Ten Million Cured…forever?

Posted on 06/28/2023 by paulefallon

Fifty years ago, in 1973, the American Psychiatry Association (APA) made a diagnostic change at their annual conference, declaring that homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder. Instantly, ten million Americans were cured of the disease our society had inflicted upon them. I was eighteen at the time, unaware of the change, or the impact the decision would have on my own life.

I am not a loud proponent of Gay Pride: never liked parades before I came out; don’t like them any more now. But when I hear how Gay Pride festivities have dampened this year, in response to restrictive laws about drag performance and other curbs to queer enthusiasm, I worry. If we could instantly cure ten million people in a more welcoming time past, might we instantly label them diseased again in our dark and fearful present?

When I consider “what might have been” versus “what is” in my own life, I like to acknowledge that people and institutions can change for the better, and (to paraphrase Martin Luther King Junior) that the arc of societal prejudice is long, but it bends toward acceptance.

The history of homosexuals in general, and me in particular, over recent decades is a series of self-fulfilled prophecies.

Prophecy #1: My forebears were criminals.

When I was born, in the hyper-normative 1950’s, homosexuality was both a criminal and psychiatric offense. We were drummed out of government because we were, ostensibly more easily blackmailed than ‘normal’ people. It is true that people who harbor secrets are more easily blackmailed than open books. However, the institutions forcing secrecy were the same ones that then pointed to us as security risks.

Prophecy #2: What has no name does not exist.

Homosexuality did not exist in my blue-collar Catholic youth. It was a sin beyond the pale of my Irish ancestry, never given so much as a name, unless you count the repeated times I was advised to become a priest.

Prophecy #3: We can fix this.

I was fourteen years old and a mere fifty miles away when the Stonewall Riot became the Boston Tea Party of the Gay Liberation Movement. Yet I had never heard of it, even when I hit my own literal stone wall, in 1974, freaked out at college, and went to my first shrink. The APA had “unlisted” homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, but as any civil rights worker can tell you, just because the law has changed, doesn’t mean the culture has shifted accordingly. I was under the care of one kindly shrink after another, all of whom parroted the same line. “When you suffer depression, it manifests itself as inappropriate feelings about men.” I heard that logic so often I never considered its proper inverse: “When you can’t express your feelings about men, you get depressed.”

Prophecy #4: You must deal with it.

I don’t complain about the twenty years that followed my inverted therapy. I loved my career, my wife, my terrific children. But something was definitely wrong. Until some fresh therapist (I’ve lost count of how many over the years) used words I’d never heard. “You are a homosexual, that is integral in you. You are never going to get centered until you accept it and act on it.” Psychiatric whiplash.

I am not bold or independent by nature. I was lucky to come out in a time and a place that was receptive, even welcoming. Still, the truths that family, church and community drilled into us as youth do not unravel overnight. Thirty years after coming out, I still sometimes have to brace myself against a lingering residue of shame.

Today, I worry how that residue clings to others. How the hate of the Florida State Legislature and the Tennessee fear of drag queens might make other queer people stick to the shadows. How these repressive laws and attitudes will make those they target become invisible, which will only make more repressive laws easier to pass, and which could, one day, make the APA and other groups reassessed their views yet again.

I want to belief that the arc of societal prejudice bends toward acceptance. But I would be naïve to deny that it can arc back as well.

If ten million can be cured by an edict at a convention, damning those same ten million is possible again. Please, sane people, don’t let that happen. Let each individual live our own truth.

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Brokeback Albany

Posted on 06/21/2023 by paulefallon

In celebration of Pride month, I offer this glimpse of Gay America a mere eight years ago, in an essay I wrote in 2015. Next week, I will offer a view from today.

I drove out to Albany to see my friend Bertrand Fay perform his monologue of Annie Proulx’s short story, “Brokeback Mountain” at the Emeritus Center of the University at Albany. A dozen and half people in a narrow room witnessed a performance that would illuminate any Broadway theater.  Bert’s interpretation of Ms. Proulx’s prose was well worth the three-hour drive each way.

Returning along the Pike, cresting the Berkshires at night, I recalled the first time I read “Brokeback Mountain,” well before the movie made those inhospitable slopes a household name. I absorbed Ennis and Jack in one sitting, just before bed. Then didn’t sleep that night. The entire next day the two lousy sheep hands filled my mind. I reread the story, amazed how Annie Proulx managed to create these two guys, contemporary to me in age, utterly different in every other respect, except how Ennis and I were both uncomfortable in our skin.

