August Wilson/Robert Brustein Debate
Moderated by Anna Deavere-Smith
Town Hall February 5, 1997
Brustein:
If I understand August Wilson's position
correctly, he regards theatre partly as an
avenue to political and cultural power, a medium
through which a large disadvantaged class can
dramatize its past injustices and perhaps find
redress through changes in the social and
poltical system.
Starting with Plato, who
banished the artist from his ideal republic,
utopianists -- even the best of them -- have
usually argued for curbing free artistic
expression.
All revolutions, as Eugene Ionesco
once wrote, burn the libraries of Alexandria.
Today in America, we see a similar leaning in
what we call Political Correctness, which in its
overzealous crusade to purge our language of
offensive terms, sometimes seems to be arguing
for what one critic has called "freedom from
speech."
Out of a conviction that freedom of
speech is essential to creative invention and
critical thought, a number of modern artists,
both black and white, whatever their beliefs as
citizens of the state (and I must again
emphasize that I am talking about them as
artists, not as political beings)
have rejected
the concept of art as an ideological instrument.
Ideological art is dedicated either to
reinforcing the existing power structure, as in
totalitarian regimes, or reforming and changing
it, as in most activist, revolutionary
expression.
The alternative to ideological art
was eloquently summed up by the Czech novelist
Milan Kundera when he said that the artistic
function was to "speak truth to power."
Isn't
that why we revere the major dramatists, from
Aristophanes to Athol Fugard?
And isn't that
one of the major reasons we cherish Shakespeare,
despite his occasional need to flatter the
reigning English monarchs?
The greatest
playwrights had the courage to speak truth to
power.
Such truthtellers help to expose the
corruptions of pomp and power by revealing the
reality behind human action and human motive -in short, the workings of the human soul, which
has no color.
The eloquent black writer James Baldwin, also
believed in speaking truth to power, at least in
his early career.
In an essay entitled
"Everybody's Protest Novel," he wrote: "let us
say that truth is meant to imply a devotion to
the human being.
It is not to be confused with
a devotion to a cause, and causes as we know are
notoriously bloodthirsty."
Note that neither
Kundera nor Baldwin seems much interested here
in using the artistic process to achieve power.
Indeed, behind their words is the implication
that the true artist must shun power, because
power systems are not only not instruments of
truth, they may very well be the enemies of
truth.
Those who believe in art as a political
weapon, as a method of empowering the
disadvantaged, no doubt serve a vital social
function.
But sometimes at a cost.
A
passionate political purpose occasionally
obliges these artists, in my opinion, to
sacrifice individual truth for the collective
good.
Of course, it is possible to justify such
means if the right ends are achieved.
But look
at the downside: while the arts, at best, are
inclusive, ideological art is exclusive.
spectator is pressured to reach
coerced into choosing sides.
The
conclusions,
Political art is
usually a persuasive form of melodrama: the
opposition of right and wrong, when the truth is
usually grey.
I agree with August Wilson's appeal for more
black theatres, and with his plea that
foundations be more supportive of such theatres.
This is certainly a better cause for foundations
than pouring their funds into efforts to
diversify the audiences of mainstream theatres.
In fact, I believe strongly in general operating
grants from public and private sources for all
theatres of proven quality.
But this support
cannot be a form of entitlement.
Black theatres
should earn their foundation and corporate
funding by the same criteria of value and
community support as any other.
If Mr. Wilson
knows of a worthy black theatre that isn't being
properly funded, he could give it instant
recognition by rewarding it with one of his
world premieres.
Although I see the value of theatres that
confine themselves to plays by black writers, I
admit some difficulty in approving Mr. Wilson's
appeal for the self-segregation of black artists
in racial enclaves.
If these artists excluded
themselves from what Mr. Wilson called "the
cultural imperialists and their so-called
classical values of European theatre," we would
have been denied the Othello and Judge Brack of
James Earl Jones, the Shakespearean shrew of
Jane White, the Phaedra of Gloria Foster, the
Shakespearean monarchs enacted by Denzel
Washington and André Braugher, the brilliant
classical performances of Morgan Freeman,
Laurence Fishburne, and Samuel L. Jackson, and
indeed all the manifold achievements of nontraditional casting and true interculturalism.
