WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. We wrap up where we live with a look at urban planning. Jane Jacobs This year marks the 50th anniversary of her book The Death and Life of great American cities. It revolutionized the way planners architects as well as the rest of us. Think about what makes a city work and what makes a city fail. Part folk hero part philosopher author and advocate Jacobs influence no end of city planners and citizens right here in Boston. Inspired by Jacobs activists fought to save our neighborhoods from stretches of Interstate. The Jacob Stockton also helped to save the north then from the development that killed the West Indies. Look at our legacy continues to define Boston. From there we take a company once production of the brother sister plays now playing at the BCA up next from city streets to the small stage. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the new wave of

anti Wall Street an anti-capitalist demonstrations are underway in the U.S. and across the across the Atlantic in New York. The launching point of the Occupy Wall Street movement two months ago activists rail against Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They're angry about the arrests of protesters dozens of whom were arrested near the New York Stock Exchange as part of a day of civil disobedience and marches. It's a similar scene on the opposite coast in Los Angeles police have declared an unlawful assembly at a rally by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the downtown financial district. NPR's Carrie Kahn says activists say they are committed to keeping calm marchers that I've talked to swear that they want their city. Peaceful march I spoke to one woman I think she was drawn here because she's very upset at this occasion that the protesters in New York and other cities around the country.

NPR's Carrie Kahn protesters camped outside St. Paul's Cathedral in London say they are staying put despite a deadline for them to take down their tents or face legal action. New home construction declined last month in the United States. The Commerce Department says it dropped three tenths of a percent still is Danielle Karson tells us there were some signs of life in the numbers building permit shot up almost 10 percent last month especially for apartments mortgage rates are at record lows but credit is still tight and that's created a booming market for rentals. But with millions of unsold homes idling on the market the inventory of new homes remains razor thin. And that doesn't include the backlog of foreclosures in the court system. Mike Larson is a real estate analyst with Weiss research builders know there is this huge pile of hidden homes out there that the banks are to continue to parcel out of the market. I don't think there's going to be a consistent rise until we get rid of that overhang in a weak economy analysts say it comes down to money. And the sticker price the new homes is about 30 percent higher than

existing ones. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington. New unemployment claims are down for the fourth time in five weeks in the U.S. The Labor Department has released its most recent snapshot of the market. It finds it 5000 fewer people filed first time applications for jobless insurance last week helping the overall number stay below the 400000 mark. And for the first time in seven months the less volatile four week average is also below 400000. At last check on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 159 points more than 1 percent of eleven thousand seven hundred forty six. Nasdaq now down more than 2 percent. It's a 25 83 S&P 500 down 1.8 percent at 12:14. You're listening to NPR News. President Obama is set to announce billions of dollars in new trade deals at a summit in Bali. NPR's Ari Shapiro reports it's part of President Obama's efforts

to double U.S. exports by increasing trade with the Asia-Pacific region. The White House says these trade deals are worth more than 25 billion dollars and will support around one hundred twenty seven thousand American jobs. They include sales of Boeing aircraft to Indonesia and Singapore. G.E. engines to Indonesia helicopters to Brunei and more. During his nine day trip through the Asia-Pacific region President Obama has emphasized the role that this part of the world can play in achieving his goal of doubling U.S. exports. As in this speech to the Australian parliament as the world's fastest growing region and home to more than half the global economy. The Asia-Pacific is critical to achieving my highest priority and that's creating jobs and opportunity for the American people. Now he wraps up the trip in Bali where Mr. Obama is the first U.S. president to attend the East Asia Summit. Ari Shapiro NPR News. The 21 year old man accused of firing shots at the White House last week was due to appear in a Pittsburgh courtroom today. Authorities say Oscar or taken on this was picked up at a hotel in

Pennsylvania yesterday. They say one of the shots fired at the White House cracked a window of the first family's living quarters. No one was hurt in the incident. Tens of thousands of Britain's unionized public sector workers are preparing to go on strike over changes to their pensions one day walkout is scheduled for November 30th. The Unite union which represents 200000 public sector employees says its members are angry over wage cuts and layoffs. This is NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the John D and Catherine team across the foundation committed to building a more just verdant and peaceful world. More information at Mac found dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. Today two conversations about legacy and vision. Later in the hour a local theater company tackles a critically acclaimed trilogy of plays. Playwright

