Environments Change People (’s History)
By analyzing the world like a play, we can better understand the people we come across. Plays are a better analysis tool of the real world than other forms of media because you can both read and see how characters behave in response to their situations and understand, through the language of a script, exactly why they behave that way. In the play America v 2.1 by Stacey Rose, an African American acting troupe tells the story of the “Sad Demise of the American Negro” in the not so distant future. But this retelling of ‘history’ is twisted and manipulated in such a way to make slavery a positive piece of American history in which slaves were well cared for and given respect. It also paints civil rights leaders like Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks as violent kidnappers and domestic terrorists. But in this play, we not only are drawn to the portrayals of ‘historical’ figures and the events that defined them, but we find ourselves diving into the actors’ lives as well. And while reading this play, I found myself questioning why the members of the troupe behave the way they do even when it does not seem to benefit them or their fellow actors. For example, Donovan, our troupe leader, tries to always stick to the script and tries to push an alternate vision of the world that he and the other actors know is wrong. Our troupe actor Grant — who is under constant stress with little food and little sleep — hallucinates on stage but continues to play along. Leigh another actor, plays by the rules for survival and ultimately usurps power. And Jeffery, the rebel, continues to go against the grain time and time again and is punished for doing so. I believe and have seen in this play and in real life what role environment can play in the mental health and behaviors of people, more specifically how the mental health and behaviors of Black Americans are affected by living in this country.
During my initial readthroughs of America v. 2.1, I had picked up that power structure was one of the major underlying pressures affecting the characters’ behavior. But, after reading Elinor Fuchs’s essay ‘EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play’, I realized that that was not the only reason and that the idea of power structure was more widespread. Fuchs’s essay takes play analysis to another level. The essay asks you to analyze plays as if you were observing a new mysterious world and diving deep into the connections between characters, their leaders, their pressures, and their environment. Some questions from the essay: “How do figures interact? By fighting? Reasoned discussion? Who has power on this planet? How is it achieved? Over whom is it exercised?” In regard to America v. 2.1., it helped me see that not only were there survival pressures placed on the characters from institutions like the government, and the audience, and society but also from interpersonal pressures from other troupe actors. By reading this essay I understood in a deeper manner the characters’ psyches and I could relate that essay in many ways to America today, especially the gaslighting of the characters’ knowledge of their own history.
A line of dialogue that sticks with me from this piece is an outburst by Jeffery that really cemented the idea of what living and pushing something false feels like for a person. He says,
“And here we is actin’ like we don’t know where we come from, who we come from. They dress us up and get us out here actin’ like a pack of fools, so you don’t have to see us like we’re people. But we are people! I am a fuckin’ person! I had a family, I had a boy, who I loved, That I’ll never see again. But I suppose that’s just fine with you folks you just keep sittin’ there gettin’ your edjumacation, and pretend like you don’t have blood all over your goddamn hands, And we’ll keep performing the truth about The American Negro As if we were not Negros.”
This is one of the final things we hear from this character aside from his screams when he is ultimately punished for rebelling. These lines are his address to the audience in the play, the government in the play, and the power structure in the play. Jefferey’s words could be applicable to our audiences, our government, and our power structures in America today that tell Black people that what they see happening in front of their own eyes isn’t actually happening. Structures and peers that ignore the oppression and racism right in their faces and how that affects their fellow Americans and those who they might call friends. The structures and groups of people that discredit and do not believe in movements like #BlackLivesMatter that push for the equality of a group of people long oppressed in this country.
I say that to say this: people in the real world today should be granted grace and understanding as a bare minimum. Especially Black Americans who must endure power structure pressures and interpersonal pressures that are placed upon them and not frequently analyzed nor are they changed. By trying to understand and question our own ‘mysterious world’ we might better understand and learn from one another better. Right now, in America it is all the more important to try to know how a person is being affected by their surroundings instead of judging them for not ‘following the script’ when they know that the story, they are being asked to tell is wrong. Also, we should make an effort after understanding an individual’s environment, to help change that environment so that it may affect that person positively instead of in ways that are detrimental to their health, mental or physical.
