet’s loyal friend Horatio; Pandora Robertson gives the Player’s speech histrionic force; and Dawn Youngs has exceptional presence as Rosencrantz, Hamlet’s treacherous schoolmate. [6] Allen Branstein's gravedigger combines the best bits of Samuel Beckett and Walter Brennan. [5]

The Brick Alley (Theatre) is exactly that – a former alley roofed over and made into a building with a long, narrow theater space. Hansen and set designer Gunter Schwegler have put stages on each side, one backed by the building’s brick wall and the other by black and gold hangings. A walkway runs between them, with the audience seated across both ends. [6]

Pandora Robertson,
Allen Branstein

The result might look unconventional, but its flexibility and intimacy adds to the emotional immediacy of the show. [6] Schwegler and Jennifer Linn Wilcox’s scenic and lighting designs nicely adapt to the Brick Alley’s unusual two-sided arena space. [4]

For the academically inclined, yes, the language survives … an ideal introduction for untested Shakespeare neophytes and, for those suffering from overexposure, a perfect way to rekindle an old flame with a sweet prince. [5]

Bad Epitaph, which takes its name from Hamlet’s words to Polonius about the company of actors who have just arrived at Elsinore (“After your death, you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live”), is clearly a company worth having around. [6] 

Three professionally written reviews for one storefront theater production in Cleveland. Those days will not come again.

To be continued.

[1] “Happier notes” by Larry Gorjup, Free Times, 4/1/1999
[2] Calendar Listing, Editor, Scene Magazine 4/9/1999
[3] “…and the melancholy Dane” by James Damico, Free Times, 4/7/1999
[4] “Heavy Decisions: Of Hamlet and The Old Settler” by James Damico, Free Times 4/14/1999
[5] “Quite the Mischievous Boy: In Bad Epitaph Theater's production of Shakespeare's hit, it's dog eat dog in Denmark” by Keith A. Joseph, 04/15/1999
[6] “Company’s debut delivers potent version of Hamlet” by Marianne Evett, Plain Dealer, 04/17/1999

Response to "I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby"

Photo by Cody York

Over the past two weeks, over six hundred people visited the Playhouse Square website to view the film adaptation of I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby, performed by James Rankin, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and filmed by Ananias J. Dixon.

Here are some heartfelt responses the film received, shared with permission.

Via Instagram:

Paul: Your play was powerful. At times I struggled watching it because I could so closely connect to it. Our experiences with stillbirth were almost identical. 

My son Noah was born still 2/2/18 and every detail of that day is burned into my memory, & it forever will be. You experience a wave of every emotion imaginable, and it's difficult to talk to others about those emotions if they haven't experience the same trauma. 

Everything you detailed in your play, from the shock of them telling you they can't find a heart beat, to the memorial service you held, to trying to remove your wife from any trigger (like formula fliers coming in the mail) are the same things I experienced as a husband & father. 

It's been a challenging 4.5 years without Noah. I have his name tattooed on my forearm because I can't physically see him every day but never want to forget. That's all I want from others is to never forget our boy. I appreciate your willingness to share your own experience so beautifully.

Via Facebook:

Lynna: I have seen David perform it years ago and heard the radio version, but it is such a heartbreakingly beautiful play and so worth watching this iteration, performed so wonderfully by James Rankin.

Sarah: This play is such an important play. It's a deep and raw story that David found a way to shape and share with us. 

In this particular point in time of the reversal of Roe vs Wade, this play is even more important. This play, now a film, I cannot emphasize enough that folks should see it if they are able to.

Via email:

Bronwynn: A sensitive, real, multi-dimensional performance ... I love the play's theatricality mixed with realism. By getting glimpses of the couple moving forward for a year beyond their loss, it makes it possible for the audience to endure the experience of their loss. Bravo.

I am so grateful to have had this experience this month, and the to have chance once again tell our story. Many thanks to everyone involved.

Today is the final day of Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, and tomorrow the link will no longer be available through the Playhouse Square site. Please reach out to me directly if you would like to arrange a viewing for your hospital, clinic or bereavement support group.