Tarell Alvin McCranie his work reflects his 21st century vision articulating a community's legacy of pain poverty and race. But first we examine the legacy of Jane Jacobs a woman whose vision for city living literally reshaped the landscapes of cities across the country including here in Boston. We're continuing our where we live series with a look at Jane Jacobs legacy and how she continues to define urban planning and living here in Greater Boston with Anthony Flint. Anthony Flint is a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of land policy in Cambridge and the author of Wrestling with Moses how Jane Jacobs took on New York's master builder and Transformed the American city. Anthony Flint thank you for joining us. It's great to be here. So who was Jane Jacobson. What is her legacy. Well it's a really great story she grew up in Scranton Pennsylvania and moved to New York in 1934. She wanted to be a journalist looked for a job and fell in love with the city's old neighborhoods became a secretary

a. Editor at various magazines and she's got her kid in a stroller over at Washington Square Park when she learns about a plan by Robert Moses to put a roadway right through the park. And this intensifies her interest in urban planning and urban design and she ends up coming to Harvard giving a speech about her ideas and observations that planners of the urban renewal era like Robert Moses were really getting it wrong very wrong and she had ideas about how great neighborhoods actually worked. So she gets a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and sits down at her typewriter on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village and types a book The Death of a life of great American cities that was published 50 years ago this month. And it was really a book that changed the world. It was really a remarkable story she had no credentials she didn't even she didn't have a college degree she was very proud of that but ended

up really reshaping or revolutionizing the planning profession to this day. Let's unpack a little bit of some of the great bio you've just given us. So in living in Greenwich Village at the time that she lived there we're talking 1950s and 60s. What did she see that inspired her to think this is the way people ought to live in cities. Well she observed what she called the sidewalk ballet and that was the way that a very human scaled block of say four or five story buildings with a mix of uses went through its 24 hour life lots of activity lots of eyes on the street. Mothers and others on the stoops of buildings. A lot of activity promoted by a diversity of uses a diversity of people and a very local economy. And this was really the focus of neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and others in Manhattan and throughout New York City and in

Boston where there were very walkable places they had a sort of a human scale feel and this was really ended up being the neighborhood ideal for Jane Jacobs. She was as I read very impressed with the ability of a community by its physicality to bring people together to add to the richness to have cross-fertilization of ideas and people sort of in that cheek by jowl situation that you find in smaller spaces and in older buildings she was a fan of of older buildings as well. Absolutely she really was sort of a founder of the historic preservation movement although she never believed that cities should be frozen in time you know the cities are always constantly evolving and she was a big advocate of that. But she did see that it was a terrible tragedy for example to tear down the old Penn Station in New York City and

other buildings have great historical value of the Lower Manhattan Expressway that Robert Moses wanted to put through Soho would have destroyed a number of cast iron architecture examples in that in that part of the city. So she really objected to it. The sort of traditional town planning approach and these older buildings being destroyed and sort of bulldozed out of the way to make way for urban design that really didn't work very well. The example here of course that's often cited as City Hall Plaza and government center some aspects of government center and she would make the case that what was there before the West-End was actually quite functional and very good. Good urban ism that was being sort of wiped clean for these broad plot plazas and towers in the park that really didn't promote more human activity.

So when for people who know about the Westin and so many don't even know that you know its history and its existence here. In Boston you tend to think of it in a little bit more stark terms which I going to ask you if you agree that that's really kind of the the stark differences between her viewpoint and then those urban renewal folks and that is I think of the west end of the community of people in those villages as she described him being wiped out by the Charles River Park which if people are trying to member where that is that's if you lived here if you lived here you'd be home now where the sun is you know with this big tall gleaming buildings that sort of wiped all of that out and that was the essence of what folks in that time thought cities should be tall gleaming clean parks with people in high rises. And she objected to that and said it destroyed community people who know about the west and here in Boston are still talking about that loss. Yes and no scholar Square and the West and that's exactly right the government center and Charles River Park where the park was this notion of towers

in the park that was really first. Envisioned by look who is the Swiss born architect who really sort of made that approach that plan famous and Robert Moses use that towers in the park a model for many housing projects in Manhattan and the idea was Cities need a lot of housing to house people and they need affordable housing and so there was a great deal of density in these towers and they were set in parks to let in the light and the air and to have green space all around. But in the execution of these developments like Charles River Park arguably in practice it just didn't work out all that well. The open spaces were sort of inhospitable. They didn't promote activity. People just wanted to walk to the corner store and get a gallon of milk. So you get this idea of planners sort of at their drafting tables not really

having a good sense of what works in reality then how many people in the play and so it seems to me as you know just from reading what she did. Anthony Flint one of the things that I think that ought to be articulated here is that she doesn't sort of go you know get this grant write this thing and you know send it out and everybody said oh great that's great. She was in the street. She was a community organizer out there trying to make you know work with her or her neighbors to make these plans real and to fight against people like the guy you're calling Moses. You know wrestling with Moses in your book is a title of your book. Robert Moses. These I mean we're talking about community folks small organizations going up against some pretty powerful stuff and I want you if you could just read a little bit from your book to give a sense of the personality about how hard she fought for her ideas and how feisty she was in articulating them. She was she was she had incredible gumption and courage. Here she was a housewife. A woman. And. If you take the

example of Robert Moses that was a guy who presidents mayors governors couldn't bring him down and so she was coming out a formidable character certainly with Robert Moses there were three major projects that have a lot of fun talking about this in the book. Three major projects that roadway through the Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village which I mentioned that idea of urban renewal in the West Village where she lived. And then finally the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Now this was a highway a 10 lane elevated highway that Moses wanted to see through what we now know is Soho linking up the Holland Tunnel with the East River bridges. And Jane Jacobs very much got involved in the activism in the protests against this highway and one April day in 1968 she shows up at a hearing on Lomax as it was called the Lower

