Notes of a dubious daughter
- By News Hound
- Published 07/11/2007
- Theatre
- Unrated
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View all articles by News HoundNotes of a dubious daughter
by Caille Millner
THE FIRST time I attended a performance at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, I was 13 years old. I was excited and I was dubious.
I was excited because it was a chance to see a play, and I was always excited to see any play. I was dubious for innumerable reasons -- it was my mother's idea, and at that age I needed to express dubiousness at any suggestion she made; the outing meant that I needed to wear a proper dress (no casual clothes in the church or at the theater for the Millner family, no sir), and at that age I didn't like doing that. Also, even at that age I was dubious of San Francisco's art scene, feeling that qualities such as "talent" and "rigor" were too often drowned out in a city that prided itself so much on celebrating each and every "expression." (To steal a phrase from Derek Walcott, the St. Lucian Nobel laureate, Americans would like art to be democratic, but, unfortunately, it's aristocratic.)
But a play was a play. Besides, if it meant enough to my mother for the two of us to go -- and I knew that it had to mean a lot to her; like most suburbanites, she was deathly afraid of driving in San Francisco -- then I was going to go. So after a prolonged struggle with the dresses, the gas station, the U.S. 101 freeway, the Sutter-Stockton garage and the two-block hustle to the theater at 620 Sutter Street, my mother and I settled into our seats and watched a play -- and all my dubiousness melted. Sure, the stage lighting wasn't great, and I had seen better costuming. But none of that mattered. The direction was simple and stunning; the performances were amazing. I loved it.
My mother bought us a subscription, and, for the next several years, we took great joy in our shared experience within the intimate space of that theater. When I summon those memories, I can't remember the plays we saw at all -- did we see the theater's Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson?" We must have seen its annual holiday chestnut, Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity," but what about James Baldwin's "Amen Corner?" Did we see it, and is that where I got the idea to pick up a copy of Baldwin's book of essays, "Notes of a Native Son," a book that has meant the world to me as both a writer and a human being; a book that is so beautifully written and emotionally potent that no reader can touch it without getting scorched eyebrows?
But I remember feeling joy radiate from the stage, and I remember the smiles of pride I saw on the faces of our fellow audience members as we all wandered around during intermission. I live in San Francisco now, and when I walk around this city I don't see very many smiles of pride on the faces of its dwindling, increasingly impoverished African-American population. How I wish things could be different.
I've been thinking about those memories a lot lately. Part of the reason why they've been coming to mind is because of recent news about the theater itself. The theater is in trouble. It's 26 years old, it's the premier African-American theater on the West Coast, and it's in need of a new home. The theater's landlord is selling the building, and the new owner -- the Academy of Art University, which more and more San Franciscans are starting to view as a deathstar as it swallows up more and more prime city real estate -- wants to turn it into a student gymnasium.
By all appearances, the university is operating well within its legal rights. But that's not much comfort to the theater or its patrons.
The other reason why I have been thinking about those memories so much lately is because I heard about the theater's trouble around the same time as I heard about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn two school desegregation programs. The court decision is unlikely to have much impact on African Americans -- today's public schools are segregated already -- but the psychological impact is devastating. I couldn't help but compare the two unrelated stories -- the venerated theater making way for an academy that celebrates a corporate vision of art; the venerated decision (Brown vs. Board of Education) making way for a poorly written opinion that celebrates cynical lip service toward equality.
These are unsettling, difficult times for African Americans, and at some point, a playwright will tackle them. I wish it could be the long-dead Lorraine Hansberry herself. Mostly known as the author of the groundbreaking play "A Raisin in the Sun," Hansberry was also an activist in the civil rights movement. Her writings for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee show how well she understood that an aristocratic talent such as her own meant nothing without the democratic uplift of her people.
Oh, sweet Lorraine, how we do miss you.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/06/EDGRMQQIK81.DTL
THE FIRST time I attended a performance at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, I was 13 years old. I was excited and I was dubious.
I was excited because it was a chance to see a play, and I was always excited to see any play. I was dubious for innumerable reasons -- it was my mother's idea, and at that age I needed to express dubiousness at any suggestion she made; the outing meant that I needed to wear a proper dress (no casual clothes in the church or at the theater for the Millner family, no sir), and at that age I didn't like doing that. Also, even at that age I was dubious of San Francisco's art scene, feeling that qualities such as "talent" and "rigor" were too often drowned out in a city that prided itself so much on celebrating each and every "expression." (To steal a phrase from Derek Walcott, the St. Lucian Nobel laureate, Americans would like art to be democratic, but, unfortunately, it's aristocratic.)
But a play was a play. Besides, if it meant enough to my mother for the two of us to go -- and I knew that it had to mean a lot to her; like most suburbanites, she was deathly afraid of driving in San Francisco -- then I was going to go. So after a prolonged struggle with the dresses, the gas station, the U.S. 101 freeway, the Sutter-Stockton garage and the two-block hustle to the theater at 620 Sutter Street, my mother and I settled into our seats and watched a play -- and all my dubiousness melted. Sure, the stage lighting wasn't great, and I had seen better costuming. But none of that mattered. The direction was simple and stunning; the performances were amazing. I loved it.
My mother bought us a subscription, and, for the next several years, we took great joy in our shared experience within the intimate space of that theater. When I summon those memories, I can't remember the plays we saw at all -- did we see the theater's Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson?" We must have seen its annual holiday chestnut, Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity," but what about James Baldwin's "Amen Corner?" Did we see it, and is that where I got the idea to pick up a copy of Baldwin's book of essays, "Notes of a Native Son," a book that has meant the world to me as both a writer and a human being; a book that is so beautifully written and emotionally potent that no reader can touch it without getting scorched eyebrows?
But I remember feeling joy radiate from the stage, and I remember the smiles of pride I saw on the faces of our fellow audience members as we all wandered around during intermission. I live in San Francisco now, and when I walk around this city I don't see very many smiles of pride on the faces of its dwindling, increasingly impoverished African-American population. How I wish things could be different.
I've been thinking about those memories a lot lately. Part of the reason why they've been coming to mind is because of recent news about the theater itself. The theater is in trouble. It's 26 years old, it's the premier African-American theater on the West Coast, and it's in need of a new home. The theater's landlord is selling the building, and the new owner -- the Academy of Art University, which more and more San Franciscans are starting to view as a deathstar as it swallows up more and more prime city real estate -- wants to turn it into a student gymnasium.
By all appearances, the university is operating well within its legal rights. But that's not much comfort to the theater or its patrons.
The other reason why I have been thinking about those memories so much lately is because I heard about the theater's trouble around the same time as I heard about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn two school desegregation programs. The court decision is unlikely to have much impact on African Americans -- today's public schools are segregated already -- but the psychological impact is devastating. I couldn't help but compare the two unrelated stories -- the venerated theater making way for an academy that celebrates a corporate vision of art; the venerated decision (Brown vs. Board of Education) making way for a poorly written opinion that celebrates cynical lip service toward equality.
These are unsettling, difficult times for African Americans, and at some point, a playwright will tackle them. I wish it could be the long-dead Lorraine Hansberry herself. Mostly known as the author of the groundbreaking play "A Raisin in the Sun," Hansberry was also an activist in the civil rights movement. Her writings for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee show how well she understood that an aristocratic talent such as her own meant nothing without the democratic uplift of her people.
Oh, sweet Lorraine, how we do miss you.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/06/EDGRMQQIK81.DTL