The movie came and went with deserved splash. A copy of the story sat on my bed table for years. I read it whenever I needed to calibrate my emotional compass. Each reading revealed new insight. Over time, the satisfaction those boys shared superseded the tragedy that befell them. In another time, in another world, Ennis and Jack could have had more. But what they had was better than nothing.

We are moving toward that other time, that other world. It’s possible for some, though not yet all, to lead fulfilling lives without having to conform to the norms drilled into us in the 1950’s. My sexuality presents no real obstacles, save those remnants of fear still etched my head. Yet my residual homophobia lingers. I’m embarrassed to report that I still double take men holding hands. When I scrutinize wedding announcements in the Times. I ache to fathom what those guys possess that I lack. In theory, I could hold a man’s hand. I could marry. My conscious mind approves it all. But the indoctrination that because I am different I am unworthy lingers. The shame I absorbed so deep when I was so young never cleanses free.

Bertrand Faye is a remarkable raconteur, mining Annie Proulx’s fable with such finesse that he unearthed my own psyche in the process. His performance notes, included below, describe this short story’s contribution to our evolving attitudes and legal standing of homosexuals. But what resonated for me was how Bert brought Ennis and Jack to life in a new way. Specific characters from afar who came to life in Albany to help me, and so many others, grapple with our murky pasts.

On Brokeback Mountain

Bertrand Fay, 2015

Harold Bloom, America’s preeminent literary critic, describes imaginative literature, or literary fiction, as that writing which possesses the qualities of aesthetic splendor, cognitive power, and wisdom, a literature that, among other things, contributes significantly to the contemporary public discourse, prompting it, enlightening it, moving it to new depths of social understanding, the human way of being in the world, and to social practice. This is our experience, certainly, at the hands of such authors as Beecher Stowe; Whitman; Steinbeck; the Latin American writers, Borges and Marquez; and surely Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel laureate in literature, who was honored at the awards ceremony in Oslo with these words: “…she regards the African presence in her country as a vital but unarticulated prerequisite for the fulfillment of the American dream.”

In the United States, over the last decades of the 20th century and the years thus far of the 21st century, there have been extraordinary changes in our public attitudes towards homosexuality, its fact, its nature, its humanness. There have been changes in policy regarding the military service of homosexual persons; states have enacted same-sex marriage laws; and the U.S. Supreme Court rendered two landmark decisions regarding same-sex unions in June, 2013, a further Court decision pending this year. Many of us, relatives and friends, have welcomed such changes for those whom we hold dear. Others of us have been able to ritualize long-lived loves, their dignity and worth recognized at last in ceremonies the same as those that legitimized the unions of our parents.

As one considers the evolution that has thus taken place in our country, one surely cites Annie Proulx’s short story, “Brokeback Mountain,” as a contributor to our national discourse on the subject of same-sex relationships. “As a writer of fiction my interest has focused on social change,” states Ms. Proulx in her essay, “Getting Movied,” included in the publication Brokeback Mountain, Story to Screenplay (Scribner4, New York, 2005). The author writes that her narrative developed from a consideration of what it might be like for a gay man to grow up in homophobic rural Wyoming, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the United States. Thus, “Brokeback Mountain,” about two high school drop-out country boys, shaped “in their opinions and their self-knowledge by the world around them,” and finding themselves in heretofore uncharted emotional depths, is a story both of destructive fear, internal and external, and of the triumphant personal agon that is ever at the core of the human experience and endeavor. If the story, in its first appearance, spoke to a large readership, in its re-expression as an award-winning film by Ang Lee, it spoke to, and challenged, millions.

“Brokeback Mountain” is a story bracingly raw in its directness; disarmingly simple in its narrative, lyrically beautiful in its prose. A story of two young men attempting to come to terms with a shared truth, it is a powerful, wise, and trustworthy work of American literature offering us much as we continue to move towards the realization of a cherished democratic ideal.

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My Non-Bucket List

Posted on 06/14/2023 by paulefallon

Last week I met someone who seemed interested in my bicycle adventures. “Oh, you have to cycle in Italy,” she told me. “Put it on your bucket list. Tuscany is beautiful and there are wonderful tours that go from inn to inn.”