How I Spent My Summer (2022)

June: Topsail Beach

This past weekend we visited Athens, Ohio. To celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday. Also, to drop our eldest back at school. A second-year. A sophomore. There is much I could say about my sophomore year at Ohio University. It is enough to say I never accomplished as much as they have their first year, and I lazed away my first summer break from college while they worked and worked and worked. They are my inspiration and my motivation.

I have continued to recuperate from my eye surgery. There are good days and bad. Sleeping remains a challenge. And writing. And reading. I spend a great deal of time on social media, because that is easy. But even my relationship to social media has changed this summer.

July: Deck Time

Last month, someone contacted me via Twitter to let me know they have been made aware that something they had posted on that social media site I have reposted onto my professional Facebook page.

I post all manner of things on my Facebook page, related to playwriting, to spur conversation, sure. But also to generate attention.

However, I don’t know this person. Another playwright, yes. But they are not a famous person. What right did I have to repost their thoughts somewhere else for my own purposes? None at all. It was a mistake. I was wrong. I took down the post and I apologized.

This exchange occurred just as my family was leaving on vacation without me the day before I would undergo surgery on my left eye was extremely helpful. It meant that instead of spending the day feeling sorry for myself, I could spend the day hating myself.

July: Zoom Reading

Feeling sorry for myself means something beyond my control happened to me, that I am a victim of circumstance. And as far my eye is concerned, perhaps that is true.

But I do shit like this all the time. Social media has only enabled me to cast a wider net of people to hurt. Hating oneself, at least, places blame squarely where it belongs.

The ten days I spent on my own I had the chance to do a lot of viewing. I watched Under the Banner of Heaven, completed BoJack Horseman, a friend came over and we watched The Moderns, another joined me to watch Magnolia. Each and every one of these stories are about men who plow thoughtlessly through their lives, only tangentially aware of their own sense of entitlement. Viewing or reviewing them, I was acutely aware of my own failings.

July: College Visit

I have both thoughtlessly and also with intention damaged personal items that were meaningful to my ex-wife. I have ended friendships with one carefully chosen sentence. I have complicated relationships by saying things I should not have said.

I have transgressed. I have been inappropriate. I have failed to return that call. I have pretended to be asleep.

Early in the social media era, long before the #MeToo era, this guy I know posted something on Facebook along the lines of, “If you are a woman I have hurt, I want to apologize.” That was it. I was incredulous. I’m sure I wasn’t alone. No one responded. Because cringe?

August: Birthday Reunion

But, you know, I understood the impulse. We know we have done bad things. We want people to believe we are good. But we’re really not. I wasn’t when I was a sophomore at Ohio University. And also last month. When will I hurt someone next?

This is not really an account of how I spent my summer, except to say that I have been going through some things. Convalescing has provided an awful lot of time to go through them. My final year of grad school begins next week, and I wonder what I will be writing.

June: Theater Camp

Play a Day: Hey Siri

Dr. Mary E. Weems

For Sunday, I read Hey Siri by Mary Weems and posted at New Play Exchange.

We live in the future. Science fiction has long consisted of machines that we could speak to, like they were other people. B-movie robots, for example. HAL was a computer, whose disembodied voice was created to be calming to the listener.

And now many of us have phones that are also disembodied voices that have been programmed to respond as though they are other people. Alexa. Siri. Those are the two we all know by name, I guess.

Dr. Mary Weems is a poet and an author and a professor and another one of Cleveland’s great writers. This piece was composed a few years ago, and it is an unintentional COVID play, the story of three individuals, closed off from the world, who each have a close relationship with the iPhone. They are each lost souls, an Iraq War vet, the adult child of a heroin addict, and a woman with a strong attachment to dolls.

It is also about Siri herself, as an actor, visible, on stage, plays this artificial intelligence. She acts as therapist to each of them, sometimes a dispassionate provider of information - which can be taken as advice - other times an apparent mind-reader, able to console the human to whom she is speaking.

The question is, are these troubled individuals using Siri for guidance? Or are they healing themselves? The need for connection runs strong throughout, some are able to move beyond their lonely confines, for others it is too late.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: What's Wrong With You

Jan Rosenberg

For Wednesday, I read What's Wrong With You by Jan Rosenberg and posted at New Play Exchange.

