AN ILLIAD - SnapShot Press Release

photos by Michael Brosilow

Humanity has a way of showing us its values. 

Our fate lies somewhere between the unknown and the unhinged [what a spectrum]. However, it is usually through reflection, anecdotal and historical, from a distant past to a very near present that we see the repetition of lore and find ourselves questioning the meaning of it all.

Sunday’s [September 22nd, 2024]  Milwaukee Chamber Theater’s performance of AN ILIAD, was an emotional display of genius, wrapped in the tradition of Grecian tragedy, smothered in the plight of modernism oblivion to the human condition, and how “WE” got here. Lisa Peterson & Denis O’hare’s interpretation of Homer’s The Iliad translated by Robert Fagles, bares us from the smoke and mirrors of social exchange, grounding us in the power of mono-interpretation storytelling. However, it is N'Jameh Camara (The Poet) and Kellen “Klassik” Abston (The Muse/ Composer) that brought the shores of Troy and the backdrop of the Aegean Sea into reach within the circular “void” of the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center.

IT’S GIVING DRAMAAAAAAA!

As N'Jameh drowned herself in a bottle of “spirits” she walks us through the tale of Hector and Achilles, the Trojan War, and the fate of their battle. Her monologue was striking. When & where are we? In the “now” of disruptive political turmoil, or in the “then” of disruptive political turmoil? In the “now” of men policing the body of women or in the “then” of men policing the body of women? In the “now” of socially induced hysteria or. . . It did not matter, N'Jameh as the poet reminded us that these fates could be our own and that we must not shrug lightly at the flaws of man, because we are MAN. 

With just a suitcase, a bench, and a few layers of clothing N'Jameh flings her head back and stairs into the eyes of the audience [the people] then rushes to gesture the interactions of warriors, lovers, enemies, friends, and family. She makes us grieve the death of Patroclus, the same way we grieve, the limp bodies of boys found slayed on street corners in rival “hoods”. She makes us speculate Helen [Helen of Troy or Helen of Sparta depending on who you ask] agency in her selection of suitors. Was Helen into Paris or nah? Does Helen even want Menelaus to defend her or does she just like to see men get all hot and bothered over her? [Is killing the highest or lowest form of flattery that can be offered]. 

All I know is that when N'Jameh reflects on what war this landscape of carnage reminds her of, she list every war that humanity has documented, and my eyes flooded with stinging tears as if the waves had crashed upon me and I was destined to drown.

The mantra of monikers. . .

Peloponnesian War

Crusades

Powhatan War

Mexican-American War

World War I

Arab-Israeli wars

Vietnam War

Israel–Hamas war

. . . It went on and on for what seemed like forever. How could we not see it? How could we not understand that we have failed to protect our species from butchery? How could we not plead for forgiveness when we have all let our egos slaughter our potential for collective peace? N'Jameh wailed in a dialect of pain and her voice carried through the room into some distant pit of sorrow. I have been to many performances, but I have never felt so soul-crushed in viewing the truth. 

I am guilty. We all are guilty.  

This ability to drag our senses into the thick of it was not an isolated win. Klassik’s arrival into the theater as The Muse allowed for an auditory awakening or a soundtrack to a collective soul cry. His layered vibrations made us hear waves on the battle beach, the clash of metal weapons against armor, and the vastness of hundreds of thousands of ships arriving. His musical composition was boisterous and delicate all at the same time. We needed his contribution, we needed the liquid “spirits” to release this auditory vision for The Poet to relive, what we all must rectify. 

AN ILIAD is an experience that humanity needs. It is a scream for repentance in public intimacy. As we find ourselves pinned into battles that may be sanctioned by the Gods [Yours, mine, theirs, ours, or no one's] and ask for conviction in our uncertainty [who deems our deeds good or evil?] We must remember that we are all villains in someone's story. 

[& the comedic relief was there. But only enough to make us say “Ohhhh boy we’re screwed.”

I invite you to approach your humanity and experience Milwaukee Chamber Theater’s AN ILIAD, for the sake of us all.

Lexi S. Brunson 

Editor-in-Chief /CW

the Not-So-Accidental Conviction of Eleven Milwaukee "Anarchists" - SnapShot Press Release

photos by Michael Brosilow

“LET’S JUST BLOW THE WHOLE THING UP!”

Ahht, Ahht, Ahht! Don’t you dare snark at the thought. 