I smiled. “That sounds nice.” Which is not the same as saying I’ll cycle in Italy. Because I won’t. Especially not on a group tour that takes me from inn to inn. And I didn’t even bother to acknowledge that distasteful phrase: ‘bucket list.’

I’m at that stage of life where somewhere between one day and one-third of my earthly breathes remain. Done with formal education, done with child-rearing, done with working for a living. That point when the term ‘bucket list’ stops being conceptual and takes on measurable meaning. Yet, how can a bucket list ever satisfy? If you die before it’s complete, you’ve left the world a bucket laden with unfulfilled wishes. Even worse, if you empty your bucket, you’ve got nothing left to anticipate until your final end.

I do not have a bucket list. I cannot think of one concrete activity I must accomplish or geographic locale I must witness before I die. There’s lots of things I’d like to do: have one of my plays produced; help abolish our penal system; travel to a place where my skills are needed and valued; or simply apply them locally. All things that require cooperation with other people, and therefore beyond my self-control.

Nothing on my horizon requires seeking external beauty or physical excitement. I’ve seen plenty of the world, and if meaningful opportunities present to experience more of it directly, all good. Otherwise, I’m a fan of the internet’s most positive attribute: the ability to expand my horizons from the comfort of my own home.

What I do have is a non-bucket list. All of the things I will never do. My non-bucket list grows often, and every time I shed an obligation or expectation, I’m flooded with grateful relief.

In the third grade, I wanted to be President of the United States (back in the days when that was a noble ambition). Now I know: I will never be President. Or even Vice-President. Or even a Cambridge City Councilor. I am content to never be elected to anything ever again.

During my Gilbert and Sullivan phase of junior high school, I thought I’d be a singer, or at least an actor. Now, I never want to step on-stage again. Sticking to the audience provides great solace.

I was never a good athlete; my dreams of baseball glory were always bunk. But like so many boys, they were there, tantalizing in their glory. These days, I’m happy to simply walk my steps, huff my way through Pilates, and struggle to press the same weight at the gym that I managed last week. There’s joy to be found when you get physical euphoria from mere maintenance.

As per excitement, I don’t care if my feet ever leave the ground again. George Bush may have senior sky-dived, but I will never Tilt-A-Whirl or Roller Coaster or Ferris wheel again—unless someday I have grandkids. And since I have no control over creating them, I don’t pin any hope there.

Although I’m sure there are many nice places to visit in the world, there’s isn’t a single one I ‘must see.’ Yet there are many places I will consciously avoid. I have no business going to Patagonia, or Machu Pichu, or Antarctica, or any ecologically fragile locale. Let the scientists and the film crews record their beauty and deliver me the David Attenborough version. I don’t feel the need to witness the brutality of Russia, the arbitrariness of Saudi Arabia, or the protests of Macron’s France first hand; in the past year intrepid citizens from all those places have stayed under my roof and given me first-hand insights I could not have experienced as mere tourist.

Wisteria from my own backyard

As for cycling through Tuscany with a bunch of other non-Italians simply because it’s beautiful. I’ve already cycled through Tacoma and Tucson and Tulsa and Tallahassee and Toms River. So if the gods decree that I never again cycle further than Taunton, I will acquiesce to their wisdom. Taunton is not Tuscany, but the breeze rolling south along Route 138 is every bit as refreshing.

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When the US Government Condemned Fascism, Rather than Accommodate It

Posted on 06/07/2023 by paulefallon

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The Pointless Quest for a Frictionless Life

Posted on 05/31/2023 by paulefallon
Friction Happens

I was doing my circuit at the gym the other day; seated rowing machine to be exact. When I finished my reps, a guy across the room, seated with his iPad, wearing ear buds, told me to stop breathing so loud. “It’s annoying,” he said.

This was not the first person ever to mention my breathing technique. I’ve explained to others the value of yogic breath: deep, focused inhales and audible exhales. Some feigned interest in my explanation; others could hardly care This was the first guy who complained to the point of telling—not asking—me to stop.

I’m ornery enough not to calmly acquiesce, but smart enough to avoid a shouting match with a gym-lout over a ridiculous demand. I exchanged a comforting eye roll with the other middle-aged guy in the space and curbed my enthusiasm for the rest of the workout.

