Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything...death is not...It's the absence of presence, nothing more...the endless time of never coming back...a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound...
~Tom Stoppard
This Stoppard quote gets the tone of the aftermath of death right, the deafening silence and cracks which appear out of nowhere in our day-to-day lives, reminding us of those who should be here but are not. The hollow, raw emptiness which follows an event like 9/11 must be crushing. So, there are those who feel they need to fill that emptiness with words, trying to fit letters or numbers into the thousands of human-shaped holes that appeared in the seconds, minutes, hours, days after.
With time and distance, I think that theatre will create some truly moving and necessary works about the events leading up to 9/11, and the time after. Now, today, I don't think we can. I don't think we should. There is no longer a singular "moment of sacred authenticity", to quote our prompt, but a seemingly endless string of many. To try and put words into the mouths of the dead, so soon after they died, is not only futile, in my opinion, but disrespectful. That's not to say that important, respectful and worthwhile theatre can come from events like 9/11; there are many plays that deal with agonizing historical moments akin to 9/11 with great intelligence, compassion and sincerity. But, eleven years is not long enough. Maybe it is for some, but certainly not for me.
But, to the assignment at hand. What of the theories and methodologies we've been learning about? How can they be applied to this scenario, despite my trepidation?
In Roach's introduction to his book, Cities of the Dead, he touches on what he calls the "three-sided relationship of memory, performance, and substitution." (2) This way that "culture reproduces and re-creates itself" is what he terms "surrogation", a continual process whereby survivors of change (be that death, retirement, divorce, etc.) attempt to fill the holes created by their loss, of any magnitude. Roach gives the example of a retiring colleague to illustrate what he terms the "paradox of collective perpetuation"(2), wherein memory relies heavily on its antithesis, forgetting. He goes on to explain that ..[S]elective memory requires public enactments of forgetting, either to blur the obvious discontinuities, misalliances, and ruptures or, more desperately, to exaggerate them in order to mystify a previous Golden Age, now lapsed." (3)
I think this can give us clues as to why there are no great plays on the subject of 9/11 (that I know of - - - it's entirely possible I've missed some important pieces). We are still consumed with the act of surrogation, with the state of selective memory, an attempt to continue to keep our country's cultural fabric intact. Even today, we are so busy trying to justify or rail against the wars ignited by the flames of 9/11, all the while assuring ourselves that we are safe here, that we cannot create art that adequately encompasses the emotions, events, and histories surrounding 9/11. We have not redefined it as a true tragedy, in the Aristotelian sense, though that may not be a worthwhile endeavor, either. It does merit discussion.
In Marvin Carlson's truly brilliant contribution to the "Forum on Tragedy", he explains why he believes tragedy never truly took root here, why melodrama is our favored popular "mode", as he calls it, and how that is clouding our view of 9/11: "What will happen to both sides when the clear-cut world of the melodramatic imagination encounters the complex, ambiguous, shifting, and dangerous world of contingent reality will inevitably occupy our attention for the foreseeable future." (134) This uncertainty still takes up residence in our imaginations, and is present in much of the dramatic literature of post-9/11 America. Reconciling what actually happened on 9/11, on a human scale, has not yet been successful, in film, television or theatre, in my opinion.
"[T]he knowledge of the 'terrible and necessary cruelty which things can exercise against us' is still, I think, masked by our melodramatic construction of the events of September 11. Of course the act itself was a savage and heinous one, as clear an eruption of evil into everyday existence as most of us have ever seen. Yet tragedy, while recognizing the presence of evil, attempts to push us beyond that recognition, to consider such matters as the strength of the human spirit in adversity...and, perhaps most difficult for a proud, prosperous, and apparently blessed people like ourselves, that uncomfortable and difficult tragic concept of hubris..."(134)
There are those that feel that they are subsumed into a singular identity in relation to 9/11, that of a victim of terrorism (whether or not they lost anyone they knew or loved), a guilt-ridden, unwitting co-conspirator in the political hubris and blindness that led to the events of 9/11, or anywhere in between. There are those who feel many or all of those identities. How can we embody those on stage, in a way that keeps that historical moment sacred, but still illuminates some kind of truth, even if it's harsh or uncomfortable?
So many innocent people died that day, but then again, scores more innocent people die every day in far flung corners of the world where Americans neither care or know about the evils enacted upon them. What of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The death toll for that is in the hundreds of thousands, and is that historical moment still sacred? I don't know. I don't know that I can ever come close to fully parsing out my own feelings about art, America, cruelty, the human condition, etc., especially in relation to completely senseless slaughter. Especially in the city where my personal history began, the city of my parents - New York City.
Jill Dolan's contribution to the forum very nearly brought me to tears. It is what I feel, written far more eloquently than I could hope to be on this subject, and is a compelling analytical work on performative empathy: "I felt myself the woman leaping from one of the towers with, unfathomably, her purse clutched to her chest...Has performance trained me for such painful empathy?...Is this how the tools of performance let us understand a horror as profound as those planes flying inexorably into our lives? Through an empathy so embodied, we hurt from what we feel, even if we don't really live through it?" (106)
Dolan closes her passage by beseeching artists to create "hopeful fictions of meaningful lives", crafting work that moves us forward into a time of love and understanding, rather than dark imaginings of violence with no purpose. I don't quite agree with her pleas to only craft works that illustrate the good in humanity, but a balance between the truly horrific and the gloriously uplifting is needed.
