In The Blood: Here and Now
In The Blood by Suzan Lori Parks, a riff on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s acclaimed novel The Scarlet Letter tells the depressing story of Hester La Negrita, a homeless black woman living in poverty with five “bastard” children. She seeks assistance from various sources including a close but manipulative friend, a corrupt reverend, a pressured doctor, her promiscuous welfare lady, and her wayward first love all with who she’s had sexual encounters. These characters all take advantage of Hester and her situation throughout the course of the play and society turns its back on her. The play deals closely with the issues of oppression and how society treats women, the impoverished, and especially poor black women like Hester. In The Blood is a play with many unpleasant, uncomfortable images, but they are images that will surely stick in the minds of both actors and audience. As Rena Fraden writes in her essay about the two “Hester” plays Parks has written, Fucking A and In The Blood, “There is no relief for Hester or the audience watching. Tragic conventions loom overhead in both plays.”
This same play will be produced the week of November 18th – November 24th at Baruch College. One actress playing the role of Hester in the production was so emotionally connected to the character that she was brought to tears delivering her final monologue during one of the rehearsals. Notably, this is a point in the play where everything comes to a head for Hester. Everyone she’d loved is drifting away from her, she has just killed her oldest child in a spurt of rage, and she’s reflecting on her life and whether she should have had her children. The actress was visibly moved, and everyone watching was equally captivated. It was as if she became Hester in that moment. After that, she needed a few minutes to herself to regroup. This is the power of theatre. The job of an actor is to make situations and characters such as these come to life on stage, but with all of the pain and suffering that Hester goes through in the play, tapping into her emotions must be a difficult task. It is difficult not only in the respect of connecting with a character that is unlike you, but also in bringing yourself to truly experience the character. Is it too much for the young, vulnerable minds of college students? We see the emotional effect material like this play has on people. We pose the question: “Should we be representing the themes that we find in In The Blood on a college stage?” And what is the importance of doing so?
Director of the Baruch production, Christopher Scott, answered that question with a resounding “Yes.” and proceeded to explain his process in choosing the play: “I think it is important for young people to challenge their minds and talents and stretch themselves… (I want to do a play) that illuminates life and makes people see life in a different way.” Scott believes that it is not only important for the development of the talent to experience doing plays that may be “out of their comfort zones”, but it is also important for the audience to see such plays and possibly change their perspective a little bit.
The issues that are present in In The Blood are those that many people would be quick to turn away from, but what Suzan Lori Parks does is force us to look at ourselves. It may be uncomfortable for some people to talk about, but when the stage acts as a degree of separation between the issue and us, we are able to come to terms more with the reality of it. Parks, an African-American woman herself, was quoted as saying the message of her plays is misunderstood such as this one: “It’s insulting, when people say my plays are about what it’s about to be black-as if that’s all we think about, as if our life is about that.” Sure the main character is an impoverished African-American woman, but Parks insists her work is about identity, image, and societal standing. Christopher Scott didn’t seem to put too much emphasis on race when casting the role of Hester, which is double cast. Only one of the Hesters is African-American and the five children are of different races than their mother. The play definitely speaks to more than just race. The setting of the play could be seen as just as powerful as the message it is trying to send. It simply reads here and now. Talk about hinting at society’s problems. These are all difficult topics to talk about and admittedly may be overwhelming for some audiences to watch and actors to portray, however they are topics that need to surface and having young people play these roles make these issues even more pressing.
Scott admitted that he “doesn’t like to do safe things” when it comes to theatre. He wants to “do things that we don’t like to look at.” The last play he directed was entitled The Motherf*cker With A Hat.” As you can see, Scott draws from his plays pushing boundaries not only with content, but also with its subject matter. I would have to agree with Scott on his standpoint. It is quite easy to recycle those plays done over and over again. At the risk of sounding too cliché, college is about finding yourself. It is very possible that by portraying something that one is not, they find out more about who they actually are. By doing plays such as In The Blood, we are in Scott’s words, “raising the bar intellectually and on an emotional level.”
I think that is exactly what the Baruch College production of In The Blood will achieve.
