It was really cool to see Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a 2016 MacArthur Fellow and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, up close and personal. I’ve never personally delved deep into the world of plays and to get a chance to witness a live reenactment of Gloria in Baruch’s very own Performing Arts Center was an eye-opening experience. The play, Gloria, surrounds the lives of a group of aspiring writers in a typical office in Manhattan. The day starts off as per usual, with everyone going about their business. Everything seems fine, but then, all of a sudden, Gloria shoots and kills many of the workers, leaving Dean, Kendra, Nan, and Lorin alive. The story then follows the fallout of each character’s life as they try to cope with the aftermath and trauma of the shooting. Two of the workers, Kendra and Dean, meet up over coffee to discuss the events that had happened.
What I thought was really interesting was the conversation between the two survivors about who gets to write about this experience and tell it as their own. The concept of “ownership” over a tragedy and how it could “belong” to someone just because they were more directly impacted by it was really interesting. It reminded me of a devastating experience I had in high school, where there was a hit-and-run and shooting directly outside of our school, killing 8 and injuring 11. The weeks following the event were somber and grim. The students showed up to school the next day wearing all black to honor the lives of the victims. Even though things went back to routine after just a few days, the horrors of that day lingered on my mind, and I found myself crying at random times throughout the day, every time someone would joke about it or bring it up. What terrified me more, however, was how little people seemed to care about what had happened. Classmates were Snapchatting the bodies, making memes, and joking about it as if it were something to laugh about. I was in disbelief. And I remembered when one of my friends came up to me and attempted to console me, saying how horrible it was and how sad she felt. I felt infuriated. I wanted to yell at her, and tell her she had no right to say she was scared, because she wasn’t there when it had happened. She was home, while I sat in a classroom under lockdown, anxiously waiting for the loudspeaker to say it was safe to leave and not knowing what was going to happen to us. This rage felt reflected in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play. He has a natural talent for capturing raw human emotion in the form of theatre and I really connected with the performance.
Being able to tell a story is one thing, but to be able to translate feeling through a few lines on a stage is a rare and impressive skill. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a true genius, and I really enjoyed our visit.