Manhattan Expressway and takes the microphone. And this is an excerpt from from the book from that from that scene. What kind of administration would even consider destroying the homes of two thousand families at a time like this with the amount of unemployment in the city who would think of wiping out thousands of minority jobs. They must be insane. The expressway would destroy families and businesses factories and historic buildings. In short entire neighborhoods nobody wanted it she said. But the government wasn't listening. It was as if the officials backing the project had parted from reality. The city is like an insane asylum run by the most far out inmates. If this expressway is put through she warned there will be anarchy. The officials in attendance were mere errand boys and the residents had to make sure they would take a single message back to their bosses that the people of lower Manhattan would not stand for this highway. But this message couldn't be mere words she said. It had to be a physical demonstration. A

defiant March. So she called the crowd forward. And about 50 people carrying placards moved up the stairs with Jane leading the way. The leading official at the time rose up and maybe a little bit frightened said you can't come up here get off the stage. So you know it might seem sort of tame by today's snobs but I seem to be charging against city officials you see. She was storming the occupiers would say that. Yeah that's right yeah yeah. And it was really quite the same the same kind of approach she ended up part of a bit of a melee where the record stenotype of this hearing which she thought was a sham was ripped up in pieces and thrown into the air like confetti. And she ended up being let out of this hearing and she was arrested to let back I saw my car exactly. She's quite that. I just wanted to give people the impression of you know how feisty she was.

The thing that makes her the name that we remember and the reason that there are many books and 50 years ago the book that she wrote is are held up is because it was translated all over the world these ideas were incorporated in cities everywhere including here in Boston she had great fun that's for Boston. In fact US university holds her papers. But so what is the legacy today as we look around what is Jane's legacy. The best of it and if you would is there's a downside to her legacy. Yes well I mean it's really incredible to think that this woman and this book would have such great influence but it really does and she really does uniformly and her principles are uniformly embraced by the planning profession the movements of smart growth or New Urbanism of mixed use walkable neighborhoods transit oriented development and very much the greater involvement of the public in the planning and development process. And it's there I think where

part of her legacy is a is a bit mixed. Some might argue that the pendulum has swung a bit too far and that perfectly good environmentally beneficial projects are being shouted down because a number of folks might be saying not in my backyard the so-called NIMBYism phenomenon. And so I think in that respect Jane Jacobs legacy as she's chief often invoked but in some cases. Today's residents today City residents are campaigning against the very kind of urban development that she advocated. So things have sort of twisted turned around and in that way I would argue. Do you see that happening here she was a big fan of the North and said Hey perfect this is what I'm talking about where people fighting back against what she would consider to be a great space around here. Well the action a lot of the action in cities these days is in urban redevelopment infill redevelopment and these are the vacant lots and

parcels and former industrial sites many parking lots that are right by the stations for example here in Boston and right here in Boston there was a there was a proposal to redevelop the vacant lot by the JFK UMass T station and before it could even get out of the gate there was a lot of resistance and sort of an outcry in the surrounding neighborhoods including Savin Hill which was more than a half mile away. And the people worried about change they're worried about parking congestion tall buildings. And there was this idea that. We don't want change we actually would prefer the vacant lot. And this gets back to change Jacob's notion that cities are constantly evolving. They they need to change and a place for development that's right next to a TV station. That's a pretty good place to have urban development. So how do you balance the community activists communities voice must be heard part

of her legacy with the hey let's try to have a mixed use Let's try to appreciate old buildings but let's be on top of what's happening now that that can make a livable space for all of us. Well it's very hard to do and that's why I think planners have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to have civic engagement to have public participation. Some have turned toward community design which gives people a lot more say in a lot of the specifics of design and urban design. It's very hard and I think a lot of developers here in Boston will tell you that it's a very rigorous process and sometimes it grinds projects to a halt. So somewhere in there you've got to find the balance of providing this kind of smart growth and urban redevelopment because after all as Jane recognized. This is very green development. Cities are actually

very green places. They're energy efficient. People use transit they walk they get around on a bike. And this is the kind of human settlement that we're going to aspire to in the years ahead. Well that's a perfect description of where we live our series this week. And Jane Jacobs Legg legacy thank you so much for joining us to talk about it. We've been marking the 50th anniversary of Jane Jacobs masterwork The Death and Life of great American cities with a look at how she influenced Boston. I've been joined by Anthony Flint. He's a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of land policy in Cambridge and author of Wrestling with Moses how Jane Jacobs took on New York's master builder and Transformed the American city. It's now out in paperback. I also want to recommend a book for those of you want to expose younger folks to Jane Jacobs. It's titled genius of common sense by Glenn Alang and Marjorie watch. Up next we continue our discussion about legacy and vision vision with a look at the brother sister plays.

