Theatre, the Beautiful

My director's notes to my high school's production of 1776.

This is the story of who we are.

Every person has a birth story. Your parents, no matter how present or involved after you were born, have a tale of how you came to be. The day you were born, a group of people gathered to help make it so, and that story remains a part of the great archive of everything in the history of the world.

Every culture has a birth story, too.  The creation of the United States is a Great Story of “Almost.”  It almost didn’t happen.  In fact, when you take the time to study the historical record, it’s easy to see that it probably shouldn’t have happened.

The colonists simply fought with each other too much.

In places like Facebook, Twitter, and in the media, the arguments of this past Presidential election are, actually, not unlike the kind had by the colonists 200 years ago. What should the government be in charge of?  How powerful should political officials be?  What should and shouldn’t taxes pay for?  These fundamental questions of our nation are enduring and essential; your kids and your kid’s kids will likely be arguing them still.

Our Great Story of Almost added a chapter last week with the reelection of President Barack Obama. When we vote, argue, serve our nation, we are doing the same work as those who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Its future chapters will be written in the courage, strength, fears, and resolve of those of us who continue to pick up the legacy of the Founders of our Nation.

As I write this amidst the broken timbers, shredded power lines, and long gas queues of the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I can’t help but see our huddled community as not very different than that of the colonists. We are beset by challenges, split by ideology, and worried about the unknowable future. It’s been a challenging and bleak Autumn for many of us here on the Island.

But there is a hope. The students in 1776 have pulled together and endured. They lost power, hot water, stability, and Halloween. But they met in living rooms to run lines, practice dance steps and harmonies, and support each other. They’ve learned how to fix broken set pieces, verify historical facts about powdered wigs and military dispatches, and remain strong in the face of challenge.

These students are our colonists to the future.  From what I have seen in these past weeks of trial and tribulation, our American future looks bright.

We will endure.

Welcome to the Masquers’ 50^th Anniversary Season: The Season of Power.

Performances:

Friday November 16, 730pm

Saturday, November 17, 2 and 730pm

North Shore High School

Glen Head, NY

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

northshoreartsangels.org

Mosque-a-rade

James Madison said it would be better if we fought with ourselves.

In order to replace the centralized power of a king, emperor, or simple majority, Madison supported a system of warring factions. The irritating arguments on the TV and internet grow directly out of this idea. Because the writers of the Constitution built a system in which shifting partisanship replaced autocracy, we often find ourselves in rather Jerry Springer-like exchanges.

“These supporters of the Mosque are unAmerican! It's like the Nazis putting an ice cream parlor at Auschwitz!”
“Those who would deny the right of believers to build worship houses are unAmerican! How can anyone be so disgusting as to use this as a political weapon?”
“I don't know who my baby daddy is! And I don't care! I'm in love with my grandmother!”

The recent media kerfuffle over the so-called “Mosque at Ground Zero” affords the perfect cross section view of how the rich and lively politicization of our culture can unfortunately distort even our most simple values.

Madison's colleagues, the Constitutional Framers, made absolutely no bones about the importance of the separation between Church and State. These complicated men saw Tyranny (with a capital T) as the bane of civil stability, freedom, and growth. These people knew the Bible intimately; they also knew the writings of Locke and Rousseau. Almost all were churchgoers.

But they knew of the political obstacles of religion. The colonies represented an escape from religious intolerance and State-imposed beliefs. When Ben Franklin, that old charmer and partier, proposed that the Constitutional Convention should begin daily meetings with a prayer, the Framers voted it down. This isn't a legend. I saw and read Franklin's proposal, in his own handwriting, at the Library of Congress this past weekend.

(You have to go to the Library of Congress. It is so cool-- seriously, you will freak out. They have the most amazing stuff. Goosebumps, man. Not the book series-- I mean actual goosebumps on your arms. And neck.)

Wary of the monarchs and aristocracies of Old Europe, the Framers wrote and ratified a document that ensured that certain personal freedoms would be held as our most valuable. The First Amendment of that document identified the principal and preeminent of freedoms: liberty to think, believe, imagine, communicate, and protest.

The Framers sought no byzantine legal system of overseeing religion. They intended the government to simply stay out of personal spiritual business of the citizenry.