We create friction whenever we move

The encounter reminded me of this terrific article by Kat Rosenfield, “The Illusion of Frictionless Existence” (Boston Globe Ideas 2/22/2023). Ms. Rosenfield’s main focus is Gen Z late-late bloomers, not gym jerks, but the seeds of my encounter exist in her reporting. A world in which individuals exist in a cocoon of their own comfort, and feel entitled to lash out at anything that compromises it, even in the slightest.

Ms. Rosenfield spent ten years authoring a teen advice column (2009-2019). During that time, she was struck by a new line that occurred with increasing frequency in the letters she received. “I shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable.” Truth is, if you ever want to grow up, you do have to be made to feel uncomfortable, you have to learn how to deal with it and hopefully, to grow from it.

The quest for an easy life, a frictionless life, is as enduring as it has been unattainable for most of human history. For thousands of years, only the rare, the rich, the royal, led lives of anything approaching ease. It was a mere 370 years ago that Thomas Hobbes declared life, “nasty, brutish, and short.” For many, the blossoming Industrial Revolution only made life nastier, brutalier, and shorter. We have only recently achieved the required level of affluence for humans to pursue a life untethered from the nuisance of others.

Add to that affluence our autonomy of communication, initiated by the telephone yet perfected by the smartphone. Individuals of means can meet most of their needs and wants without engaging another face. Contactless pick-up and delivery. Interactions that require no interaction. It’s easier than ever to live without encountering any obstacle.

Avoiding challenges is almost always a good tactic to ride through a moment; but a terrible strategy for leading our lives. When our primary mode is to avoid, we don’t learn how to get along. When we eliminate friction, we don’t develop the skills required to negotiate even the simplest exchanges, like acceptable noise at the gym. No wonder we are so unsuccessful at negotiating the real conflicts of our world.

The best lubricant for human friction is: communication

My greatest disappointment in the expanding pool of people trying to live frictionless lives is not so much that they’re bound to fail (we’re not yet so autonomous that we can actually live in private bubbles), nor that they become irrationally annoyed by the simplest of interferences (like heavy breathing at a gym). My greatest disappointment is how much they miss by not putting themselves out there, for the chance encounter, the opportunity to be fascinated by something they don’t already know.

The two most mind-expanding experiences of my own life – working in Haiti post-2010 earthquake, and bicycling through the United States in 2015-2016—were both premised on consciously putting myself in uncomfortable situations and embracing the experience. I could have retired to a cocoon: I have the resources. But I not have the inclination. Where has that sense of adventure gone from our lives?

My breathing annoyed the guy at the gym and he felt entitled to tell me to stop. Such the pity. How much better if he’d asked, “Why do you do that?” And we could have talked, perhaps learned from each other, perhaps come to appreciate each other. Instead, he dismissed me as an annoyance, which annoyed me. In his quest for no friction: we created friction.

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The Fallacy of Building Our Way to a More Equitable World

Posted on 05/24/2023 by paulefallon

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All Hail! Steven Pinker!

Posted on 05/17/2023 by paulefallon

You gotta love Steven Pinker. He puts such high polish on the gruesome aspects of our world; he makes me believe there’s hope.

For those of us who may not be familiar, Steven Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard whose research focuses on language, cognition, and social relations. He’s written twelve books, which collectively form a sort of positive humanity manifesto. The books are well researched and thought provoking, yet by academic standards, easy reads. Think Malcolm Gladwell with greater heft and a persistently upbeat perspective.

I first came to Pinker through Angels of Our Better Nature (2011) a fascinating romp through human history predicated on the idea that humans are evolving into more just, peaceful creatures. There’s much merit in the argument: we no longer burn people at the stake, or turn guillotine executions into public spectacle. However, our bloodiest century, by far, was the one we recently completed. Twentieth-century wars witnessed over a hundred million people dead from direct combat, battle-inflicted wounds, or collateral civilian damage. Plus six million Jews and other undesirables: gassed. Mr. Pinker may be correct in that we may have become more ‘humane’ in how we kill each other, but the scale of 20th century atrocities places humans far removed from angels.

War dead notwithstanding, the 20th century ushered in remarkable social and economic advances. Never had so many enjoyed so much opportunity. Living standards soared, life expectancies soared, political access soared. Not for all, by any measure; but for more than ever in human history.