We all have said it. If not out loud, it has definitely crossed your mind. And if it hasn’t, are you even human?

The true question is what is the “thing” that would actually make you do it?

The Not-So-Accidental Conviction of Eleven Milwaukee "Anarchists" defines that moment by taking a comedic aside into history, local history, in a Milwaukee that seems so distant from our present society but is in fact, the foundation of what we now bear witness to. The trial of “The Milwaukee Eleven” and the police station bombing of 1917 is dismantled through planned improv [if it's not a term I'm coining it now], a black box theatre with a trunk full of doodads, and a chair [Yup, just one chair]. 

Why? Because many of us have forgotten that empathy is civility. . . but just hold that thought. We will get there. 

Saturday's [May 4th, 2024] 4:00 pm production was quite interesting. It's not just because playwright Martín Zimmerman intended it to be [as he allowed his burning questions of the story to reveal themselves on the stage. Questions like, How do you make sense of people about whom we have such fragmented, contradictory information?] but also because the longing to wrap ideas [in the form of art] in a nice shiny bow, instead, creating a knot of complexities with tattered ends is uncomfortable. In the opening scene it seemed like we were all slated for 90 minutes of a four-person recall of historical facts [I mean cool I guess if you're into that]. But then the bomb exploded, the butter was squashed, and chaos ensued. 

That chaos took the form of two-syllable curse words, catty disagreements, and a baby blow horn. What part of the story should come next and what is the best way to depict it? Actors Elyse Edelman, King Hang, Dimonte Henning, and Kelsey Elyse Rodriguez were charged with playing several roles, embodying the people and the police, the righteous and the ridiculed, the holy and the sinful [& these characters are not juxtaposing beings but multiplicities of humanity]. 

That’s where it gets tough. 

It was strategically unhinged and while much of the audience laughed, there were many who winced at the potty language but did not bat an eye at the reminder of people's lives, livelihoods, and freedom being taken from them. Who made the bomb? There is no one name or evidence to support one intended target. Why did they make it? If it was indeed an act of anarchy then it must be an act against the systems that were “ruling” Milwaukee at the time which allowed for bad working conditions, bigotry, discrimination [ethnic is a loaded term around these parts], and poverty to persist.  If it's an act against religion then what god allows for a 4-year-old child to be taken into custody by the police? This little midwest town in the free world is starting to look tragic but it's not like 1917 was an isolated occurrence. Just last week students calling for a ceasefire in Gaza were met with police batons and monkey noises [but y'all ain't hearing me though]. 

And that for me was more disturbing. 

That type of discomfort reverberates through every life choice and decision made [or avoided]. It sets the tone for the future and the narratives we uphold from the past. Zimmerman was smart to let us grapple with analysis as the actors analyzed. The actors were bold in allowing us to see their range as they unpacked and then reboxed how to approach historical narrative in its grandiose and in its pretentious posturing of justice.

At the end of it, I couldn't care less who Clarence Darrow or Augusto Giuliani was. All I wanted to know is why we keep letting others write and archive our history. When will we realize that the archive does not have to be documented through the lens of our oppressors? When will we realize that the most vulnerable populations have always been bastardized by the systems that self-assign themselves as protectors?

It's ugly and society is a mirror of that ugliness. 

The Not-So-Accidental Conviction of Eleven Milwaukee "Anarchists" is rhetoric for self-assessment. If you are not terrified of the possibilities of what can happen when we disregard the needs of our fellow human [as terrified as I was to watch that slow-mo fight scene where unarmed cops were in a shoot-out with civilians] or if you don’t question your sanity when you become desensitized to violence [physical, mental, or emotional] then wtf are we actually doing here?

I don’t know if I liked what I saw but I do know that more people need to be confronted with narratives that make them cringe. If you know someone who needs to light a fire under their complacent a**, then send them to see this Milwaukee Chamber Theater production. 

Something has got to change.

Lexi S. Brunson 

Editor-in-Chief /CW

A Moon for the Misbegotten | Snap Shot Press Release

“I don’t know what to think!”

It’s not a phrase I utter often [nor do I appreciate sentiments of equivocalness as a posture of perspective]. However, the phrase was the only thing that could come to my mind as the Sunday, January 21st, 2024 showing of Eugen O’Neill’s, A Moon for the Misbegotten, ended at the Milwaukee Chamber Theater.