This separation between Church and State has provided no shortage of political division in our country-- and yet the most hardened partisans agree on the core idea. The government is to offer no special treatment or bigotry towards any religion. If one follows the civil laws of our country, then one can believe anything one wants.

Our government, therefore, may have no legal position on methods, or places, of worship other than on those that violate the law. It's astonishingly simple.

Those who call for the government to act on the “Mosque at Ground Zero” are, in effect, asking for the government to act in a “extra-Constitutional” manner. Keep this in mind the next time such a call comes from a voice from that also claims to support “smaller government.”

It's hard for me to imagine a better way for the “terrorists to win” than for us to depart from our most cherished values in the name of security or “sensitivity.” The reason “American values” infuriate the Islamic extremists is that, as the Framers knew, personal freedom dismantles the tools of tyranny. Freedom is contagious.

Bin-Laden has publicly decried the “godlessness” of America. His argument against the West is fundamentally religious in nature. He rallies extremists against the malevolent insensitivity of the Americans building military bases in Saudi Arabia. Al-Queda's stated goal is to expel American influences (bases, markets, churches, etc) from the sacred land of Islam.

How ironic that some in our culture would use the same argument to expel an Islamic prayer room from the sacred site of Ground Zero.

Conversely, how powerful for our country to remain steadfast to its Constitution, and the Church-State separation, even at our most sensitive and vulnerable underbelly.

To paraphrase Madison, "Father of the Constitution" and orchestrator of partisan bickering: may the better argument win.

Sigh. Indeed.

Staring At the Sea

All of my gay friends spent the Fourth of July in 'Gay Towns.'

You know 'Gay Towns.' These are the places where lesbians push baby strollers and middle aged gay men get to wear those tight tank tops that they don't wear to office parties. Trannies order cafe lattes right next to bald, hairy men in leather vests. Muscle boys in cargo shorts flirt with skinny boys in American Apparel short shorts. Women in ankle length skirts with unshorn underarms hold hands and blare Amy Ray from boom boxes. Other women, in baseball caps and sleeveless shirts, talk sports or politics while sipping beer.

A few of my friends went to Provincetown on Cape Cod, others went to Rehoboth on the shore of Maryland. Like Melville's Ishmael, all seemed drawn to the water. Why do the gays head to the coast? Maybe it's the idea of an outpost away from society, where mores and customs seem more relaxed. There's a 'live and let live' quality that so few of us practice and yet many of us claim.

Perhaps it's the sense of scale at the ocean: the social hierarchies and rules of human beings can appear trivial in the face of the irrefutable horizon of the sea.

At any rate, my friends, all of them Americans, left their homes for the holiday and headed to the sea for safe harbor among like-minded people. Every year they do this. It's an annual tradition.

We celebrate the Fourth of July to recognize a singular event represented by a searing piece of writing from the 18th Century. Standing at a crossroads in history, the Declaration Of Independence championed an idea: no governing body could bestow basic rights upon human beings because human beings already had those rights. No king, no emperor, no minister, no consulate, no board, no governor, no voting body-- no one-- was empowered to give or take certain, inalienable rights from people. Among these were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 'We are born free,' the document said.

I'm still knocked out by all of that. The power of the Declaration still vibrates and pulses; its relentless tide still disturbs, resonates, and inspires. Like the ocean, its hard-line horizon is irrefutable.

Two hundred and thirty four years ago, a group of men left their homes and headed to a port town, on the water. With it's bustling marine commerce, it was a lot like a coastal town. It was named for and dedicated to Brotherly Love. These men sought safe harbor among like-minded people. And they wrote about freedom.

And as I think about those men, who literally put their names to an idea that flew directly against norms and laws and the power of a king, I can't help but wonder what we, as a nation, are doing with gay rights.

How is it possible that gays cannot serve openly in our military? How is it possible that gay people cannot get married? How is it possible that these people must choose to be 'open' or 'in the closet?' Gay or Bi or Trannies or whatever. What is going on here?

On the Fourth of July, we gather to recognize the signing of an incredible document. It's our most important national holiday and it's about freedom. Every year we do this. It's an annual tradition.

And the sea is there, with its undeniable horizon, sending wave after wave.

We are born free. We are born free. We are born free.