Mr. Pinker’s optimism rose again with Enlightenment NOW: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018). The title alone is giddy with potential. Here, Pinker’s humanist creed is stronger. He doesn’t—quite—accuse traditional religion of holding us back, but the undercurrent is there.

Last year, Steven Pinker published his latest book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. A title less bombastic than Enlightenment NOW, as if the pandemic made even the most optimistic surveyor of our world pause, perhaps even retrench.

I went to hear Steven Pinker speak about his latest book, in a crowded lecture hall at the Harvard Science Center. The man gives good lecture. Graphics, humor, documentation, insights. Pinker makes the case that humans are fundamentally rational beings, and that our rationality will ultimately be our path to resolving political discord, religious fanaticism, economic inequality, even environmental disaster.

“Those following rationality do not wish anything for themselves that they do not wish for others.”

Such a noble idea. An extension, really, of the Golden Rule. That our humanity is not simply what we ‘do’ to and for each other; rather it’s what we ‘wish’ to and for each other. Steven Pinker imagines a world where eight billion people wish for all others everything they wish for themselves. If only wishing made things true.

Title Screen of Steven Pinker Lecture

Steven Pinker’s talk was steeped in humanist philosophy: treating all humans as a unified group; undifferentiated by age, wealth, race, or creed; all rowing together towards the same goal in the here and now. He appears to assume that people will abandon beliefs in an after-life simply because the sectarian strife that religion creates here on earth is so caustic. He also seems to discount the reality that not all humans view all others as equal. We are rooted in tribes of family, village, and nation. We honor those within our tribes over those beyond. Who among us will work to provide the same food, shelter and opportunity to an unnamed child on another continent that we will provide our own children? None.

I love and respect Steven Pinker because his worldview of human potential surpasses my own. I acknowledge our tribal nature, our religious fixations, and strive to see how we can coexist in peace. He operates on a whole other plane: where humankind’s commonalities and rational capabilities overcome all of our differences. I look forward to the day when his brilliant optimism eclipses my limited vision.

All Hail! Steven Pinker!

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The Disingenuous Gall of Kitchen Fees

Posted on 05/10/2023 by paulefallon
Kitchen Worker at Democracy Brewing. Courtesy of The Boston Globe

The first time I ate at a restaurant that delivered me a check with a surcharge tacked on to support the kitchen staff, I was miffed. Another hidden cost. The meal was over, the tab delivered, I wasn’t of a mind to make a scene, so I paid and left. Never to return to that restaurant again.

The practice is growing—adding a surcharge to a bill for the ostensibly noble purpose of providing a living wage to the kitchen staff (Recent Boston Globe Article). Most restaurants make note of the practice, in small print, near the bottom of their menu. Easy to miss if you’re not on your game. These days, I scrutinize menus before selecting a place to dine, and bypass any with the telltale fee. Thus, I’ve stopped patronizing Veggie Planet—a place I love—and ignore Pammy’s, despite the raves it receives, because each of those Cambridge eateries are early adopters of kitchen fees.

Why am I so boiled about this practice?

It’s not that I don’t want kitchen workers to get a living wage—I do. I’m happy to pay a fair price for a meal that includes paying all the staff well. What I object to is the so-called social consciousness of restaurant owners who proclaim to care about giving their workers a living wage, without actually paying them one. If it’s a slow night, and the kitchen fees don’t add up to a living wage for their back-of-house staff, does the owner ante up the difference? I don’t see that anywhere in the fine print.

Kitchen Fee at Democracy Brewing, Courtesy of The Boston Globe

If you’re a business owner, and you believe your workers should get a living wage, then pay them that wage. If that means your prices have to increase, then state on your menu that you pay all of your workers living ages, and the prices reflect that. Proclaim your conscience on your website, in your promotional material. If you actually pay a living wage, I will happily pay a few dollars more for my fish and chips.

In so many arenas of our economy, retailers have discovered that the easier, and earlier in the process, the monetary transaction gets addressed, the better the overall customer experience. When we order from Amazon, we pay in advance; we know intellectually that the transit cost is folded into the overall price, but when our goods arrive—with free shipping—we feel like we just got a gift. Folks who own vehicles grouse about the price of gas (paid out on an as-needed basis), much more than their monthly car and insurance payments. Those upfront costs are already factored into our lives, and we absorb them into our psyche. Similarly, once I load up my Charlie Card, I feel like I ride the subway for free.