I love smart play scripts about modern teenagers so much. I love them even more when they feature drop dead, whip-smart dialogue while also communicating deeply felt character and emotion. 

Rosenberg’s story of a Gen Z cohort who engage in outrageous dares, faking injuries for social media, is thrilling, moving, and very, very real. There is an almost complete absence of adults, highlighting the extent to which these kids have been made to be self-reliant, but also the chilling degree to which they are on their own to manage their many emotional challenges.

Who should I read tomorrow?

David Hansen, American Playwright

I’m on social media. You’re on social media. I mean, you’re here, right now. Funny to think of something as old and tired as a blog to be social media, but it totally is. Welcome.

I have a dry wit, it comes from my mother’s side of the family. As she was swiftly losing her mind in early December, the nurses and doctors would test her faculaties by asking basic questions. Do you know where you are? What day is it? What year is it?

That last gave her trouble first. Then they asked, “Do you know who the President is?” After a brief pause she said, “Who can forget that?”

Learning the niceties of online communication has been hard-fought for me. But I have learned, like everyone else, to include an exclamation point to show the enthusiasm you might otherwise do with a smile. And to add a smile or wink emoji to let someone I know that I am saying something in jest. To them.

But if I am making a sarcastic comment on Facebeook, or especially on Twitter, it is galling to add “” or some other indicator to a wry joke. Drawing attention to the fact that my comment is not meant to be taken seriously ruins the joke. Either you “get” it or you don’t. If you don’t get it, it’s probably not a very good joke.

The other day, I posted something on Twitter, summing up my lack of respect for a certain political action committee, founded by a certain set of Republicans, who have made it their mission to make sure Donald J. Trump is not reëlected.

Liberals are thrilled, and to the extent that anyone wants to assign this president to the ashcan of history, so am I. But let’s not kid ourselves, if absolutely any other human were representing the GOP of the ballot, these fellows would be providing their money and support to the person. It’s not conservatism they despise, it’s just that man.

The Lincoln Project
steals memes.
(h/t JeffFromRegina)

They tweeted something which included the phrase “Are you in?” and urging folks to respond. I replied stating that I had: “Suddenly decided that after a lifetime of harmful, self-serving decisions, I actually don't want my obit to include the phrase ‘voted for Trump twice.’" and included their hashtag (see above.)

Two days later that Tweet has over 4,800 likes, and hundreds of retweets. Most replies congratulate and thank me. A small handful call me out for being stupid enough to vote for him once, and in that they would not be wrong, if it were true.

Because it was a joke. I feel a bit of what they used to call sheepish. But not much.

Several years ago my colleagues made up a little song, inspired by the song "Joseph Smith, American Moses" from the cringey and somewhat dated musical The Book of Mormon. It went like this:

“David Hansen ...
American Playwright.”

That’s it. And that is how I became David Hansen, American Playwright. I put it on my Facebook page, and on my website. It does feel odd, however, to use that title, things being how they are. What do I mean when I call myself an American playwright? Am I one of those Americans?

No. At least I hope not. I am one of these Americans, which should be obvious when you read my work, which is much more sincere than what I choose to tweet. I put forth an America I see and would like to see.

But if you are unfamiliar with my work - unfamiliar with me - how can you tell? A white, cis-male of a certain age, perhaps my bold statement of nationality is an indication of some kind of jingostic bent.

In my individual pursuit of a more perfect Union, it is a risk I am currently willing to take.

Play a Day: Click. Dark.

Grant MacDermott

For Thursday, I read Click. Dark. by Grant MacDermott and listed at New Play Exchange.

MacDermott has created a psychological thriller which literally set my heart racing. There were places reading this story when I could no longer breathe well. It is a tense shocker about secrets, the internet and social media, generational conflict, student-teacher relationships, taboos, truth and self-loathing. A gripping small-cast drama and truly disturbing.

Who should I read tomorrow?

On Program Pics

Tonight we saw a PLAY!

