David X Novak
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What is a legacy?

8/5/2019

 

The archives to this blog seem to be somewhat in disorder. Beyond the lack of Google indexing (for some pages), Weebly (which powers the site) appears to have disappeared numerous previous entries.

I say appears because it may be I simply can’t find something; I never have spent sufficient time here to “test” the health of the site. And I don’t value my scribblings so much as to devote time to sorting things out.

To say “I refuse henceforth to post on this site” goes against my grain; but with a five-year anniversary of posting here forthcoming on August 31st, I would like to do so. I’ll leave the option open, sans prohibition.

With the Anthropocene firmly holding, and humankind en masse failing to take the steps necessary to avert the worst of it, the time for worrying on self-preservation (that is to say, preservation of my things) has gone.

Ignition New Plays Festival at Victory Gardens Theater (Part 2)

8/4/2019

 

For Part 1 see here.

Briefly: another mass shooting by a disaffected white male (this in Dayton, Ohio—home of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar), and for me, in Chicago, the last day of Victory Gardens Theater’s new plays reading festival Ignition.


The two plays I saw were the best of the lot (mind you I missed two): [hieroglyph] by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and The Gradient by Steph Del Rosso. The first was my favorite. The story felt primal like Aeschylus, compactly telling about a child’s rape in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The acting was unambiguously strong. The second was a flawless tour de force more along the lines of something Tom Stoppard would do.

The plays were all billed as “works in progress,” but it was hard to see where many of them could be improved upon. Of the four I saw, Exal Iraheta’s was the weakest; but he also presented as the youngest, least experienced playwright. Geraldine Inoa’s was the most ambitious; Act II or the second half flailed, but the story held. Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s was the most perfectly realized, without slack, and a serious sincerity of purpose. Del Rosso’s was perfectly executed, with a strong cast, providing laughs by the minute, but probably not a lot of substance there to bear repeated viewing or prolonged reflection.

In between shows, a panel of playwrights sat for an hour, comprised of Exal Iraheta, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, and two whose plays I did not see: Meghan Brown and Keelay Gipson. The conversation ran the gambit; questions or comments ran away from moderator Chay Yew’s initially-set parameters toward the end, making for an unsatisfying conclusion, and one heavily self-enamored voice seemed to hog the bulk of the conversation (mainly in response to moderator questions).

Somebody I overheard before showtime stated that Keelay Gipson’s play was the worst of the festival; but Gipson himself seemed like he had the most interesting things to say, so I question the assessment. Would that he had had more opportunity to speak. One surprising thing he said—an important lesson that he had only begun to learn after some experience—is that he would not let other people write his plays for him.

It’s an odd postulate—to let others write “your” play—and you almost wonder how he initially had come by such an odd formulation. Almost, I say, because the workshop industry is no new phenomenon.

Ignition New Plays Festival at Victory Gardens Theater

8/3/2019

 
​
Victory Gardens Theater is having its new plays festival Ignition this weekend. Today I attended two readings, missing Friday evening’s opening with #Newslaves by Keelay Gipson. I would have liked to stay for a third (this evening’s The Tasters by Meghan Brown), but two plays consecutive is about my limit.

This morning’s performance of They Could Give No Name by Exal Iraheta was topical and well-acted. As with Inching Towards Yeolha by Sam-Shik Pai, it contained a supernatural element which held the story together. Plays about immigration—in this case deaths at the southern border—seem hackneyed by now; but with the United States government having established detention camps (mirroring some of the worst of colonialism’s endemic disease-and-abuse-ridden concentration camps) and a mass shooting this morning at an El Paso Walmart with the white gunman apparently denouncing Hispanic “invaders” of formerly Mexican territory, the subject and its themes could not be more pressing. (The play failed to address either reasons for migration or the terrorist response by white males who claim to feel threatened by it.)

Reckoning: Furies from a New Queer Nation by Geraldine Inoa, although seeming to be in a less-finished state than the previous play, was nevertheless more powerful. The two main protagonists were an interracial (black/white) homosexual couple, and the trials (and ultimate dissolution) of their relationship due to structural racism and unexamined privilege on the part of the white partner the central storyline. Some of the acting was phenomenal, and one would hope to see the play mounted with nearly the exact cast. With two strong, sympathetic leads, deficiencies in the script fell by the wayside. The first half felt well-wrought and just about perfect; the second half fell into disorder almost immediately, consisting largely of harangues against the audience either direct or indirect. The feeling was of getting lectured—lectures that no doubt need to be heard—in lieu of tight drama; however the strong connecting thread of the main relationship held the disparate themes loosely together.