So why are restaurants going the other way? Instead of making checks more complicated, they would be wiser to move in the direction of fewer add-on charges, not more.

The Tasting Counter, Somerville, MA

There are a few places in the Boston area that do not accept tips; the total cost of everything is included in the stated price. The most comprehensive in this regard is Tasting Counter. Make your reservation, put it on your credit card, and that’s the last you deal with money. Arrive for an amazing nine-course dinner with accompanying wines (or in my case, nine exotic craft beers) and simply enjoy the evening. To be sure, Tasting Counter is not an everyday experience, (prix fixe is $325 per person) but the concept is fresh and the experience so wonderful, I’m surprised more modest places haven’t found a way to emulate.

Restauranteurs with a pretend social conscious: make it real. Pay your staff a living wage. Tell us it’s reflected in your prices We will patronize you. Not only for your food, but for your honesty.

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A Word to the Wise: A Word to Avoid

Posted on 05/03/2023 by paulefallon

I’m not talking about the N-word or the B-word or the C-word, or even the F-word; though there are damned few times when uttering any of those syllables actually help a situation. I’m talking about that personally pernicious word that simultaneously lets you off the hook even as it dumps you into a psychological pit. I’m talking about the S-word: should.

According to Merriam-Webster, this auxiliary verb expresses obligation, propriety or expediency: i.e. he/she/it should keep their mouth shut/drive slower/get a better hair cut; versus you should call your mother/take out the garbage/read a novel; versus I should get a new job, exercise more/write my congressional representative.

The first instance—directing ‘should’ in the third person—is gossip; which is almost always fun in the moment but starts tasting rancid the moment it escapes the mouth. The second—directing ‘should’ in the second person—is judgment; and unless someone solicits your opinion, keep it to yourself. The third—directing ‘should’ at yourself—is an excuse; equating the desire to lose weight/stop smoking/sleep more with the effort of actually doing it.

I first recognized the crutch of ‘should’ in the 1990’s. In my post-marriage/pre-Internet years, I sometimes frequented gay bars. Too many times, the first or second thing out of an engaging guy’s mouth was, “I should lose ten pounds.” A line always prompted me to move on. In part because I have a penchant for hefty guys, and often found those extra ten pounds attractive. But more important, as any wary son of an alcoholic can attest: I am wary of any statement of intent masquerading as actual action.

Once I realized my negative reaction to anyone using the S-word, I began monitoring my own use. It wasn’t too difficult to stop applying ‘should’ to myself; I’m highly disciplined, and so I decided to either lose the weight/do the exercise/repair the leaky faucet—or shut up about it. Giving unsolicited advice was a lot harder; we all know we can navigate other’s lives better than they do it themselves. Hardest still, to stop gossiping about what others should be doing. In time, I got better at eliminating my use of the word ‘should.’ The result? A lot less talking, which is generally good for me and likely the world at large as well.

I thought my understanding of the evils of ‘should’ were pretty solid, until I read Jane Elliot’s recent article, “How ‘Should’ Makes us Stupid—And How to Get Smart Again.” Dr. Elliot explains how telling ourselves that we should do something, actually makes the objective more difficult to achieve. Saying that we should lose ten pounds/go to the gym/quit smoking measures our current self against a receding horizon of expectation; an expectation that we inevitably fail to achieve, and thus descend into what she refers to as the deficit mindset.

I don’t buy every morsel of Dr. Elliot’s pop psychology path out of the tyranny of the ‘should,’ but she offers us a pretty good place to start. Every time you think ‘should’, say ‘want.’ I want to lose ten pounds. Voila! I’ve turned an obligation into an aspiration, even a motivation.

Once you start replacing ‘should’ with ‘want’ in the first person, making the switch in the second and third person can easily follow. “I want you to be happy,” replaces “you should get therapy.” “I want them to find more satisfying work,” replaces, “they should get a new job.”

‘Should’ is the Debbie Downer of words, whether we apply it to ourselves or others. When the urge to ‘should’ descends: rephrase, reframe. In time you’ll stop saying the S-word and—trust me—you’ll never miss it.