In fact, we would have been denied August
Wilson's plays, all of which have been produced
by the very mainstream, non-profit theatres he
rejects as cultural imperialists.
From certain of his recent letters and
remarks, I suspect August would like to modify
his position.
I hope so.
no debate between us.
Because then there is
But since he has also
denied saying that he would never work with a
white director, I must remind him of his 1990
Op-Ed piece in the New York Times called "I Want
a Black Director." While refusing there to allow
Fences to be filmed by a whire director, he
added this caveat: "Let's make a rule: blacks
don't direct Italian films, Italians don't
direct Jewish films, Jews don't direct blackAmerican films."
Actually, one of the best
films I ever saw about the black experience was
directed by an Israeli named Boaz Yaquim.
It
was called "Fresh."
I suspect that Mr. Wilson
would call this, as he once called George
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, "a bastardizing of
our people and our culture."
The truth is not subject to racial
generalizations, however they serve the aims of
power.
Indeed, even in seeking to combat
stereotypes, racial generalizations may create
another form of error, what the noted black
thinker Albert Murray called "the "Ethnographic
Fallacy," where one man believes he is speaking
for an entire race.
If no one person can speak for black
Americans, no one person can speak for white
people either.
There is no such thing as a
monolithic, Eurocentric culture.
The greatest
modern European artists have, like August
Wilson, almost invariably been rebels against
the existing culture, not its proselytes and
flunkies.
It is a principle of theatrical art that it
defies generalizations, being subject, like life
itself, to surprises, reversals, and
contradictions.
General truths, Ibsen told us,
have a shelf life of about twenty years, after
which they become just as tired and worn out as
any other convention.
We speak a lot today of cultural diversity,
but true diversity lies in acknowledging that
every human being is an individual, and not
simply a member of a racial, ethnic, or sexual
group.
A variety of these individual
differences is what bonds us all to the human
family.
Ultimately, of course, the quarrel between
Mr. Wilson and myself is not just over the
function of art, or the function of race in the
theatre, it is over larger issues of inclusion
versus exclusion, of integration versus
separatism, which is to say over the way of
Martin Luther King and his followers versus the
way of the early Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan and
the Nation of Islam.
A great gulf still divides
the races in this country, despite the
significant strides of the last thirty years.
It is the obligation of all men and women of
good will to try to bridge that gulf, and
complete the still unfinished racial business of
our nation.
But I believe America will only
begin to fulfill its promise when we acknowledge
that we are individuals first, Americans second,
and tribalists third.
When we realize that we
are all the same species under the skin. When we
recognize that all human beings are responsible
one for the other, every mother's child.
Thank you for listening so carefully.
August Wilson
When I was invited to give the keynote
address at the TCG conference in June of 1996, I
at first declined, because I was busy writing my
new play, and as always the requirements of art
can be demanding.
As I thought about it, and
what I might possibly have said, I thought about
the lack of black theatres with significant
resources to produce a play with high production
values.
And as my thoughts became fore focused,
I realized that 65 out of the 66 LORT theatres
were white.
And I regretted that I had declined
the invitation, because I thought it was
something that my colleagues in the theatre
needed to address.
I was, of course, then
pleased when I was urged to reconsider the
invitation.
I am glad that I did.
That 65 out of 66 LORT theatres were white
meant that black theatre artists were being
excluded from the opportunities to develop their
various talents in the same level of venues as
their white counterparts.
And for all the
presence of myself, George Wolfe, Anna Deavere
Smith, Suzan-Lori Parks, to name some of the
most visible, most blacks were locked out of the
house.
Sixty-five out of 66 theatres said that
something was dreadfully wrong.
And once
accepting the challenge of speaking to the lack
of black theatres, I had to go the whole way and
speak to the historical conditions that
occasioned our art to be placed int he hands of
someone else as custodians, and to affirm the
cultural battle that has been taking place since
the early 17th century, when we were brought to
this country in chains and were perceived as
being without language, art, culture, and other
trappings of civilization.
We all know the errors of such thought now,
due partly to the fierce resistance to such
conditions of servitude, and our equally fierce
affirmation of the value and worth of our being.
We have enjoyed the privilege and company of
many whites in American society who have stood
by us when making those affirmations in the
spirit of friendship and brotherhood.