We'll be back after this break stay with us. WGBH programs exist because of you. And Ellis insurance offering personal and business insurance plus financial planning and their online insurance tuneup identifying timely and relevant Risk Management Solutions. Exceptional service intelligent insurance Ellice insurance dot com. And innuendo in Natick presenting the hundred Douglas celebrate the season event featuring Hunter Douglas child safe cordless light rise options as well as the duet arc a tele silhouette and illuminate shading systems more at innuendo dot com. And Greater Boston with contributing reports to WGBH is where we live series The State of the American dream in Massachusetts cities and towns on radio online and tonight at 7:00 on WGBH too.

Director Alexander Payne's films find comedy in the crisis of his flawed protagonists a struggling writer and wine snob in sideways. A retired widower on a road trip in about MIT and now a family man who must face a difficult truth in paynes new film The Descendants and the next FRESH AIR we talk with Alexander Payne joining us. This afternoon to an eighty nine point seven The new TV age. WGBH is about looking back at the loss of Steve Jobs we have our own remembrance of him the Macintosh was created by a group of people living under different circumstances with the painters and poets. WGBH is about moving forward. For instance the eighth grader who built Bubble Ball off an app that managed to knock angry birds out of the top apps lot. WGBH is about you. Be a part of what's next. Call 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 or give online at WGBH dot org. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show playwright Tarell Alvin McCranie s

trilogy the brother sister plays tracks an African American community in a Louisiana bayou over several decades. The trilogy is making its Boston premier produced by theater company company one. It's currently at the Boston Center for the arts through December the third day of this year. Joining us to talk through this work are Kim McLaren assistant professor of writing literature and publishing at Emerson College. And Dr. McMichael Rodriguez he's a lecturer in the C.S. writing program at Boston University. Welcome back you too. Thank you be here. So let me set the table for this discussion. You know our conversations about pieces like this are a little bit more fluid not quite a review more of a discussion about authenticity and culture with a little bit of review thrown in. Just so that everybody who is engaging with us in this conversation can understand where we're coming from so that and we have a lot of room to discuss it. So again the

trilogies are set in a fictional town called San Pierre Louisiana and they seems to be set before Hurricane Katrina but very much in contemporary times. All the characters have names from the African religion in Europe and the plays are infused with a kind of mysticism from that religion so that's all I'm going to say and start with you Michael and ask how you found them. What do they say to you. They spoke to my heart primarily and I was actually swept up by the place to be honest and it dealt with a lot of mythological archetypal themes that made the play's universal and playable to anyone's stage of life but also dealt with some real serious specific cultural problems like racism in the country and the myth of the American dream I would say and how that applies to African-Americans and gay people and other people on the margins in our in our society.

So in that sense the first play in the red and brown water was for me in extraordinary take on that very American myth of the American dream. And. I was impressed by you know him in particular how it had a mythic quality to it and had an otherworldly sort of you know sense that sort of folded the audience into the drama which the spoken stage directions also facilitated. So Kim and you Michael and I believe so. All three of them did. And I know Kim you saw the first one. We should say that you don't have to see all of them to get the sense of it you can see one there you can see the second I don't know you don't have to see him in order either. But perhaps you should because. From what I've heard I think I'm fortunate I haven't been able to see the second and third one. I don't have that much time to dedicate to the theater.

And I have a feeling from what I've read and heard that the second and third are very powerful I. I almost hate to say this but I did not enjoy the first one I did not find a mythic quality I didn't find anything that Michael found in it. I was I was disappointed because I went really wanting to to find these things and I left feeling disappointed and dismayed. I thought it's clear that this young playwright has a lot of potential and a lot of talent and again I haven't seen a second third so. I'm at a disadvantage and I don't feel like I can really critique the trilogy or certainly his talent but based on the first play I thought it was quite honestly portentious and a little pretentious and a little overwrought and I struggle to find these themes I knew they were supposed to be there I'm you know I'm not a rocket scientist but I can tell that I was being pointed towards a lot of this stuff but I didn't feel that it quite arrived.

I haven't I'm sort of between you two. I was immediately at the beginning drawn in and then very quickly Michael I was trying to find my way. And it's not that I'm unaccustomed to to non-linear work because this is very non-linear meaning there's no like we started one then we go to two then we go to three. It just you know you're embraced in the experience. I could I can get to that because I love jazz so there you go. Just just to be clear. But I it was just not there for me whereas the second one which was probably the most traditional in format really resonated with me. And. And the third you know was somewhere in the mix I found it. Well but I but you know but that's just my personal thing I think what's interesting to talk about with the plays and the voice that Kim alluded to and how we are to look at these new voices coming out of playwrights trying to address some old themes. So you know putting their vision on some things I mean he said this these