As Bertold Brecht might have asked, "What is social media for?"

We use social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on) to share opinions, to make jokes, to seek reassurance or express anger, and quite often we use it to post photographs of our pets, our dinner, and cocktail and our children, special events and even our injuries and accidents.

And we post photos of the programs for plays we are about to see.

This last has, from time to time, aroused snarky criticism, as if we are still insecure high school students mocking the theater dork ("Ooh! Did you see a PLAY?!") even when it's a theater dork doing the mocking.

Some take issue with this flagrant display of money and privilege, though little direct confrontation arises when our friends share pics from destination amusement parks, exotic vacations or ballparks.

Unlike those examples, however, audience members at plays are specifically asked not to take photos of the show itself, and there are reasons for this which are both legal and aesthetic. So taking a picture of your program is the only acceptable way to say, "I am here," which is ultimately what so much of social media is for.

And after all, isn't it a lovely thing to let the world know you are seeing a play?

Cleveland Play House presents "Into the Breeches" by George Brant at the Allen Theatre through October 6, 2019.

The Rough First Draft Complete

So, Wednesday night I did something impulsive. I had put together the final pieces for the rough first draft of Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street. And by rough first draft I mean, I wrote all the words, put in all the puzzles, sprinkled all the clues, chosen all the songs, and created all the “choose your own” scenes.

Hadn’t read it over, not more than once. But it was all there, beginning to end, all the working bits and pieces. Time to edit.

But first, I announced on Facebook that “I have just completed the first draft of a new play for children,” adding that I would provide a copy for reading to anyone who wanted to respond with comments.

This was an impetuous act, but then, what is social media for? After all, these are my friends, my followers, my colleagues, and dare I add, fans of my writing. There will be development through the company in the weeks to come, but why not start out just sharing it with people, and letting them tell me what they think?

I have already received some very meaningful responses, and just what I would like to hear at this point in the process. The basics. Does it satisfy these two fundamental criteria:

1. Is this a suitable and appropriate introduction to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and the character of Sherlock Holmes?
2. Does this piece convey a strong message anti-bullying that encourages self-esteem, confidence, and empathy?

Yesterday, I looked over the text for what I assumed would be copious errors and inconsistencies. And for the most part found only the occasional spelling or grammatical error. The detail with which I had storyboarded the plot seems to have paid off very well. I knew what I wanted to have written before I wrote it.

So now, how about you? If you are interested in reading this play, and providing feedback, I would be glad for you to be in touch!

To be continued.

Play a Day: Craigslisted

Sharai Bohannon

For Wednesday I read Craigslisted by Sharai Bohannon and available at New Play Exchange.

There is an entire world out there with which I am entirely unfamiliar, and it's on Craig's List. A couple years ago a post was brought to my attention, a "missed connections" listing that referenced an outdoor Shakespeare performance downtown. Some guy was trying to hook up with someone he met while seeing my production of Henry VIII.

Gave u a free shirt at Shakespeare play - m4w (Tremont)

This morning's play script is about a young women who is trying to make her way through college by answering personal ads from Craig's List. It's charming, whimsical, with a touch of menace, peopled with hilarious and engaging characters and playful situations.

It's also a subversive feminist commentary on poverty, empowerment, and agency. I would love to be a fly on the wall for post-show conversations on this one. We live in an era where those who perform sex work and demanding freedom and dignity, but we also need to look at the economic conditions which compel those who otherwise wouldn't to pursue this career.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Guerrilla Theater Radio Hour (three)

"It's another dreary and miserable day in Cleaverston Heights, and just the perfect weather for a little social unrest."
- The Raghouse, Episode Four

In light of a recent event, one in which a young man in a MAGA hat leered at a Native American Vietnam Vet at the Lincoln Memorial, several took to Twitter to shame those who were outraged, to wit; "Oh, this outrages you?"

They would go on to delineate several, previous examples of human rights violations against native people that presumably have not aroused outrage, not to the extent this viral image has.

This public shaming of those who are selectively outraged -- why? What is the point? The moment itself is outrageous enough, what does calling the reaction to the moment into question do but create confusion?