Inevitably I questioned my own activities in theater. With impending climate catastrophe, if topical themes be addressed, I want them to include today’s existential peril. My playwriting career effectively ended with the last presidential election and what it portended. If given the chance, I doubt that I could adequately manage the themes of this younger generation of playwrights. I doubt the value of drama—writing plays or playgoing. Even posting here, one is torn between the striving for normalcy despite crisis conditions (oftentimes a laudable endeavor) and a single-focused devotion to the politics of climate destruction.

Review of Strange Heart Beating

8/1/2019

 
Here at Rescripted is a new, and nice, review of Strange Heart Beating which I saw on the 28th July. I was noting it, not aiming for a review. If I were capable of such, I would want my review to be like Elon Sloan’s. It conveys precisely what I felt about the show but was unable to express.

Too bad that the show is getting such a review days after it has already closed; still, I suppose, a review is useful so as to “register” in the public eye, something extraordinary that has happened. “Extraordinary” here in the sense that it is not usual; heaping effusive and unmodulated praise is not the point.

Strange Heart Beating at Cloud Gate Theatre in Chicago

7/29/2019

 

Last night we saw the last night of a good production, Strange Heart Beating at Cloudgate Theatre. This tiny company is new to me—unrelated to Chicago’s well-known Anish Kapoor sculpture that goes by the name “The Bean” but was christened “Cloud Gate” though that may have been an inspiration, and also (presumably) unrelated to Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan which comes to Chicago from time to time.

The play was mounted in Jackalope’s space on Thorndale (near the el) which Jackalope Theatre itself never seems to use, preferring the Broadway Armory a stone’s throw away from that. The space is matchbox size; yet the set filled it well, was perfectly designed to the play, and allowed for an imaginative versatility that was unexpected.

Kristin Idaszak’s play was not flawless—certain plot points passed credibility, yet those transgressions were excused by the medium itself—but held its own as far as showcasing a moral and thematic integrity ripe for our times (the Anthropocene). Upon reflection plot elements did not hold together, but they carried the story forward in the moment and sustained the theme’s high seriousness.

In a sense the script was the weakest link of the performance—that is to say, it lacked the polish of all the other facets of a good production on display (tempered, mind you, with the understanding that this was theater-by-shoestring, making up for a frugal budget with fully-engaged imaginative effects). But more broadly, the play was “the thing” as Shakespeare would have it, and all the polished technique could only have existed to serve such a play.

I haven’t taken an inventory of who we have writing for theater in Chicago today, but at this moment I would have to put Idaszak’s name to the fore of rising talent to watch. My intent is not that of reviewer, so delving into the script as such doesn’t suit my purpose—I, long past any direct involvement in the Chicago theater scene except that of playgoer—but it seemed important enough to take note of.

Embracing Obscurity

7/27/2019

 
Yesterday a Facebook post reminded me of something I had posted here—in this “News” section that effectively became a blog—and I sought to find it. The page or pages were no longer registered with Google, though they used to be (for I have searched and found before).

Recently there have been frantic messages from Google about re-certifying my site (or something). I tried to do what I could. But I am not especially web-literate, barely savvy, and I question how much time I want to devote to this.

So, in the process of searching for that page (which pertained to James J.Y. Liu on Chinese poetry), I noticed that next month will be the five-year anniversary of establishing this website. The exact day escapes me, but the blog feature started on the 31st. I was fishing around for content, most of it incidental.
​
Do I want to still bother with it? The url is not due to expire immediately; but my need to “put myself out there” is not what it was to begin with. Gradually the impetus toward self-promotion has died with me; the need for feedback from the world “That never wrote to me”.

This is the Anthropocene.

Laboring on Behalf of the Spirit

7/20/2019

 
Poetry notoriously does not change everything. That is not why we speak. (Exceptionally, it can provide a rallying cry, but that is not expected here.)

These times are nothing but a continuation of previous ones, most markedly in my time the invasion and destruction of Iraq. But before that even.

Then I wrote—no small portion of my writing at my peak was directly responding to global events (“my wars/ Were global from the start”)—in order to stake out a claim to uncorrupt territory (if only in the mind) against the onslaught of perceived injustice. We write, not for posterity, but for ourselves in the moment; however, if we are lucky, we created a personal monument or reference point to refer back to. In this environs of centrifugal chaos, I have a map to previously covered ground. (At my site you can read the essay about my efforts against said military, criminal, and tactically obnoxious action, "Introduction to War for Peace”.)

