The ramp doesn't seem like a big deal. Needing to use a 2nd
hand to complete raising a glass of water to his mouth is a little weird, but honestly the palace intrigue makes for easy distractions from the far more important things the
current administration could be criticized for. Tomorrow our Coronavirus numbers will reach the equivalent death toll of
40 9/11's and I hear a lot of people talking about it like this pandemic is in the past tense. Record unemployment and new cases are starting to
spike like Elon Musk put the
line graph in a Tesla and launched it into space. Protesters have been in the streets for 2 weeks now and there are hundreds upon hundreds of fresh examples of police brutality caught on video that are largely being ignored. Barely made headlines that the guys who targeted police officers for murder in Oakland weren't protesters but were Boogaloo Boys attempting to start a new civil war -- which if we had a domestic terrorism law on the books seems like the kind of thing it might be appropriate for. $650 Bn in PPP loans without any oversight and refusal to disclose who received what money. State by state absentee voting is continually overwhelming states' capacities for primary elections -- indicating we are woefully unprepared to hold a free and fair nationwide presidential election this fall. No matter what side of the aisle you are on, I think we can all agree that we don't need any more uncertainty or questions of legitimacy injected into our electoral
system.
Taking pot shots that Trump might have dementia or be in poor health just feels like shooting spitballs at an
arsonist to stop them from burning down the building. We desperately need competent leadership right now and instead we're stuck in a Greek tragedy that at the heart of it is really about the main character's relationship with his father.
On a related note to some of the heartburn in this thread -- feels like we became more entrenched and divided when we stopped discussing politics in the open. Saving it for talk radio, Facebook memes, and Thanksgiving has gotten people stuck in
feedback loops where they hear what they want to hear because they only discuss with people who agree with them. In turn, people aren't developing an appropriate immunity to lies/misinformation/unreliable sources/fallacies and the basic skills for respectful disagreements, allowing people to spiral away from a more balanced view of the world. Seems very interesting to me that most other social issues are on the table and fair game for theaters to
address -- gay rights, racial inequality, income inequality, sexual development, family issues, religion, AIDS, bullying -- but the actual topic of directly participating in a democracy itself with everyone around you seems to be a theme no body wants to listen to. Part of the reason that it's been easy to underestimate the scale of problems that Black and Brown communities
face is because it's only when a boiling
point is reached that those subjects become part of our daily conversations. We need to be better about becoming aware of issues and confronting them before they boil over. (
"we" as a population, not just CB or the theater community)
All forms of design are inherently political. Theater is no exception. It behooves us to not shy away from a meaningful debate because we simply don't want to engage with someone who doesn't agree with us. Similarly, it's important we not
throw Molotovs at one another for superficial reasons just because it may momentarily make us feel better.
(Also why I consider political memes to be the lowest form of rhetoric -- yet campaigns are hiring people specifically to doctor them up in Photoshop.)