Like some right-wing website announcing the TRUTH of this HOAX by providing the UNEDITED VIDEO, which no one is actually meant to watch because if they did they would see the same thing, it’s the headline that counts.

But as to this idea of selective outrage -- oh, now you’re outraged? No, I am not outraged now. I’m not some middle-aged white liberal guy who just cuts and pastes sad stories, playing into Big Media’s lazy narrative.

I’ve been outraged for twenty-eight years, twenty-eight years this week, in fact. Ever since I saw the outpouring of glee on behalf of a large and loud segment of the students at my school burst into celebration the evening the Persian Gulf War began, January 17, 2001.

For three nights they took to the streets -- took over the streets! To celebrate a war. I had been on the fence in the past, but that night I became an activist, and even though I do not spend as much energy as others on liberal causes, I have striven to remain educated, aware and vocal.


Revisiting the Guerrilla Theater Radio Hour has been an ear-opening experience. I forgot we talked like that. Sure, we spent plenty of time criticizing popular television and complaining about parking tickets, but there were also discussions about rBGH, air pollution and yes, even twenty-five years ago, the use of excessive deadly force against African-American males by the Cleveland Police Department.

The best script I wrote for the program was the fourth episode of The Raghouse (see link, above.) That series was set in and around a coffee house, frequented by an array of then twenty-something Generation X stereotypes. The stories were often just an attempt to cram as many hip, early 90s buzzwords into fifteen minutes as possible.

For this episode, however, I took the focus off the main character, Biggles Malone (just as well, too, as you can tell I had lost my voice when we recorded this episode) and handed it to Satch, who carried the narrative into the realm of social justice and activism. What this episode has to say about what white people choose to get outraged over -- and what they do not -- has unfortunately withstood the test of time.

Not to ring my bell too loud, the episode also included an ugly racial stereotype, a one-off joke that I thought was pretty funny at the time, but am now entirely ashamed to have written and broadcast. It has been edited out of this sound file.

Have a good Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

@InTheCLE

Spending the week as the voice of @InTheCLE which is “a citizen voice social media channel that lets Clevelanders share and promote their love for Cleveland via Twitter.” Basically, they pass off the handle to a different person every week, whose responsibility is to tweet early and often about what’s happening in the city.

From March 6 - 12, 2017 that’s me, they even swap your face in and so when I go back through the timeline I am surprised to see my face attached to things I did not actually tweet. Other InTheCLE contributors have a greater interest in sports or civic engagement, mine has a lot to do with promoting area theater.

This is not the first time I have done this, I was on InTheCLE last January, too. It was quite an education in Twitter, which I rarely used. I didn’t know the difference between a "Reply" and a "Quote Retweet" and why you would rather use one than the other. I was also obsessed with creating my own original content, and was unaware you could get away with retweeting interesting local news without having to comment upon it.

Because I have been taking this seriously (a little too seriously) I have been on Twitter A LOT this week and it’s a little disorienting. It’s funny, people will ask InTheCLE for a recommendation for something - say, a good vegan restaurant - and I feel it is my job to find out a million suggestions right away. I even use Facebook to poll my friends there, who are all too happy to offer their opinions, and then report back. Before I know it, I’ve lost a half-hour.

In the late 1990s, someone did an experiment where they holed up in a hotel room for a week or a month or something, and their only communication with the outside world was the internet. No TV, no phone, just the “world wide web.” If this person couldn’t pay for it with a credit card and have it delivered via internet, they couldn’t eat it. Video streaming was nascent - no DSL, so no movies. Watched a lot of porn, apparently.

Okay, so I’m not in that situation. I move freely through the world, but in the interest of providing original CLE-based content (once an hour is a goal) I have spent a lot of time scouring for interesting things to report, even if they don’t necessarily interest me. And, because the point is promote the city, my commentary should be positive, supportive. It’s a challenge.

Some people think the Browns management have made some very good decisions today. Others do not. I avoid politics. I try very hard to avoid politics. Twitter is a political sewer.