Without
them, the journey we have made from the hull of
a ship to a self-sufficient and culturally
robust people could not have been possible.
That is not to say that we blacks and whites
do not continue to have a difficult
relationship.
In American society, it seems
that we would sometimes rather create an
illusion that face the harsh and uncompromising
truth about ourselves.
We, as a society, suffer from a failure of
imagination.
From the beginning of black
American's contact with the Western world, and
despite over 300 years of white cultural
dominance, we are still a culturally vibrant and
robust people.
Our music, our verbal
gymnastics, our sense of style, our unique way
of seeing the world are all part of an African
sensibility that informs our presence here in
North America.
Inside all blacks is at least
one heartbeat that is fueled with the blood of
Africa.
Jazz is widely-acknowledged and celebrated as
a uniquely American art form.
But if the
instruments with which jazz was created -- that
is, European marching band instruments -- had
not become widely available after the civil war,
jazz as we know it would not exist.
It was
African sensibility coming into contact with
European technology that made it possible.
Imagine, then, the possibilities of black
theatre empowered with the tools necessary to
create its own unique art, the resources to
nurture and provide homes for talented artists
and a place where your visiting pass doesn't
expire (usually on March 1st after Black History
Month).
It is important to note that we are not
advocates of separatism, as Mr. Brustein claims,
but rather we are seeking to be included.
In November of 1994, Time magazine ran a
cover story proclaiming a renaissance in black
art.
There was a photo of a dance of Bill T.
Jones on the cover, the the caption proclaiming
black artists were "free at last."
The theme of
the story was that black artists were no longer
being confined by their blackness, but were
creating art that was not limited to black
themes.
That they had learned to transcend thei
blackness to pursue more universal expressions
by embracing the values and norms of European
culture.
This universality, of course, is
conferred on white artists automatically, and
never, never is it suggested that white
playwrights like David Mamet or Terrence McNally
are limiting themselves to whiteness, and that
they are being confined in their art by pursuing
white themes.
The idea that we are trying to
escape from the ghetto of black culture is
insulting.
It is insulting for us, our parents,
and their forbearers who have fought to defend
and preserve their manners, and ways of life.
To assimilate into the society is harmful to
the cultural self as it abandons the age-old
investigation and accomplishments
of our
ancestors on the African continent, and the
continuance of those explorations here on the
continent of North America.
That our cultural
contributions to what is known as American
culture are many and inextricably woven into the
fabric of contemporary life does not mitigate
the loss, as the hegemonic concerns of the
culture are not our own, and we did not
participate in the privilege or the power that
they produce.
In other words, since the
dominant culture is not our culture, we have no
power, no matter what contributions we have made
to its spiritual growth or to its material
comfort.
This can be a little more than
disconcerting if you are standing on this side
of the equation.
If we choose not to assimilate, it does not
mean we oppose the values of the dominant
culture.
But rather, we wish to champion our
own causes, and our own celebrations, and our
own cherished values. So that the two cultures
exist concurrent with one another, two entities
contributiing to the perils and pillars of
society in a struggle to triumph over the
vagaries of life and human conduct.
I look forward to fuurther hearing Mr.
Brustein's views and espousing further my own.
You have demonstrated a willingness to explore
the nature of your own lives by coming here
tonight and I salute you and I ask that we find
a common cause that can enlist us all.
For in
the end it comes down to people sitting on a
stage talking about life as a battlefield of the
spirit, and how art and life illuminate and
embolden and celebrates that battle, finding in
it a meaning for the weight and substance, the
content and context of our lives.
Thank you.
Question and Answer
Smith: I would like to first have you respond to
each other.
What do you think, Bob, would you
like to respond to August while he's just
finished, and then so he can -- or is that OK?
Brustein:
I have nothing but the utmost respect
for what you just said.
And I think you have
probably the best mind of the 17th century.
What you are describing is a 17th century
condition, August, you're not describing a 20th
century condition.
You speak of most blacks
being locked out of the house: that continues to
be true, but it is not as true as it was in the
17th century.
You speak of people being brought
to this country in chains: that is true, and it
is the original sin of this country, which like
all original sin will never be expiated.
But
this country is trying to expiate it, and the
fact is that, to declare that you have African
blood in your veins 300 years after you left
Africa . . . Let me tell a little story...