It is not well to live one's life with regrets of “If only I had said…” or “If only I had done…".

I compose (and compile) a lot of bad poetry, in times like these. Not because I can alter the course of events; but so that I might stand apart without getting sucked into the vortex. Ultimately, the body may (and perchance will) succumb to the thresher; one labors in order that the spirit survive, though it too may break.

Ilhan Omar in the Face of Republican Slander and Misrepresentation


Because she was Somali-born
    They told her to “go back,”
Showed no restraint in heaping scorn,
    Pernicious their attack,
Yet Ilhan Omar weathered it
    With humor, and affirmed
She would not let threats make her quit
    As their slanders she spurned.

They—bigots and hypocrites all— 
    Misrepresented her
True love of country, theirs the gall
    To defame, as it were,
And stir up malice in the name
    Of calling themselves “great,”
But they were never what they claim,
    A congeries of hate.

Ilhan Omar stood tall the day
    And they all ugly brutes
Were shown to be, and decency
    All their posture refutes:
For “godly” read “idolaters,”
    For “proud” read “craven cowards,”
For “great” read “bad” and “something worse
    Than mere simplistic blowhards.”

“I stand with Ilhan” let be said
    By all who value freedom,
Lest virtue get turned on its head,
    Men to the nth degree dumb,
Of empathy a deficit
    Among this lot extolled— 
Nor heaven will this rot acquit
    When time’s justice takes hold.

Lady Liberty Lost

7/20/2019

 

​The world-wide welcome from that beacon-hand
Soon flickered and went out, once mighty flame
Extinguished by the watery tears that came
Falling from heaven, angels’ tears that land
From sea to sea, like blood upon the sand
Shed by the innocent. My country’s shame,
Regarding hopeful immigrants with blame
In lieu of introspection’s reprimand.
Mother of Exiles, weep! Heed this new voice:
“Keep, ancient lands,” America now groans,
“Your shithole people, and let us rejoice
In every one we grind up into bones
Who sought a place of justice and by choice
Came to these shores, and plutocratic zones.”
​
Picture
Image gotten from Twitter uncredited

Immersive Theater at Windy City Playhouse: The Recommendation

7/17/2019

 

“Immersive” theater is a global trend, definitely “pushing the boundaries” of the art form. The Recommendation was my first exposure, though I’ve read about performances in Melbourne. As such, I recommend it highly. Tickets aren’t cheap, due to limitations on audience size; we had hottix for a preview so the ouchy factor was less. In our circumstances a splurge is called for once in a while. We also saw it with a less than sold-out crowd; a full house might make the viewing experience less comfortable.

That said, the plot was fairly predictable once you got the initial gist; but it was an insightful inspection into societal inequalities—beginning with the titular letter of recommendation and proceeding from there. There were three male actors (one white; two black) essentially playing to type, but that is never necessarily a drawback in theater.

It was definitely a step above the dinner murder mystery genre; it’s harder for me to assess it as an art when all my reference points and criteria are essentially proscenium-based theatrics. Definitely the actors can get away with less under such close scrutiny; but proximity was no bar to these performances. “Immersive” staging limits blocking in its own way; it’s neither better nor worse than (say) theater in the round, with its own idiosyncrasies.

More so than typical proscenium-based narratives these dramatics are ephemeral and very true to form; but the themes are presented in such a way that you probably won’t forget what you saw.

The Death of a Trump Supporter

7/15/2019

 
​
I felt a twinge of joy and glee
    On hearing that you died,
Such execrations hurled at me
    From your lips must subside.

How so much bile, invective, hate
    In one man’s heart took anchor
I could not guess, nor obviate,
    How much uncouth, vile rancor.

The paths behind us we have trod
    Get covered by new grasses,
And you—farewell to meet your God— 
    Commit no more trespasses.

I mourn as much as man may do
    Newly escaping malice:
Surely there was a charm to you
    Beneath the crude and callous.

Rudeness beseemed to you a strength,
    Superb self-estimation
As drove your thoughts in breadth and length,
    Life one long execration.

Had you but learned to breath a while,
    To lessen the invective— 
To randomly let loose a smile
    Nor seldom nor selective— 

The news which came to me a shock
    Might have produced more grieving,
But I must mourn while taking stock:
    Some pain with you is leaving.
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