Pre-occupied by Occupy, Part I

Our local theaters pretty much ignored Occupy Boston while it lived (it celebrates its first birthday this weekend, btw).  Indeed, the only actor or writer I know to have engaged with the movement directly was Danny Bryck, and his efforts came to a rather ironic end.  But now that Occupy is safely dead (or at least dormant in the U.S.), the Hub's various lefty poseurs (Company One, Central Square Theater, etc.) have come out in force to sing its praises, and most every local company has suddenly become pre-occupied with issues of class.

These efforts have run the gamut from the sweetly oblique (even the Lyric's Mikado found room for slogans from Zuccotti Park) to the well-intended but under-developed (The Civilians' Paris Commune at ArtsEmerson) to something close to self-satire: the high school clique that runs Company One, for instance, actually intimidated Bryck into giving up financial support for his piece on Occupy in exchange for hosting it.  That's right - they abused him financially before they'd produce his show on financial abuse.  It doesn't get much richer than that.

But you know, I'm pretty philosophical by now about the high-mindedness of the theatrical community (and the critics who cover it). For in the end, the theatre's political hypocrisy only reflects that of its audience (if all the people who actually claim to be committed to progress actually put down their programs and did something about our problems, much progress would immediately be achieved - which trust me, ain't gonna happen).

So I'm more interested these days in parsing the spectrum of our theatrical response to the political issues that Occupy exposed, but obviously failed to solve.  And I have to give the laurels in this particular contest (at least so far) to the Huntington, which in a pair of nearly book-ended productions (Kirsten Greenidge's The Luck of the Irish and now David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People) has limned the issues of apartheid - in terms of class as well as race - that have long riven this city in a way that I think no other local theatre has ever dared to do.  (Tellingly, the A.R.T's response to Occupy was the widely-derided Marie Antoinette - more unconscious self-parody!)

Johanna Day suffers The Luck of the Irish in Good People.

I'm a little shocked by this myself, frankly, given that the Huntington is the theatrical behemoth of the local scene.  But perhaps I shouldn't be.  Several years ago I predicted that this company's engagement with its community, along with its general commitment to high-quality, popular theatre, would give it an edge over the other theatrical elephant in the room, Harvard's A.R.T., and make it the leading theatre of the city.  And of course that prediction has come true in spades. I think the Huntington now boasts something like five times as many subscribers as anybody else, and its decision to anchor the nascent BCA expansion several years ago proved the tipping point in the rejuvenation of an entire neighborhood ("the theatre district" is now the South End).

So it's highly appropriate that the Huntington should turn its artistic sights directly on the Hub.  You could even argue that it's high time - how could Boston have boasted (for decades) two major regional theaters that generally ignored their home turf?  Well, because both stages were aligned with the gown, not the town, in this town-and-gown burg, that's why.  Only to be fair, critics of the Huntington I think would be hard pressed to name any major regional company that has thrown on its home team the sustained critical light that Irish and People have together cast on Boston.  Indeed, I'd like to think (or hope!) that this long-overdue attention will only be the start of a trend - if the Huntington's influential development program kept a focus on not just local writers but local stories, I think it could contribute something really essential to the life of the city.

Just a few more lines of praise for this company before I move on to an analysis of Good People.  Now I don't want to pretend the Huntington doesn't have its flaws; it does.  Its artistic director, Peter DuBois, like his evil twin at Harvard, is clearly too focused on his New York career - although you could argue that some of the culture-lite fodder he has generated for Manhattan and the Times girls (like Sons of the Prophet and Becky Shaw) hasn't been all that bad. And unlike you-know-who, DuBois has put together dazzling seasons in absentia by pulling together probably the best roster of outside directors, actors, and artists that the Huntington has ever seen; to his great credit, he differs from his predecessor, the talented Nicky Martin, in that he seems happy to invite his equals (and even betters?) onto the Huntington stage.

Now I know we've also suffered through the likes of A Civil War Christmas, Before I Leave You, and Captors during DuBois' tenure - yikes!  But every theatre strikes out sometimes, and every company occasionally panders to segments of its audience.  You could also argue that formal experimentation has always been slighted at the Huntington - but I'd argue back that by now the millennials have given formal experimentation a very bad name.  More troubling is the large gap that still lingers around the greatest classics (sorry, but the Propeller frat boys, fun as they are, don't really deliver the Shakespearean goods, and where are Chekhov and Ibsen, not to mention Socrates and Shaw?).

But I have to weigh all that against a truly dazzling series of successes, at least after DuBois' wobbly debut season: not only have we enjoyed masterpieces like Candide, but we've also seen remarkable productions of All My Sons, Stick Fly, Bus Stop, and Private Lives, and worthy versions of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Ruined, The Luck of the Irish, Circle Mirror Transformation, Educating Rita, Fences, and now Good People.  That's a long list - a lengthier stretch of sustained, large-scale artistic success than I think I could credit to any other local theatre in the thirty years I've lived here.

Of course the question is - can they keep it up?  I'd argue that Good People implies they can, as I'll explain in the second half of this series.

This is not what democracy looks like

This is what the Tea Party and the Boston Police look like!  A Boston police officer "pushes" by the neck an Occupy Boston protester identified by name ("Allie"), but not gender, during Occupy's demonstration against a Tea Party hate rally on Sunday.

There's currently an "investigation" underway, and the Boston Police are "scrutinizing" this photo.  But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand memos, isn't it.