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Fairview

Posted on 04/26/2023 by paulefallon

I recently caught an afternoon matinee of Speakeasy Stage’s production of Fairview, one of the oddest, yet unsettling, pieces of theater I’ve seen in some time.

The longish one act divides into three discrete segments. The first half hour or so depicts a middle-class Black family: mother, father, daughter, and snippy aunt, preparing for an elaborate birthday celebration for the family matriarch (who is ostensibly upstairs getting dressed). Mom Beverly worries about the minutiae of the event. Dad Dayton teases and caresses her devotedly despite—or perhaps because of—her anxiety. Aunt Jasmine is a flip counter to her uptight sister. While daughter Keisha is an exemplar of potential. All sunny, Cosby-show stuff with upbeat music, line dancing, witty dialogue, and terrific bits about setting place ware for six. A generation ago, as written by Neil Simon, it might have barreled along to a juicy Broadway run and become a major motion picture.

I knew this 1980’s revery could not last, not in a Pulitzer Prize winning play written by a Black female in 2019. I’d also read the program in advance, and noted only four actors in the cast. Therefore, I deduced the grandmother would never show, nor the attorney brother, supposedly delayed due to flight cancellations.

The lightheartedness continues until the mom, overwhelmed by her efforts, faints.

A quartet of unseen voices flows into the theater, speaking in podcast language and postulating, “If you could choose to be any race what race would you choose?” Meanwhile the four actors onstage recreate the entire play thus far, in mime. If you are me, trying to discern the parallels and dissonances between the voice over with the movement on stage while also trying to recall the original dialogue that accompanied the action, this portion of the play presents a fascinating brain puzzle. If you are one of the twenty or so high school students on a class trip, seated in the rows in front of me, it’s boring. They totally lost interest, chatting and phone-checking throughout this entire section.

The disembodied voices express outrage at the question of being able to choose their race, until they capitulate to the theoretical and proceed to hypothesize. A male chooses to be Asian; another wants to be Latinx. A female with a French accent would like to be a Slav, which triggers banter about whether that’s actually a different race. The most resistant voice, ultimately chooses to be African-American.

I figure when the stage actors get to the point of the mom fainting, dialogue will resume. Wrong. Instead the four voices start commenting on the characters and action, while the actors themselves remain mute. Strange figures peer into the windows, around doors. White folk, in odd dress. Suddenly grandmother arrives, decked out like a shabby Queen of Sheba. She is clearly white, and clearly bizarre. Is she the voice that said she would choose to be an African-American? The brother arrives, also white, decked out in unlawyerly biker garb. Another grandmother arrives, in flowing caftan like a real Queen of Sheba. Finally, the daughter’s friend Erica shows up, though ‘she’ is an adult male in teen drag.

Chaos ensues. I can’t follow what’s happening and don’t really care, though at least the kids in front to of me stop chatting. Suddenly everyone freezes and Keisha (played by the amazing Victoria Omoregie, who has earned an Elliot Norton Award nomination for her work) delivers a potent monologue about being seen. She challenges us. “What can you do to make space for someone else, for a minute.” Then she invites audience members who identify as white to come up onstage. To see the world from their viewpoint, and in exchange free up seats for others.

I am confused, having never considered the juxtaposition of actor and audience member as dynamics of oppression. But I give over the idea: audience and actors are the two groups that playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury has at her ready.

At the end of the play, the stage is crowded with white folk; the four principal Black actors retreat, the lights come up, and everyone’s a bit awkward. I am disturbed, which is of course the point, and also enamored by the play’s title. Fairview began as a likely title of a soap-opera-like confection, and ended up a plea: to give each other a fair view.

Pedaling home, adrenaline-fueled, I kept trying to make sense of the play’s discordant pieces. To no avail. The concept is grand. The execution a bit clumsy. But ultimately, I came away wondering why, in an attempt to give everyone a ‘fair view’ the playwright took something away from everyone.

There are two consistent ways in which actors receive recognition and affirmation. By having their names and bios listed in the program, and by accepting the applause of the audience at play’s end. Fairview robs four peculiar white actors of any Playbill notice – something I’d never encountered before. Simultaneously, it robs four extraordinary Black actors from receiving they applause they so richly deserve.

Isn’t there some way that we can see each other—fairly—without taking away welcome affirmations? Can’t we both see each other fair, and lift each other up?

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