Last night I went to the Theatre Guild to see Frank McField's (Cayman Islands, playwright) One White One Black. Here's a synopsis of the play that I pulled from the playbill/promotional literature handed out at the theatre:
Two artists, one a drummer and the other a writer, have hit rock bottom. They have both failed in their respective married relationships and must depend upon each other to be the mirror that reflects their past and current condition. As they interact, cementing a tighter bond of friendship between them and reflecting on their relationships with their wives, they discover the truth about themselves.
The play was a pretty captivating attempt at "gender-bending," which the two-member male cast accomplished by switching back and forth between male and female roles throughout the play (without the aid of drag make-up I might add). The actors' physical appearances--one big and full of girth, the other slight--made the gender switches visually comedic at times, especially when the bigger actor played the role of a woman. Overall, the play was a satisfying exploration of gender and racial stereotypes, as well as a thought-provoking look at how those stereotypes could help destroy a marriage.
Possible over-arching message(s) about the artist, his work, and his life? The men are artists whose abilities to create have been destroyed along with (or by) their marriages. It is possible to see how the desire to create solitude--a condition Walcott spoke of as being necessary for the artistic creative process--can destroy a marriage. The major message is about the ability of the arts to redeem and heal broken spirits. The play begins with the men in isolation and despair, and ends with some sense of renewal--renewal of their friendship, and renewal of the role of art in their lives.
About the Theatre itself... I generally like a small intimate setting where I can watch a play and hear the whispered responses of the people sitting next to me. More often than not, those responses are funny and enlightening. But the seats were so close I could feel the hair on the arm of the man sitting next to me. Now admittedly, if the man were mine, then that may have been part of some elaborate foreplay, but he wasn't. Not pleasant at all. But other than the hair-brushing, it felt good to sit there in the Theatre Guild almost three decades after my first and only other time there...One monument to Guyana's arts...still standing.