plays in this tiny little community for which there almost is no access of the outside world. I thought that was a deliberate choice to make us look at some of the old hard stuff that's going on inside right. I would agree but I mean that's what I mean though I think all the elements were there again in the first when the elements were there but I didn't see them stitched together I didn't understand. There was no resonance for why this community I didn't understand you know the protagonist Oya who is an extraordinary actress I thought through I did a great job. But in terms of the character she her desires her motivations were all seem external she wanted to run. But what does that mean I had no idea what that meant. What it is she's scaping is she running for something. Same with the community I had a sense that the community meant something she spent a lot of time on the porch. But again I was never. Fully able to grasp or understand what that meant. The Southern Miss of it all the elements even the connections with the gods I knew that she was supposed to represent

something. But I had no idea what that was. Well let me pick up on something that Michael said and what you just said and that's about the dreams because the characters have dreams yes. And then it seems to me they're struggling with their dreams and when they're awake. So there's two things to dream themes going on if you will in this very closed off community which I believe is what the main character is in in a person trying to bring forth what you say. I would say so I think that I think the plays are primarily poetic and evocative and in that sense you're not I believe supposed to understand fully exactly what's going on it's more of a visceral experience rather than. Heavy or intellectual I know it is a pill. They are I think play of plays of ideas but they are also plays that appeal to a deeper more archetypal level. And for me it is a runner I mean it's a great symbol for her running from

herself essentially. We should say that the name means when Europe loses a breath a lot right. And I do think you know her main problem is her sterility and her lack of ability to have a child which is what she wants more than anything because I believe for her it represents some sort of a positive you know possibility in the world given the constraints in which she lives. She's been offered a running scholarship by a white man who represents the state and that of course is not an accident. And there's a sense in which when she turns that down to take care of her mother and then later goes back and tries to get the scholarship back and it's denied her that her fate is sealed. And that sense it's a story about feeling isolated in a community that offers no hope or possibility of escape. And that to me is one of the most elemental stories there is. So let me just pick up on what you said in terms of limits and.

You know you talked about her. The only thing that she wants is to have a child and you thought that was an uplifting thing. It depressed me actually because I thought what does it mean that that is the only thing that you can look to as a positive thing in her life and in a sense perhaps of that cultural norm because you know my claim is based on the play about a similar theme of that woman who as you know goes mad essentially because she's denied that as well and I think it's in a sense a subversion of that that requirement. Now I think but I wonder if from a thematic standpoint does it take on deeper meanings and then the African-American community where there are limits to people's dreams articulated and you know. Good but and I've been listening to Michael I thought I was thinking and as I was watching this I was thinking it's like when I teach fiction and in my writing workshops My students often say well I will ask a student what does this mean and the other students very generously will say Well I think he was

trying to say this and I think I was trying to say that and I'll say that's great but can you show me where it is in the text. And then they go quiet. I think what Michael saying is what the intent was. But it's it wasn't there like the desire for a baby. I got that but it's not there I think you're bringing that in because in the first act she wants to run. And it's supposed to mean something or represent something but I don't know what it is and then when that that goes away through the circumstances you describe in that second act all of a sudden she wants a baby. And now that means something and I know I still don't know what it is I still don't understand what it is because it's never given to me so I think you're right it is so epic and it's visceral. And that's if that's what the playwright is going for that's fine and so what you risk in that case by not putting it on the stage is if the person if the audience member does not have a visceral response and I didn't then we're just we're just left out and I was just I mean I know there was textual evidence for that I mean she wants as she says to have herself mirrored back to her. And that theme of the double goes through the other plays as well that

in the second play about going in the shoes see. You know she sees himself mirrored back in this image from a magazine man in Madagascar. He wants to go to Madagascar and search for himself essentially it's about identity search for that and connect with the running. Well you see like oil is a runner and at the end is it's kind of a take on the the Wandering Jew motif you know where he sort of sent out to wander the earth. And I say that in part because of the connection and history and culture between African-Americans in the Jewish struggle. And I'm thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. and Letter from Birmingham Jail where he feels a sense of solidarity with the Jews particularly when they were in bondage with you know by by the Egyptians and so I'm making the connection that there there is a sense of being an outcast in other words which I think all these characters are in one sense or another and search for one's place in the universe. In that sense it's a cosmic play but it also is about very personal journeys towards selfhood or

self understand and if I would take that and make it my little version Michael that was beautiful but here. Say that if she's a runner and a runner sensibly has the ability to go far and fast and achieve goals and dreams and yet she's in this tight tight town more the same what I thought was very powerful about it from a poetic standpoint is that the same thing happened a lot when I was about to be driven mad in the chair because of the limitations of what was available to people in that community and then I thought oh that point you know like yeah you can run backwards as well the forwards right and the left or right is not the way out you know. So and that sense it is a play that that doesn't express much progress. But in that sense you could say it's a realistic play about real human beings who struggle to make progress in their lives and very very often are determined by their social and economic circumstances and that's the reality of the world and to deny that is to play