Smith: I was just going to ask the audience to
bear with us. OK?
It's my understanding there
was a night in August Wilson's play Fences when
James Earl Jones just turned around and stopped
the show.
And so, I appreciate, as I have
stated in the beginning, that we are all here
together and I want your responses, but could
you please allow each participant to speak.
Indeed, the silence is disturbing as much as the
noise.
another.
So let's please be respectful of one
Wilson:
In all fairness to the audience, I
think these are some of the most outrageous
things I've ever heard.
Brustein: Let me explain.
I'm saying that in
the same way that Lorraine Hansberry said it in
Raisin in the Sun.
Wilson:
But you are aware that in the 17th
century we were slaves, African Americans were
slaves.
Brustein:
You are aware of that?
Of course I'm aware of that.
Wilson: OK. I find that amazing...
Brustein:
But in 1997 you are no longer slaves,
and it seems to me to talk about yourself as if
you are standing on the ground of the slave
quarters is to reprepresent yourself as a 300
year old man.
The fact is things have changed
over the course of the last 300 years,
especially in the last 30 years.
been some changes.
There have
And I'm just asking that we
acknowledge those changes.
To Wole Soyinka, for
instance, you would not be considered an
African.
He would reject that characterization.
Wilson:
I think all blacks in America,
irrespective of --- obviously, if you look at
me, obviously the slavemaster visited the slave
quarters, OK, so it's very obvious.
We're
taking that blacks in America are an African
people.
They came from Africa, whatever . . .
Brustein:
Of course you did, and my parents
came from Poland. But I don't consider myself
Polish.
Wilson:
you.
Well, that's you.
You see. That is
But we are Africans. You have assimilated
into society, you have given that up. Don't
blame us for our unwillingness to do so.
Smith:
There was a question in here that I
don't know that I actually have that was
actually connected to this.
It was a question
about your own background, and to what extent
you recognize that part of you which is white.
Wilson:
all.
I recognize all of myself, first of
My father was German.
about it? I don't know.
you.
Uh. Yeah, what
I don't know what else
-- The cultural environment of my life is
black.
I make this self-definition of myself as
a black man.
And that's all anyone needs to
know.
Brustein: I also would ask what about people of
mixed blood?
People who consider themselves
multiracial.
They do not feel represented by
what you said tonight.
And once again I have to
emphasize no one person can speak for an entire
race and when you speak of "we," you know, it
worries me.
I also would like to question your
notion that there is a single white culture.
That David Mamet, for example, writes plays
about the white culture.
white theme in Oleanna?
Is sexual harassment a
Is loyalty among
friends a white theme, as in American Buffalo?
In Shakespeare, for example, is the inability to
act, is that a white theme?
black theme in Othello?
Or is jealousy a
I think these are
universal themes that can be understood by all
of us, regardless of our color.
Wilson:
Sure.
And likewise when you find it
exhibited in black plays -- love, honor, duty,
betrayal, jealousy, all these things, you see -these are the universals.
But somehow the
implication is that the universal only exists
within whites.
Why is it that blacks have to be
free from themselves, from the "ghetto" of being
black, embrace white culture, and then suddenly
they're free and they're not limiting
themselves.
Black is not limiting.
So when you
have this situation of white playwrights, as an
example, exploring their culture, which is white
culture, no one says to them that they are
limiting themselves in that.
I would suggest
that they're not no more than I am limiting
myself by exploring black culture.
investigation of myself.
does.
Making an
Which is what art
I think Chekhov did that: he investigated
Russian culture.
No one says to him "you are
limiting yourself to Russian.
about the more universal."
You should write
This is part of
that.
Brustein:
The reason why we can do Chekhov is
that he didn't limit himself to Russian culture.
He wrote about the human heart.
Insofar as you
write about the human heart, anyone can do your
plays.
Smith:
But August, would you agree that
everyone can do Chekhov?
Have we misunderstood
the part of your speech that had to do with non-
traditional casting?
Wilson:
I don't think any part of my speech
here had to do with non-traditional casting.
chose not to bring that up.
I
But if you want to
talk about that, we can talk about that.
Smith:
Maybe we should.
A lot of people do
have questions about that, and they come in
different forms.
I mean, for example, let's
just take it from what Bob said about Chekhov.
