At a time when things feel particularly frayed and fragile, finding a place of clarity and comfort is hard. Frequent reference has been made to the haunting the lines of W. B. Yeats’s 1919 poem, Second Coming: “The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”
Every so often a thought or a conversation does help ventilate the airlessness that so many of us are feeling on the inside. Sometimes it is wisdom that is specific to the situation in the Middle East, like John Oliver‘s evenhanded “schooling” on the topic in a recent episode of Last Week Tonight. Several of Ezra Klein’s podcasts have also brought some sensemaking to this enervating, troubling topic.
Meanwhile wisdom about how to hold ourselves during times like these does show up. The artist Wangechi Mutu shared her own way of approaching her work:
“It’s such a difficult time to sit on this Earth when we know a lot of the things that are happening, a lot of lives are being lost, a lot of the people that we care for are in deep distress…When I make work I pray, I heal, I try to create medicine rather than poison.”
Wise words abound in a conversation with poet Tracy K. Smith on Miwa Messer’s podcast, Poured Over. Smith is gifted, thoughtful, empathetic and wise. She doggedly believes in an essential human goodness, and her optimism is grounded in a deeper knowing than the superficial hopefulness that is bandied about. A comforting line from a Wendell Berry poem comes to mind: “Be joyful, though you’ve considered all the facts.”
Smith shares her belief that humans fundamentally want to make community with others, that we are wired to care about each other. “That’s what the whole story tradition is based on. Strangers meet. Things happen.”
She asserts that “we have to plug back into other sources, sources that we are familiar with and fluent in. Ones that assure us that we are courageous and generous. The work we have to do is work we know how to do.”
Her invocation to access those other sources feels aligned with a production now being staged at the Huntington Theater in Boston, The Band’s Visit. Based on an Israeli film from 2007 about Egyptian musicians stranded in a small desert town in Israel overnight, longstanding animosities between these two cultures get outdistanced by a larger impulse to connect.
Several years after the film was released, David Yazbek was approached about doing a staged musical version. Yazbek was well positioned to take on this task—his mother is Jewish and his father is Lebanese. This new staged version of The Band’s Visit (with a book by Itamar Moses) was a huge hit on Broadway, winning 10 Tony awards in 2017.
The Band’s Visit is not plot driven, and proudly so. This is a stance that has increasing support. In responding to the latest New York Film Festival, Beatrice Loayza wrote, “It’s time to take a stand against the tyranny of ‘story’…Auteurs conjure up moods and sensory experiences that show why the story isn’t always the thing.”
Moods and sensory experiences are much more the fare in this character-based drama. The intention to step out of a narrative driven theater experience is communicated clearly right from the start. The Band’s Visit begins with large text in three languages—Hebrew, Arabic and English—displayed on the back stage wall that releases the audience from high drama expectations:
“Once, not long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt.
You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”
It is under the cover of “it wasn’t very important,” that the evening’s enchantments begin. The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has arrived in the Tel Aviv bus station, expecting to be met by an agent from the local Arab cultural organization. The band is scheduled to be in Petah Rikvah the next day where they will perform for the opening of an Arab cultural center. When no one shows up to meet them, they secure bus tickets on their own. Language barriers being what they are, the band mistakenly ends up in a small isolated desert town with a similar sounding name, Bet Hatikvah.
So begins a night of unexpected connections and commonalities between displaced Egyptian musicians and the residents of a small Israeli town.
Three groupings emerge over the 90 minutes. In these vignettes, individual Egyptians and Israelis find fragile points of connection with each other. Life losses are shared, disappointments acknowledged. As an ambient metaphor for patience and hope, a solitary “Telephone Guy” awaits a call from his beloved. For months he has dutifully attached himself to the village payphone. Equipped on stage with wheels like a hospital IV, the phone and the man slowly circumambulate the stage, a poignant symbol of longsuffering tenacity. Yes, there’s melancholy and sadness aplenty in this play. But there is also much to make us laugh and sympathize. Life’s moments of joy as well as suffering land on everyone regardless of race, religion or region.
This production, directed by Paul Daigneault, is a collaboration between the Huntington Theater and SpeakEasy Stage. The performances are high energy and professional, with a full cast of masterful actors/musicians. A special shout out to Jennifer Apple as Dina who is on fire every minute she is on stage.
Yazbek’s music is engagingly eclectic. It can stand strong on its own but is seamlessly blended into the flow of the production. The set design (Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs) is also ingeniously fluid, well suited for the no frills, minimalist feel of the production.
An unexpected gesture of extravagance does erupt right at the end when the back stage wall disappears instantaneously to reveal the orchestra. Strings of festive lights appear out of nowhere, and the entire theater is transformed into a music festival party venue. This full house reveal, so unexpected and welcomed, makes for a fabulous exit high. That explosively joyous final scene is also a visceral reminder that circumstances, in the theater and in life, can change quickly, unexpectedly, significantly. And that’s a thought worth holding close.