into the myth of the American dream. You know I think was George Carlin who said that the reason it's called the American dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it. I've always loved and there's a sense in which I think McCranie is commenting on the realities of socio political economic. Determinism in a country that purports to be free and for you know equality and so forth. I gotta read this this is a quote from a crane himself he was interviewed by a publication called The Edge. So they're interviewing him and they say OK when people see your work what do you want them to know what he wanted to take away he says oh no. Sometimes when we have those talkbacks after a show and people are like What are you saying. I always feel like lady or gentleman I've been saying that thing that I've been saying for the past you know how long have you been sitting there an hour and a half. Right. In fact I want to tell. I want you to tell me what you think I've been saying or in fact I'm less interested in what you think I'm saying and more interested in hearing what this play is saying to you and what you wanted to say about it or to it.

I'm much more interested in that which I think is right that's what I think. I was relieved not to have to sit through a talkback quite honestly. And I guess I just again I think all this sounds wonderful it didn't I didn't get any of that and I got that I was supposed to get it but I didn't get it. I didn't see the connection between her desire to run in the first act and her desire for a baby in the second act and I'm not talking about the later person who runs because going to see that again I didn't. I just think all of these these threads were not articulated and that if you brought in the willingness to take with the player and maybe that's maybe that's the point. But maybe this is just simply not my kind of theater but I wanted it to be made manifest. I didn't understand even her connection to the water I didn't understand what's being offered to her in the nightclub scene. I didn't understand I didn't understand a lot of what was going on and I found it very frustrating. And also I will say on that you talked about the technique of having them so I want to talk about economic interaction. Let's talk about let's call that and less of this because I think that's a really important yes.

Piece of this that that speaks in a lot of different ways I do want to give everybody McCranie his credentials he's an international writer in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company A winner of the whiting award in the New York Times an article outstanding playwright award recipient of Princeton University's hotter fellowship and an individual whose work was nominated for London's Olivier Award. So he is someone on the move. And this is why it's interesting to take a closer look at this particular work because it's only been done in theater in ensemble this way and in several large cities New York and Chicago among them and now Boston by company one so more after the break we're talking about company one's production of the brother sister plays. We'll be back after this break. Keep your dial on eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is made possible thanks to you. And the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra performing

Brahms symphony number four and Piano Concerto Number one in D minor Opus 15 with Croatian pianist Martina Filioque November 17th 19th and 20th. Boston Phil dot org. And Tufts Health Plan welcoming network health into their family helping nine hundred forty thousand members lead healthier more productive lives. Tufts Health Plan. No one does more to keep you healthy. And rustles a family tradition for over 130 years with Christmas trees roping lights gift toy and flower shops plus live animals Russell's garden center Route 20 in Wayland for evening hours you can visit Russell's garden center dot com. Next time on the world extremist West Bank settlers want expansion not demolition. And they're angry at Israelis such as Benjamin Netanyahu. The world may look at him as a villain for fighting to retain 7 percent of what is ours. But if you look at the men of the village could be prepared to surrender 90 percent extremist settlers turn against Israelis next time on the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine

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If you're just tuning in we're talking about the brother sister plays by playwright Tarell Alvin McCranie the trilogy has been produced by local theatre company company one its running through December 3rd at the Boston Center for the Arts. Joining me are Kim McLaren professor at Emerson College and Dr. Michael Rodriguez of Boston University. A couple of things to say. McRae in his own personal life is quite interesting. He grew up with a crack addicted mother who died when he was 23 years old maids I believe. Yes of AIDS. His house there where they were living at the time Hurricane Andrew destroyed it so I think he has a particular affinity for what would be coming with Hurricane Katrina. And he went to live as an adolescent with his father in Miami and a housing project. And these plays are set in in a community with a housing project and he has some of that is infused in the place even as they are set right now so I just want to. To put that on a table so people have some other

articulation you know before we get to some of the style of the play which I think has a particular meaning. Kim I wonder if you could articulate some plays you've seen where some of the themes that you would have liked to see more manifest as you say have been done well like you know give us an example of a play that you say you know now that tell me something you know I mean again this is you know if this may just be a simple personal preference I'm an August Wilson fan. I mean you know I think Arny's Wilson is the master and I understand this young playwright studied with August Wilson and I was thinking during the play which is not a good sign because my mind was wandering. I was wondering what August Wilson the great August Wilson would have would have made of this and you know the thing about August Wilson is you go see fences you know what that fence stands for. You know what his desire for baseball is. You know what he's trying to keep in and what and what he's trying to keep out death. You know if you go see The Piano Lesson You know what that piano stands for. You know who wants it and why and what the struggle is what the battle is it's it's manifest from the act. Act one scene one