Could a black actor, a Latino actor, a Native
American actor in this audience -- as far as
you're concerned -- do well by doing The Cherry
Orchard?
Wilson:
I wouldn't embrace them doing that.
I
would much rather that they do art that is of
their own specific ethnic or racial background.
[Catcalls]
An example: recently there was a
production of my play Fences in China.
permission to have that production.
I gave
So someone
said to me, "Well, in the stand that you've
taken on color-blind casting, how do you feel
about that?
Why is it that you're letting these
Chinese people play blacks?"
And my answer to
that was that there wasn't 140 million Africans
running around in China trying to participate in
theatre.
If you have a situation
-- if you
could imagine a situation where you have 240,
264 Chinese theatres, you have 160 million
Africans in China who want to do theatre and
there are four theatres for them in which they
can do their plays, and the Chinese say, "Well,
you can come over here and act in our plays.
You can come over here and act in our Chinese
classics.
You can come over here and pretend
that you are Chinese, because you as an African
clearly have nothing of value worth exploring in
theatres.
So you come over here and give up
your humanity as an African and pretend that
you're a Chinese."
you have here.
This is the situation that
The initiative for colorblind
casting was originally supposed to provide
opportunites for minorities who otherwise were
not included in those roles.
And instead we've
got Jonathan Price playing in Miss Saigon.
That's the ends to which colorblind casting has
been put to use.
I am opposed to it because it
denies the individual . . . standing on a stage,
representing another race of people, denies him
his own culture.
Particularly if that person is
standing on a stage and they are not capable and
do not have the tools with which to represent
themselves.
Brustein: Can I just reply to that?
Smith:
Yeah.
Brustein:
See, I think you misunderstand the
purpose of colorblind casting.
The purpose of
colorblind casting is to get the best possible
actor into the role, regardless of his race.
[Applause.]
Wilson:
I don't think that the Actor's Equity
initiative.
I don't think that's the position
that Actor's Equity took when they broached this
subject.
It was to provide roles for minorities
in non-traditional roles in which they might not
otherwise have been cast.
which it was launched.
That is the spirit in
Now it becomes about
something else.
Smith:
I have two that I'm going to put one
right on top of the other and I'll let both of
you deal with them.
its great.
One is -- no! it's because
These are the kinds of questions
that mix this all up.
cultural heritage.
"I am an actor of mixed
My mother is Jewish of
Austrian-Polish decent, my father is black mixed
with a bit of Scots, Irish, and Native American
Indian.
Both of them were highly involved in
CORE in the 1960s and my father is currently
President of a chapter of the NAACP.
I was
raised in a predominantly Chicano neighborhood
in Los Angeles.
Where does someone of my
background fit into the American theatre?"
Wilson:
I have just sat here and said in no
uncertain terms that I make my own definitions.
However that person wants to define themself,
fine.
If they define themselves as black, then
I think, personally, that it is wrong for them
to participate in the theatre acting as someone
other than as a black person.
Smith:
OK, then that makes a bigger question,
which is somewhere in my pile...
August, you
disagree with black actors playing white roles.
How do you feel about gay-lesbian actors: should
they be relegated to playing only queer roles?
Wilson:
I think everyone agrees that sexual
preference is different than race.
Race is a
much larger category than sexual preference.
I
would, however, be opposed to women playing men
and men playing women.
In other words, a woman
playing a role that was originally written for a
man, or a man playing a role originally written
for a woman.
Brustein:
Can I ask if you would object to
women writing about men?
Wilson:
No, I don't object to that.
Brustein:
Wilson:
Or men writing about women?
No, I don't object to that.
Brustein: White people writing about black
people?
Wilson:
I object to that.
Brustein:
Wilson:
You're not consistent, August.
No I am consistent, very consistent.
know what I believe, and I am consistent in my
beliefs, yes.
Smith:
What about, you know, in your opening
remarks you talked about a divide that began
I
with Plato.
And you put Plato and Aristotle at
opposite ends of the pole.
One of the things I
was thinking about was, is there another
position?
Does it have to be either/or?
And
has anything happened in all these years to make
another position?
Has anything happened in
America to make another position?
Brustein:
Well, there's Brecht's position.
Brecht actually tried to unify -- well, he hated
Aristotle, though he was essentially
Aristotelian himself.
