Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Something different is happening at HERE Arts Center, and it’s called Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice. A cross between a theatrical performance and a consciousness-raising session, this interactive show – or happening – asks critical questions about civil rights and the criminal justice system. And it finds them almost impossible to answer.
As an implacably racist institution, can the U.S. criminal justice system be meaningfully reformed? From within? Through political power? If not, is the only solution to “burn it down?” But won’t that leave you naked in the storm? The show offers a variety of angles on the problem, personified by the figures played by the performers.
I say “figures” rather than “characters” because rather than dramatic characters they are either “real” people or symbolic representations, each compelling in their own way.
Professorial provocateur (writer/performer James Scruggs) challenges the audience to engage with the big questions. Later, when he goes full tilt into the role of representing the work-from-within, gradual-progress school of thought, the show seems to sneer at the strategy.
We then meet a frustrated firebrand (Obehi Agbede) who sees herself as an “emerging unconditional kindness warrior.” There is indeed power in kindness. But she finds herself stymied in her quest to “activate her activism.”
Audience members are called on to address one another, to answer tough questions about their behavior and attitudes towards law enforcement, and to help populate dioramas of injustice.
Then the camera zooms out: With all the inspirational civil rights leaders and thinkers over the centuries, why do one in five Black men today spend time in prison compared to one in 17 white men? Why are Blacks vastly over-prosecuted for drug offenses compared to whites? Those are just two of many statistics the show calls out.
In a climactic scene, the firebrand seems to decimate the professor’s arguments for moderation and working within the system. On the other hand, for all her hyperactive passion, for all her admiration for those who engage in self-immolation – the ultimate protest – she remains mired in self-doubt and activism paralysis.
Amid these two figures’ personal revelations we meet a psychic “sorcerer of sorts” who spins a lesson in systemic racism out of a session of three-card monte. The game plays out in video projections that evolve from playful to eye-opening to devastating.
A demonic 420-year-old cool cat (Thomas Giovanni) personifies the criminal justice system itself, reeling off racist tropes and terms like they’re cotton candy. Keeping Black folks down and unhappy is his stock in trade. “Black happiness makes my teeth itch.”
Ultimately this provocative but pessimistic show also indicts the community itself for passive acceptance – as someone so conditioned to going in the back door that when “seeing no back door he makes one for himself.”
Still, there’s something potentially productive in gathering in these points of view, these experiences, this history in a communal, and sometimes slightly confrontational, artistic setting. For my part, as a “white” person I gleaned as much from the responses from the audience as from what was happening on stage – which was a lot.
Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice is at HERE through April 19.
