Theatre is a fascinating form of art. It gives the opportunity for writers and actors to come together and bring a story to life in front of an audience. Whether it is comedic or tragic, a play often reflects the life around us. It can showcase the different kinds of relationships between people or highlight the social issues present throughout history and the modern world. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur Fellow, is a master of expression who has been able to convey important social ideas and issues through theatre. An award-winning playwright, Jacobs-Jenkins has captured the struggles and complex interrelations of people through his writing. At the staged reading of three of his plays, performed at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, I was able to see how so many important ideas and themes can be expressed through theatre.
The first reading was an excerpt from Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Gloria. This scene showed the aftermath of a tragic event that occurred in the previous act and how two of the surviving characters coped with the tragedy. While initially acting supportive and bonding over the trauma they had both experienced following the shooting at their office, the encounter between the characters soon turned spiteful and antagonistic as they started fighting about their claim over the tragic event. Both wanted to use the horrific experience they went through and use it to strengthen their career as a writer. Jacobs-Jenkins points out that even after surviving a tragedy, the competitive drive and ambitious attitude still persists in an industry where people constantly strive for success and recognition. The combination of the actors’ dramatic and emotional performance and Jacobs-Jenkins’s writing created a very powerful scene that left an impact on me.
One of the other plays that was read was Girlswhich featured three female characters in a club as they share their personal struggles. Unlike Gloria, this play was more comedic as the actors described the situations that their characters found themselves in in a more humorous tone. I found myself laughing as one of the characters was describing her dilemma of having a very uncomfortable office chair and her numerous failed attempts to rectify the situation. While this excerpt had a lighter tone, I still thought it conveyed an important message, showing the importance of social interaction and how we need people to whom we can spill our struggles and emotions. We need the support of others and having someone that can listen to us.
The staged readings were a powerful representation of theatre and how the words of a writer and the performance of an actor can come together to tell a story. Like other forms of art, theatre reflects the world around us and I thought that Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was able to expertly capture important aspects of humanity and the issues present in our society.