and it does not change in this play. It changed the heart desires change she wanted to run and then she wanted to have a baby and they weren't linked or at least I don't see how they're linked. So again this may just be a personal preference but I like narrative. I can hear it I'm sorry. You know and I like I also like being immersed and we can get into the discussion of the stage the stage spoken I like. Being submerged in that I don't like being held at a Met a fictional distance. And I mean meaning meaning being. Being reminded constantly that this is an artifice that you're being told a story rather than being embraced into the experience of these of these characters lives again personal preference but it was this badly as I want to be really right you know that I mean I mean gauging it kept me at a remove which it was intended to do. But that kept me from having the visceral experience that Michael had part. That was one of the things so let's talk about the artifice that Kim is speaking about Michael which is that the characters not only speak their lines or act their lines they also speak

stage direction right. Once you give us an example of what that's like. Well I thought it was very interesting at first I thought I was going to be an impediment in the way that you just described but for me that was balanced very well with the breaking of the fourth wall and looking directly at the audience. And at some level almost eliciting a response you know wanting to elicit some sort which it did very often people you know spoke back or moaned or really they didn't in my performance that yeah ok that is in my book but they did use sometimes inappropriately I'm OK. But you're having a lot of you know yeah yeah. But for me the speaking of the stage directions with which I admit is a is striking. Mehta theatrical devalue it's an example what do you mean by that people are like What are you talking about. Well I don't have a script if you want to be what a character would say something like you know. Oya turns and discussed and says so far when I mention about the mother says looking at her funny and then she looks at him and it looks like that.

But what I thought was interesting is that the actors said the stage directions with the same inflection that they would any other line the stage directions were not removed from the flow of the way that they would deliver any other lines so in that sense there was a continuity for me in the stage directions and the lines and what it did for me was add another layer or level of interiority for the characters that would have otherwise been lacking so that I knew motivation in a way and motivation and deeper levels of subconscious thinking in a way that a bear aligned very often won't get unless it's exceptionally poetic which actually this play is so what Kim said. You know the danger of that of course is you can take people out of the experience did it for me. All right now I'm going to take a look at or it can draw them in. And so I would say that. For the plays that you didn't see Kim it was less annoying for me in the first one I think there was so much of it is sometimes it just got on my nerves.

However I understand I will say that I got to thinking about this afterwards and I'm reading more about what McCranie has said about why he writes I mean he writes because he is an artist but he wants people he says to come to the plays who do not normally come to see place. OK so I think to your point Michael that he is trying to put whatever needs to go into the play that would engage people to respond as if the real people are standing there talking to them and they can talk back. And I wonder because he's now about 30 31 if that is an understanding coming out of his age where there is so much of the social media and the way that you engage in would would make sense then to write it that way that would make sense and quite honestly I wondered if this were a generational thing because that the audience that I saw it with was was it was almost evenly split there was a lot of young there were a lot of young people there I would say students no one talked about which is interesting you know when there was no none of that N-Gage mentoring and but I saw it very early maybe even the first opening day so perhaps people didn't

understand. And then some older people I would say older than myself even. And I could I watch the audience again my mind wandered and I could tell that the younger people did seem to engage and be into it in a way that the older people were like What the heck is this incident. So when you say that he's interested in bringing people who don't normally go to theater I wonder which people and who and is is that a generational thing is that a racial thing I don't you know it's intriguing to me I don't know that this would speak to for example my mother who doesn't go to theaters. I think she would find it incredibly irritating and bewildering and confusing because she wouldn't understand what's going on. But do you are you of the opinion that poetry has to make sense. Oh yeah poetry must make sense. Is that right. No no. But you do have to have a visceral reaction to poetry and I did and I simply didn't have it to this. Well poetry does do does make sense it doesn't have to make intellectuals now that's right but you have to have it has to mean exactly you have to have this feeling up of course and I didn't get that feeling for me the definition of poetry is that which

expresses something that cannot be expressed any other way. And in the sense I think that maybe what you were struggling with was a disconnect between your brain and your heart so to speak and that it was you know my heart wasn't engaged or heart was identified. I have my get my heart is capable of being engaged by theater it simply wasn't by this play. That's fair enough. Yeah and it was interesting is it because the point is that he did apprentice with August Wilson Yes the great August Wilson and some are using August using August Wilson looking to him saying he's picking up some part of the legacy much as they did with what he certainly lying about the bones I mean I heard echoes of August Wilson in there there was and again but I again I don't know what that is. There was a very beautiful poetic moment at the beginning when the character I'm not sure what his name is because it's been a while. The first time he reiterates the dream that he's had about like oh yeah yeah yeah. And part of that dream is the bones walking across that want to be that's August will said as far as August Wilson that's so that's that's direct August Wilson.