(Of course maybe the officer just felt threatened by that very scary purple wig.)

So, Mumbles has lost my vote

Out of the donut shop and into the street: Menino's minions during the raid.  Photo by Rachel L. Brody.

If last night was for getting drunk on the possibilities, today is for facing the sober reality.  As you probably know by now, the Boston Police moved in this morning at 5 AM with an overwhelming force and cleared Dewey Square of Occupy Boston, being careful to limit and block media access and public awareness of the action in every way possible.   You can make donations for legal counsel, etc., here.

So the dream is over, dear friends, but you know, as somebody once said, we just have to carry on. There's a General Assembly tonight at 7 pm on Boston Common.  Mayor Menino may not want us to take back our country, but it's still possible, remember that.  This dream may be over, but another can take its place.  The struggle is not over; it's never over.

Before the police state moved in.  Photo by People's Open Graphics.

Scenes from an Occupation

Photo by Occupy Boston

Last night it was easy to get drunk on the possibilities.

I got to Occupy Boston late - about 11:30 pm, only half an hour before Mayor Menino's "deadline" for the evacuation of Dewey Square (and after having promised the partner unit I was NOT going to get arrested, no matter what, even though I'd been watching all the civil disobedience training on the live feed).

When I arrived, the camp felt slightly schizophrenic - near Summer Street, a brass band was playing, drums were pounding, and people were defiantly dancing; in the camp itself, many tents were down (particularly the expensive ones); and up on Assembly Hill, the mood was serious - though hardly grim. People were debating when the police might arrive, and what the most unbreakable positions were for forming human chains.  Those who were less sure of their commitment to spending the night in a holding cell were being exhorted to cross the street, and take positions in the park before the Federal Reserve.   And the media was everywhere, not asking any questions or gathering any actual data, of course, but instead clasping their earpieces and intoning their insipid impressions into their cameras and klieg lights.  Altogether there were several hundred - maybe a thousand - people on the scene.  Every now and then, the human mic announced "Four minutes to midnight!" or "Three minutes to midnight!"  Overhead, helicopters circled  - two drifting so close to each other they seemed to be kissing in the dark.

Midnight finally arrived - and there was a strange sense of suspended expectancy in the nippy air.  One young woman cried out - echoed by the human mic - "Whatever happens - I want you all to know - that I love you!"  (For a moment, everyone shouted "I LOVE YOU!")  Later the human mic instructed us "Look at the person next to you!  That person is a hero!  Give them a hug!"  (People hugged.)  A circle of chaplains stopped praying and began to sing.  The brass band - led by Emerson's John Bell  (I also saw actor Danny Bryck earlier) - began marching along Atlantic Avenue, playing standards like "When the Saints Come Marchin' In" and just generally raising hell. The vibe was a valiant one; we were going to go down laughing.

But the police continued to not arrive - so the mood began to shift toward relief, and a cautious optimism.  The locus of the crowd moved from Assembly Hill to the curbs of Atlantic Ave, holding up signs and waving to passing cars.  Along the edge of the encampment, the brass band suddenly launched into "Here Comes the Bride," and I pressed forward to find an actual, impromptu marriage in progress - by one of the chaplains - between a pretty girl and her bearded, beaming groom.  They'd brought their vows, which the human mic recited, including a joyful "I DO!" at the end, and then the band gave Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" their best shot as the couple vanished into the crowd amid cheers.  The chaplain shrugged.  "They had their license with them!" she laughed happily.  "So why not?"

Back on Atlantic Avenue, by now folks were over the curb, and a chant had begun: "Out of the camp and into the streets!"  The crowd took all the lanes but one - and then suddenly took that one too.  As flashes popped, a gaggle of young people lay down in the middle of the street, staring up with their best "I'm not goin' ANYWHERE" faces as people cheered.

I thought this might be the beginning of the expected stand-off - that perhaps Menino had simply guessed that eventually in their triumph the occupiers would go too far.  But instead the small police presence wearily retreated, and began waving the stalled traffic back onto Summer Street.  In a few moments, the street had been closed, dozens of more kids were on the pavement, and the mood had become uproarious.  People  scrawled slogans and drew peace signs on the white traffic stripes of Atlantic Ave.  The drummers moved in, and the crowd began dancing in the street as many chanted "Together we're unstoppable/another world is possible!"

The media looked stunned; this wasn't the story they were expecting to cover.  Panicking, they began to dog the police offers ("Attention media: Please do not rush the police!" one impish protester intoned through a bullhorn.)  The police assured them, however, that there were no plans to remove the encampment that night - a message which slowly filtered out to everybody.

That, of course, doesn't mean the struggle is over, or that anyone has "won" anything.  Indeed, in a way the struggle hasn't even begun - Occupy Boston still doesn't have a plan for effective political action (no, shaking your fist at the Federal Reserve and peeing on its flowers doesn't count).

But the moment was still sweet.  And hopeful, yes, hopeful.  When I left the scene (I'm old, after all, I can't stay out all night, my joints will lock) the kids were still dancing, knowing they weren't going to jail after all.  Somebody had blown up a huge bouquet of balloons, and suddenly decided to free them from their tether.  They drifted up into the darkness, toward the waiting helicopters.

The livestream from Occupy Boston

Watch live streaming video from occupyboston at livestream.com

Just because tonight it might get interesting.

PS You can contribute to the legal fund here.