Category: New York Times 11/6

Growing up in New York City, one of the key school trips that I would take is to the Museum of Natural History. This was often the case for many New York City residents. The Museum, which consists of exhibitions ranging from biodiversity and Environmental Halls to the Rose Center for Earth and Space, allows students to visit and explore the realm of science in an interactive way. My favorite highlight of the museum would be the famous blue whale located in the Milstein Hall of Ocean life. Its realistic features that allowed me to see the giant animal in person without having to face the dangers of the sea.

Coming soon to the Museum is an expansion for the new Richard Gilder Center for Science. According to Robin Pogrebin in his article Museum of Natural History Reveals Design for Expansion, the design for the new center exhibition hall, by Jeanne Gang, “aims to unite the museum’s various activities, solve its notorious circulation problems and provide a multistory showcase for the institution’s expanding role as a hub for scientific research and scholarship.” Ms. Gang proposes a contemporary design, that contrasts with the rest of the Museums dominant brick aesthetics. With this expansion, a part of the Teddy Roosevelt Park will be taken down to provide space for this exhibition. This has drawn a conflict to the development and as a solution “the museum has decided to take down three of its existing buildings to make room for the six-story addition, rather than to protrude deeper into the tree-lined space along Columbus Avenue, as had been anticipated.” However as Pogrebin mentions, “Nevertheless, the museum is bound to be in for some push back. “In New York, any square inch of loss of green space rightfully upsets people,”.” In an effort to solve the problem of removing trees from the park, the design concept includes replacing the removed trees with 17 new ones as well as an installation of 17 benches.

Although I agree that preservation of the limited green space that we have in New York is important, this expansion in the museum could provide a new step towards the increase of involvement in science. The Museum is a core aspect in engaging students in the realm of science and educating them in an interactive and fun way. Although I too, will be sad to see some of the old exhibitions gone, I see this proposal for an expansion as a good thing.

Our world has come a long way, and with the recent Obergefell v. Hodges case where the United States Supreme course decided that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples, even more change has followed, and so has theatre. In the article “Equality, Then What? New Plays Explore Modern Gay Life”, Alexis Soloski writes of the changes in gay playwriting, specifically the differences between the pre and post-equality movement. With same-sex marriages now accepted, gays and lesbians are not as much of outsiders as they were prior. And since the hardships gay people faced pre-equality differ from the hardships they now face as an “accepted” community (accepted by law, at least), play writers felt a need to focus on a more modern view of what it’s like to live as a same-sex couple (specifically male couples) today.

The playwrights Peter Parnell, left, and Mark Gerrard.

Gay play writers Mark Gerrard and Peter Parnell each have written plays, “Steve” and “Dada Woof Papa Hot” respectively, that are “distinctive less for their subject matter than for what they don’t contain”. Pre-equality plays usually highlighted the difficulties and perils that same-sex couples faced, with plots often including trauma, the distress of having to “hide in the closet”, threat of AIDs, and even self-loathing. “Steve”, opening November 18^th, is a comic drama that highlights the anxieties of a post-equality couple raising a son conceived with a surrogate. “Dada Woof Papa Hot”, opening Noveber 9^th, is a play about a married same-sex couple trying to navigate the relatively new territory of gay marriage and gay parenthood. Soloski adds the “plots and aguments that defined de
cades of gay playwriting (at least playwriting by and about white men) aren’t present.”

A scene from “Steve”

A scene from “Dada Woof Papa Hot”

That’s not to say that plays about same-sex couples have not existed before, just that they’re different. Plays like “Next Fall” by Geoffrey Nauffts and “Mothers and Sons” by Terrence McNally, are also about contemporary gay life, but the plays of Gerrard and Parnell are of a “post-equality moment”, focusing less on the difference than on the troubles with assimilation. Whereas the characters in Nauffts and McNally’s plays are called up to fight for tolerance and recognition, the characters in Parnell and Gerard’s plays are “too busy looking for great love and great sex and trying to get the kids to school on time”.

            Obviously this whole article highlights the change in society, and specifically change that has played into the realms of theatre. Change is inevitable. But I question whether all change is good. While I know that people accept change because usually it means its better, I don’t really know how I feel about the change in technology. We (and I know I’m not the first to say this) have become so reliant on technology. Of course, technology has had many positive effects, but I think that the technology of today has allowed us to become so self-sufficient that I fear the risk that we are missing out on important social interactions. People are so social on their handheld devices, that they’ve almost become anti-social. Technology has made it so easy to not have social interaction. Seamless, an online food ordering service, even had an advertisement in the Subway that read “Over 8 million people in New York City, and we help you avoid them all.” Even Starbucks has started a pilot project where they would charge a $2.00 transaction fee to deliver your Starucks order, so you don’t have to go downstairs and “risk” the chance of talking to people.

Seamless advertisement in Subway

            At the end of the article, Gerarrd asked, a little anxiously, “What is it going to look like when
we’re grandparents? Because that doesn’t exist yet”. When I read that, I was able to truly appreciate the “new-ness” of this change in theatre. Just like the “new-ness” of same-sex marriages, so exists a “new-ness” in the technological advances of our time. There’s such a divide between our grandparents’ age and our age. So its true: our world has truly changed. In both cases (same-sex marriages and advances in technology) has been welcomed and somewhat accepted by the public. I too, welcome the idea of change, but I think that in regards to technology, society may be a bit too accepting.