But in August Wilson I believe that's from. What's the point of this from Joe Turner's Come and Gone or if it's from another I can't think off my head but it's almost it's very close to August Wilson. But it's very clearly linked to slavery to the Middle Passage. To do that in August Wilson I didn't I personally I may be dumb but I didn't see I didn't see that echo I didn't understand I was waiting for that to return in this play for that but you know you don't see anyone actually running but when you want to be free Michael let me just say this in answer to you. I would also say it is possible for people sitting in those chairs to not hear bones in Middle Passage or actually hear Hurricane Katrina because that as it were as the play went on and the storm was coming. And you talk in a second I don't know the first play when you talk about those bones. And people are thinking about there in Louisiana the storm is coming there's water everywhere and you talk about walking on people's bodies in the water. I thought that there may be a contemporary reference as well so I'm just there's a part of his point. It's referenced. Yeah it's reference but it doesn't want to.

No no no no he's just going around and that's it you know it takes place and you have to stop it now right. Well and again maybe this is these are these are plays meant to be seen completely because the storm does not make become and I think they do form a tapestry and I think seeing one to the exclusion of the others really does want to service to the cosmology in the vision that they were not written in order. That's true said the first second it was written first I believe yes but that's OK. Yeah yeah OK so I just want that yeah absolutely. But in Yemen the day he sequenced them in a way you know for he's an artist don't make mistakes generally so and we have a way that's a big statement. Artists don't make mistakes. Yeah I mean I you know if you're an artist let me we have to speak about the fact that to rail Albon McCranie is gay and he really brings that up first play and continues it through the rest and that is still even in 2011 a brave statement for an artist a black artist who is seeking both to have a community response and support and

also a larger one. And I thought the first play he just sort of mentioned it in passing he goes deeper and the other place but to me that was if he is reaching out to those other folks that don't come to the theater that was really powerful. Right and I think. It is you feel that Michael you're not giving me. No no I did I thought they were Intrepid in that regard. And you know they were they dealt with some issues that I think made everyone squirm in the audience and I in that regard and in the sense that you know he's an earthing something that specifically in that community is repressed. And so that's also in some taboos Joao very much so and I think that's I think that's awesome that he's trying to do that. I wonder if these plays aren't trying to do too many things at one time. It's a lot and I think it's all of these things are important and I excited that we have vibrant new voices taking on these issues in our community. I definitely think we need to struggle with them. I just wonder if you can struggle to. I want

more depth rather than you know quote I want quality rather than quantity. Well I have to I also can't not say how incredible these actors are. Yes I mean actors are amazing. Yes. So whether you get it or not you're just watching them. Yeah there were overwhelming parts and it was a dish ordinarily you know long play. I mean the trilogy together to memorize that script in itself was must've been a feat but to deliver those lines with such passion as they did and I felt very convincing and you know they were they were you know incredibly devoted seamed to the task and I was impressed. Do we expect to see more of him he seems to be getting a lot of you know not just press but you know attention by others in the artistic community. I think this is the beginning of a pretty impressive career. It's a great way to start and being the international writer in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company that certainly doesn't hurt. But I do see a lot of

potential in here and I think he's got some things to work out I do agree to some extent Kimberly that he tries to take on a lot and it is it is dense to some extent with tissues of quotations and allusions to so many mythologies and historical references and other works of art. And to that extent it can feel overwhelming but for me they did ultimately work in a way that showed great promise. I think you know it's great promise to I hope and I'm really excited for him. I often I actually worry though sometimes with these promising young playwrights if they get too much acclaim and too much accolades too early for work that is not what you know the Emperor is not quite fully dressed yet to mix a metaphor. Very badly. But I think this this young man is has the potential hopefully to be able to can grow. I would be curious quite honestly in 10 years what he thinks of these plays. I think if he's as good as I think he is he will look back and see the flaws in this play into years and he'll be

like why was everyone. Like you know I'll be interested to know if some of the some of your criticisms with regard to so many things he's trying to tackle really are an expression of his generation. Because they like a lot of stuff going on at the same time that's true right. And they can pull it all out. I will say I saw someone I know who was there with her granddaughter and the grandmother was like what is going on. And the granddaughter was saying Here I am you know I'm intrigued by this. So the sometimes voices not just the articulation of the words but also that moment in time and the reflection of the generation and you know I think I think that's perfectly legitimate That's why I said you know I'll just stick with August Wilson. Well I have to say the brother sister plays are worth seeing. Number two is my favorite the brother side I think that is very very very powerful play. And it's quite linear Kim so you might want to you know I think at first it was the most otherworldly or mystical

in that they did. They were more grounded in quote unquote reality as they went on. And I give him credit for having comedy even. Yeah. And number three and number one I was really pretty it's pretty interesting. There's a lot to see there and company won kudos for taking on quite a massive project. Yes. All right we've been talking about the brother sister plays produced by company one. It's on at the Boston Center for the arts through December the 3rd. To learn more visit company 1 dot org. I've been joined by Kim McLaren assistant professor of writing literature and publishing at Emerson College and by Dr. Michael Rodriguez he's a lecturer in the C S writing program at Boston University. You can keep on top of the Kelly Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash County closely follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Alan Mathis produced by Chelsea Mertz will Rose lip and Abbey Ruzicka where production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.