Baltimore Center Stage is walking the talk in its commitment to uplifting diverse voices that facilitate necessary conversations within the community, by expanding the limited view of the canon with three new works by up-and-coming authors from historically underrepresented groups.
Quarantine, social-distancing, and a polarized political climate have forced people to see the shortcomings in the system with 2020 vision. Although one would have hoped that this time would spark artistic creativity, the reality is that it hasn’t been easy. Miranda Rose Hall, one of the writers in the season lineup explains, “Writing a play in 2020 feels like building a house in the middle of an earthquake. It’s hard to write when the tectonic plates of our world, our country, and our field are constantly in motion.”
One hopes that the world would stop moving so Hall could write another play as exhilarating as A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction, in which the TedTalk-like structure invites us to acknowledge the responsibility of human beings and the “searing hell-scape of doom” we created with climate change. Hall says she “wanted to build a bridge between the stage and the audience, the theater and the earth, a single human woman and the more-than-human world.”
Rage, grief, and guilt bleed from her play in ways similar to what swarms the dramatic action in characters from Iphigenia and The Oresteia. If plays in the canon are meant to reflect on their times, why not produce more Hall instead of the Greeks? If we are willing to see it’s wrong to sacrifice Iphigenia to win a war, shouldn’t theater show us how we are sacrificing our planet?
Hall’s play isn’t the only one that would be worthy of being inducted in an inclusive canon; there is also Charlayne Woodard’s The Garden, which unearths the lives of two Black women and their unspoken trauma. At first glance, this take on the prodigal offspring returning home seems familiar, but look closer and because of its darkly humorous tone you might wonder: why bother doing Waiting for Godot again, when Woodard’s play is a timelier two-hander using existentialism and providing two Black female actors with roles?
Of course a revised canon needs straight up comedy too, and Noah Diaz’s, The Swindlers: A True-ish Tale delivers the laughs, as the characters’ frustration and confusion emanating from their differences, sets up hilarious moments that make one think of As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing.
This is Diaz’s second commissioned work with Baltimore Center Stage, who takes us on a journey in which the fourth wall constantly disappears. Think Brecht and Mother Courage and Her Children except with a less tragic conclusion.
By commissioning these works, Baltimore Center Stage offers “an indescribable gift,” says Diaz. Adding, “the home I’ve made here will continue to manifest in the work I create for years to come. I know there is a team of artists there who champion my work and its development. That alone affords me more artistic risk than anything I could find in one-off productions in other institutions around the country.”
When these three plays premiere, BCS will not only be introducing audiences to work by writers speaking to them about today, but inviting them to envision a new canon. Unlike the plays of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and O’Neill, the works of Diaz, Woodard, and Hall don’t ask audience members to imagine themselves in worlds they’re completely removed from. Instead, they address urgent issues like global warming, racism, poverty, and family issues they can relate to without having to decipher historical context or cryptic symbolism.
May they one day join the works of playwrights like María Irene Fornés, Adrienne Kennedy, Caryl Churchill, Paula Vogel, Sarah Ruhl, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Lynn Nottage, some of Hall’s heroes, who despite their brilliance are part of an alternative canon, for those in the know, and not produced as often as their white male counterparts.
“You know you’re in the presence of a classic when it feels like the world could not exist without it,” says Hall, adding “the canon is such a fluid, personal idea.” Now, thanks to Baltimore Center Stage and their bold season, there are new plays that add meaning to our world. As the theme of their season points out, there is “no going back.” May these plays exist and continue to inspire until they become staples across American theaters.
Toussaint Jeanlouis is a professional actor currently living in New York City. He is a member of the first cohort of the BIPOC Critics Lab founded by Jose Solís. You can find more information about Toussaint at ToussaintJeanlouis.com .