Tuesday, May 29, 2012

To Be or Not To Be Offended? - My Thoughts on Clybourne Park


                I’m worried that I’m going to sound nit-picky, but I have something I really need to get off my chest after seeing Clybourne Park on Broadway on Saturday.  Let me start by lauding the play for its merits.
                The play makes some important points through its slightly overblown (on purpose!) characters who represent some things we don’t want to face about ourselves and society.  During my time spent as a sociology major (side note – actual job opportunities stemming from a degree in sociology: zero), I learned a lot about the sensitive issues surrounding changing neighborhoods, especially regarding gentrification.  I think the characters were fairly adept in expressing how reluctant we are, as a society, to face these issues.  I applaud the play and the playwright for presenting these issues without claiming to offer a solution.  There are merits and drawbacks to ethnically diverse neighborhoods, and we as a society (like the characters in the play) are more comfortable skirting around the issues than addressing them head-on.
From the script of Clybourne Park
                But I have an issue.  Although it is in my nature to shy away from conflict, I feel confident that Bruce Norris (the playwright) would want me to just come right out and state my grievances.  It might kind of be in the spirit of the play, in the context of who-is-allowed-to-be-offended-on-behalf-of-whom that I find my gripe.  I have been known to be too concerned with political correctness and too easily offended on behalf of others, but I think I have a valid (if inflated) point to make.  I was disappointed by the character of Betsy.  She is a deaf woman (and I use a lower-case d on purpose in this instance) who is the only character in the show who is one-dimensional and there for the purpose of being the butt of jokes.  I don’t think the writing is an accurate or respectful representation of the Deaf (capital D on purpose) community.  I’m not Deaf (or deaf), I’m not part of the Deaf community, I don’t have Deaf friends or family members, and I don’t speak on behalf of those who are/do.  I simply speak on behalf of me and my feelings.  And yes, I do realize that a large part of her presence in the show is to point out the ignorance of many of the other characters (particularly Bev, who has no idea how to act around a deaf person).  But I really don’t like the way her lines are written in the script (see picture), and I don’t think it’s necessary to write her in such a way.  The punch lines at her expense felt cheap to me.  I teach ASL to hearing K-2 students.  Generally, I start off with kids who don’t even know what it means to be d/Deaf.  A vital part of my curriculum is explaining Deaf culture and helping students to understand that Deaf kids are just like them, with one (minor) difference.  Deaf people (that is, culturally Deaf people) often don’t regard their deafness as a handicap, just a part of who they are, something worthy of pride.  Deafness is truly a culture in the anthropological and sociological sense. 
A lot of these thoughts occurred to me while I was seeing Tribes at the Barrow Street Theater, which shows such a multi-dimensional Deaf community of real people, with merits and faults.  Betsy is essentially lacking in personality of her own – she is her deafness, and for the purposes of this play, her deafness is a handicap (people actually swear at her to prove the point that she can’t her them – we get it!), and that handicap is supposed to be funny.  I might be too uptight here, but I didn’t like that.  You know what?  If that means, I’m uptight, I’m okay with that – read on.
                When I get in a fit of being all riled up like this, it makes me want to write off the whole play because of this one instance.  But I can’t.  Because it gets so many things right.  Because it made me really examine how I feel about race.  And, because of how I feel about Betsy, it really challenged me to think about my position and how racial attitudes and attitudes toward other communities than mine differ.  Why am I so quick to rush to the defense of people who are fully capable of defending themselves?  It’s a lot like the characters in act two – not sure if people need or want people of other races to be progressive on their behalf.  Even now, I worry about whether or not I should even be worried about this.  Is that silly?
But, at the end of the day, this work and these characters, including Betsy – no, especially Betsy, challenged me.  And isn’t that what the theater is for?

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