Perhaps no American can write a great play on 9/11. Perhaps what we need is someone to write our story for us, to witness our national grief without participating in it. Perhaps only then can some sense of truth emerge and a small measure of solace be granted to us.
But, to the assignment at hand. What of the theories and methodologies we've been learning about? How can they be applied to this scenario, despite my trepidation?
In Roach's introduction to his book, Cities of the Dead, he touches on what he calls the "three-sided relationship of memory, performance, and substitution." (2) This way that "culture reproduces and re-creates itself" is what he terms "surrogation", a continual process whereby survivors of change (be that death, retirement, divorce, etc.) attempt to fill the holes created by their loss, of any magnitude. Roach gives the example of a retiring colleague to illustrate what he terms the "paradox of collective perpetuation"(2), wherein memory relies heavily on its antithesis, forgetting. He goes on to explain that ..[S]elective memory requires public enactments of forgetting, either to blur the obvious discontinuities, misalliances, and ruptures or, more desperately, to exaggerate them in order to mystify a previous Golden Age, now lapsed." (3)
I think this can give us clues as to why there are no great plays on the subject of 9/11 (that I know of - - - it's entirely possible I've missed some important pieces). We are still consumed with the act of surrogation, with the state of selective memory, an attempt to continue to keep our country's cultural fabric intact. Even today, we are so busy trying to justify or rail against the wars ignited by the flames of 9/11, all the while assuring ourselves that we are safe here, that we cannot create art that adequately encompasses the emotions, events, and histories surrounding 9/11. We have not redefined it as a true tragedy, in the Aristotelian sense, though that may not be a worthwhile endeavor, either. It does merit discussion.
In Marvin Carlson's truly brilliant contribution to the "Forum on Tragedy", he explains why he believes tragedy never truly took root here, why melodrama is our favored popular "mode", as he calls it, and how that is clouding our view of 9/11: "What will happen to both sides when the clear-cut world of the melodramatic imagination encounters the complex, ambiguous, shifting, and dangerous world of contingent reality will inevitably occupy our attention for the foreseeable future." (134) This uncertainty still takes up residence in our imaginations, and is present in much of the dramatic literature of post-9/11 America. Reconciling what actually happened on 9/11, on a human scale, has not yet been successful, in film, television or theatre, in my opinion.
"[T]he knowledge of the 'terrible and necessary cruelty which things can exercise against us' is still, I think, masked by our melodramatic construction of the events of September 11. Of course the act itself was a savage and heinous one, as clear an eruption of evil into everyday existence as most of us have ever seen. Yet tragedy, while recognizing the presence of evil, attempts to push us beyond that recognition, to consider such matters as the strength of the human spirit in adversity...and, perhaps most difficult for a proud, prosperous, and apparently blessed people like ourselves, that uncomfortable and difficult tragic concept of hubris..."(134)
There are those that feel that they are subsumed into a singular identity in relation to 9/11, that of a victim of terrorism (whether or not they lost anyone they knew or loved), a guilt-ridden, unwitting co-conspirator in the political hubris and blindness that led to the events of 9/11, or anywhere in between. There are those who feel many or all of those identities. How can we embody those on stage, in a way that keeps that historical moment sacred, but still illuminates some kind of truth, even if it's harsh or uncomfortable?
So many innocent people died that day, but then again, scores more innocent people die every day in far flung corners of the world where Americans neither care or know about the evils enacted upon them. What of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The death toll for that is in the hundreds of thousands, and is that historical moment still sacred? I don't know. I don't know that I can ever come close to fully parsing out my own feelings about art, America, cruelty, the human condition, etc., especially in relation to completely senseless slaughter. Especially in the city where my personal history began, the city of my parents - New York City.
Jill Dolan's contribution to the forum very nearly brought me to tears. It is what I feel, written far more eloquently than I could hope to be on this subject, and is a compelling analytical work on performative empathy: "I felt myself the woman leaping from one of the towers with, unfathomably, her purse clutched to her chest...Has performance trained me for such painful empathy?...Is this how the tools of performance let us understand a horror as profound as those planes flying inexorably into our lives? Through an empathy so embodied, we hurt from what we feel, even if we don't really live through it?" (106)
Dolan closes her passage by beseeching artists to create "hopeful fictions of meaningful lives", crafting work that moves us forward into a time of love and understanding, rather than dark imaginings of violence with no purpose. I don't quite agree with her pleas to only craft works that illustrate the good in humanity, but a balance between the truly horrific and the gloriously uplifting is needed.
Perhaps no American can write a great play on 9/11. Perhaps what we need is someone to write our story for us, to witness our national grief without participating in it. Perhaps only then can some sense of truth emerge and a small measure of solace be granted to us.
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