In an effort to unpack my thoughts I had to confront my entry point into the play [the casting of La Shawn Banks as James Tyrone, Jr] and the thematic subtleties that would allow me to see past the rickety porch and vastness of “desolate Connecticut”. 

All images provided by MCT shot by Micheal Brosilow

The intimate glimpse into the periphery of society as a note of unideal existence is something that this revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten does well. A father whose drunkenness drives his sons away [Phil Hogan played by James Pickering], a daughter who uses her sharp tongue to avoid the pain of her insecurities while picking up the slack for her patriarch [Josie Hogan played by Kelly Doherty], and the thorn of socioeconomics in its human form as T. Steadman Harder [played by Zach Thomas Woods] gripes about his fence and ice pond when his neighbors live in subpar conditions. But Mike Hogan [played by A.J. Magoon] escaping without confronting his father is something I wish O’Niell had the foresight to correct. It denotes the subservience of a woman in society, as a nurturer of those who don't deserve to be nurtured. As sure as she robbed her father to free her brother of his suffering she does not enact her own freedom.

 [I hated that for her]

But that nuance of perspective coming from this 21st century feminist [YES I AM!] was minimal, noting that her love interest as a “foul” mouthed Irish woman was with a Black man. Now as plausible as it would have been for James Tyrone, Jr. to be an African American landowner and actor in the 1920’s, there would obviously be social scrutiny for Josie and James to be together no matter how many demons they both have collectively. Where the role was not originally written to cast a person of color, I applaud the selection because Bank’s portrayal was quite believable. His cityslicker slyness with overly emotional tendencies [it was giving an actor playing a person who is definitely an actor] was spot on. But I could only predict it would never work out. I could never really see even the alcoholc-ist of alcoholics encouraging their daughter to be with someone he knows could never maintain her publicly. Not even the ploy to get his money seemed reasonable because once they were seen together would that not be a social provision for violence in that time? It's rough because as a multiracial Black woman with Irish roots, I know how I got here [and it wasn't cute]. 

Similarly the whisky wagon never left the stage! The highs and lows of an alcoholic binge is always unsettling. The way Phil and James were throwing them back you couldn't be sure where their thoughts were coming from and if they had any control over their narcissistic behavior. And why should they when the bosom of Josie will be there waiting to care for them [Again, I hate that for her]? Even in her hope for something more with James, her agency was taken when he chastises her for saying she had been “around the way” with other men, and him so certain that it was fib [So men can do it but women can’t? Tuh! It’s given misogyny]. To then turn around and be all out of sorts for doing up a sex worker [repeatedly] on the train while bringing home is mothers dead body!?! If Mr. Tyrone was looking for sympathy, he could definitely look past me [If you like “city girls” just say that!] But again, as I analyzed what I had experienced take place on that stage, I could only imagine my father who suffered from alcoholism throughout his life and his womanizing tendencies. Could he have ever showed up to some ladies doorstep begging for comfort as an illusion of humility? Unfortunately, I will never know. 

The highs and lows of James’ drunken lust for Josie, cloaked with his attempt to “maintain” her chastity was too much for me. Make up your mind sir! Push her away from you one more time and its borderline domestic violence. The way her belligerent father was trying to get her in the bed with his drinking buddy and landlord for a few coins is wild [Pickering made me despise Phil Hogan]. I mean here is a man with no shame whatsoever. And yikes Josie! Grow a backbone! That self-deprivation got her nowhere but loveless, sexless, and moneyless [forget a drama, that makes it a tragedy]. She talks down on herself, she lets everyone in her life take advantage of her, and she is stuck. Stuck on that porch looking for something that you can only find inside of yourself. The way Doherty invited torture to her existence in this role showed commitment. There was no ego to bear and no diva to deliver in the shell of a woman that was left of Josie at the end.

What does this say about humanity? What does this say about a society that still feels O’Neill’s narrative should be shared?

I think it says we are flawed. I think it is a reminder that comfort is a luxury many can not afford. It says we have more to learn about why we break and what breaks us. I also think it says that the theater is a place to feel discomfort as long as it interrogates the boundaries of societal niceties. 

I did not love A Moon for the Misbegotten. But I respected it. It challenged my empathy and sometimes you need that from art.

Sometimes you need to know what uncertainty feels like.  

Lexi S. Brunson 

Editor-in-Chief /CW