But it has also been invigorating, catching all the responses to Mayor Jackson's State of the City address today, if not the address itself. Yesterday, it was all about discovering, acknowledging and promoting woman-owned businesses for International Women's Day. I have also tagged several professional theater productions.

Anyway, the weekend is coming up. If you know of any interesting activities or special events in the Cleveland area coming up, please let me know. Just tag @InTheCLE!

Apply today to be considered as an @InTheCLE Tweeter of the Week.

On Race (one)

Christopher Jackson & friends.

Yesterday, the family was sitting around watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Sesame Street float rolled up and who was riding up top, singing the song Try a Little Kindness but Christopher Jackson, he who originated the role of George Washington in the Broadway musical Hamilton.

My friend Grant soon posted on the Facebook, “Kindness? Sesame Street is totally biased and should be canceled. Shameful!” Indeed, even on this day of family unity it is impossible to see every moment as a prism through which to refract this entire American moment.

How to easily unpack this coy bit of FB snark for one entirely unaware? Grant was modeling President-elect Trump’s response to the company of Hamilton having addressed Vice President-elect Pence with a brief speech from the stage of the Richard Rogers Theatre, one week ago tonight.

"The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!" tweeted Donald J. Trump

What was actually said in those prepared comments did not become the controversy. In fact, it was an entirely respectful speech addressing the concerns a large part of the electorate has about the new direction this nation will take under a Trump Administration. It was a plea from the diverse peoples of America to be seen and to be heard.

What many actually heard was the Vice President-elect being booed by a large part of the audience as he entered the hall, and what they saw was an actor of color lecturing him as he exited the hall.

I got into a dust-up with someone on social media who commented, “Pure Bullying! By definition, it was. Plain & simple. He had a microphone, on his ground, with his gang.”

I not only provided this individual the actual definition of bullying but also pointed out that not all black people are in “gangs.”

He responded, “Who said anything about black people?”

Theater humor.

Of course. We have heard the dog-whistles for so long, and I myself am quite learned in the blunt tools of trolling and misdirection, but I walked right into that one. He who used the code-word "gang" went on to accuse me of race-baiting.

But let us ask the question: Was addressing Mike Pence in that manner appropriate? Was it fair? Did an actor have the right to single out an individual like that while attending the theater? Should not performing artists stick to their job of singing and dancing, and leave the speeches to others in a more appropriate venue? Does everything, after all, have to be about politics?

Well, the play in question is Hamilton, which has invited discussion of controversial issues such as race and immigration in America, and its creators have never shied away from their opinions on such matters. Brandon Victor Dixon, the actor currently playing Aaron Burr, was acting on instruction from the producers, and was provided the speech by them. Lin-Manuel Miranda himself (currently across the sea filming a movie for Disney) is said to have helped write it.

For days I was trying to remember a similar situation, as presented in a play, one in which an actor was intending to make a political speech from the stage without the permission and agreement of the company with whom he shared the stage. Yesterday, I finally realized that I was trying to think of a play that I, myself, had written.

In that play, the artistic director of a company, who is also acting in his final performance at that company in late 2005, is thought to be planning to speak out against the Iraq War following his final bows.

ANDREW

I hear tonight, instead, he might make a speech. 

BENJAMIN

A speech about -- 

ANDREW

About Iraq, yeh. 

BENJAMIN

Can’t say I’d support that. 

ANDREW

Nah? 

BENJAMIN

Not his place to do that. We got people from all across the globe coming here, tourists. Everyone knows someone in Iraq. It’d be insulting to them. 

ANDREW

It’s his last night as artistic director, his last performance -- 

BENJAMIN

It’s not right. He runs the place, he doesn’t own it. It’d be totally unprofessional. We’d have to take it up with the union. 

ANDREW

It’s just words.

BENJAMIN

Man steps out, speaks his mind, appears he speaks for all of us, init? Doesn’t matter if he says he doesn’t. I might even agree with him, don’t matter. He didn’t ask. 

David Hansen © 2015

That is from The Great Globe Itself, first produced was in 2015. Had our production followed the Hamilton-Pence controversy rather than preceded it, our post-show discussions might have seemed a bit more pertinent.

To be continued.