Brecht was one of the
most activist of playwrights, don't you think?
But if you look at all of Brecht's plays, they
all end in a question mark, like all of Ibsen's
plays, in an unresolved way.
All of the
greatest plays of our time end in an unresolved
way.
Good Woman of Setzuan ends with the word
"Help!"
She's being torn in many directions,
and all she can say is "Help!"
resolved the problem.
the problem.
She hasn't
Society hasn't resolved
You may go away thinking you know
how to resolve it, but Brecht isn't telling you
the way.
And that's the artist in Brecht.
Brecht recognizes that art really doesn't change
anything.
It may change consciousness, but it's
not going to change society.
Smith:
Wilson:
Do you think that art changes something?
Yes.
I think art changes the
individual, and the individual changes society.
I think that all art is political in the sense
that it serves the politics of someone.
Here in
America, very often the politics in art is
disguised.
For instance, there is this rash of
movies -- The Rage to Kill being one, The Ghosts
of Mississippi being another -- in which these
acts are made to seem as acts of individual
racism that relieve a society of its complicity
in those events.
So the politics in art is
camouflaged -- it's hidden.
Another example is
in the movie Crossroads, where you have a little
white kid who is going to battle for the black
man's soul in lieu of the black man.
The
politics of that says that your life, your
everything, your soul is best left in the hands
of someone who is white, no matter if he is a
kid or not.
And this old man, all his years of
living did not temper his soul to the point
where he can go and battle with the devil for
his own soul.
And further, as he battles the
devil who is playing rock music -- which is a
watered-down version of the blues -- he can't
defeat him with the blues, and has to resort to
classical music in order to defeat him.
All of
this is politics. [Applause.]
Brustein: I think that statement was politics,
and I think that drama, theatre, theatrical art
has to have two truths, it can't only have one
truth.
You've been giving us one truth over and
over again: what you say is true.
But you've
got to oppose it with another truth or else we
don't have drama, we’ve got a monologue.
And as
I say, those two truths are often not
resolvable.
Just like our debate tonight: we
don't seem to be getting anywhere with each
other,
which means -- although we love each
other, I think, I hope -- [laughter]
But we're
not reconciling our differences, and that's
drama, too.
What I consider one of the
difficult things about our time is the way that
we have begun to politicize our culture.
because we don't have a politics.
That's
We don't have
an ideology, we don't have an idea of how to
change the society properly, so we go to culture
and say maybe culture can do it for us. It
can't.
culture.
All you're going to do is debase the
Smith:
Is the funding question not how much --
as I mentioned, you both are dissatisfied with
the funding strategy -- Is the funding question
not how much, or from whom, but to what purpose?
Is it problematic, in other words, for funding
institutions to provide seed money for
mainstream institutions to develop cultural
diversity, rather than directly to specifically
culturally diverse organizations?
Wilson:
Smith:
Wilson:
Without question.
Can you say more?
Well, I thought I did.
This is partly,
at least, also my problem with colorblind
casting.
In that, you're taking black talent
and you're utilizing black talent and you're
empowering black talent, if you will, at the
expense of black people, at the expense of black
theatre.
So that we have a situation where, for
instance -- and some critics are writing saying,
"Since there are so many theatres which are
doing black plays, is it necessary to have black
theatres?"
You see, because we're now involved
in the production of black art, so you guys
don't need that.
You see?
And what that does,
it puts the custodianship of the art into
someone else.
And then what are blacks going to
do five years from now they're no longer doing
black plays and they're doing Asian plays or
whatever.
Whites still maintain control over
those institutions, irrespective of you work in
them or not.
So the initiative of the Lila-
Wallace Readers Digest initiative did a
tremendous disservice to blacks, because, one,
it said that we were children and we needed
someone to be responsible for us, it said we
were going to give this money to the white
institutions for multicultural purposes as
opposed to giving it to you to develop your own
art.
I think it did a disservice to the way
black art is viewed, and black theatre is viewed
and black people are viewed.
Brustein: I agree with that.
I'm glad to be
able to find a point of agreement with August
tonight.
I do agree with that.
I think that
this was an unfortunate foundation choice.
This
has been going on now for, what, ten or fifteen
years.
And to give money to essentially
mainstream -- I won’t call them white
institutions -- mixed institutions just to do
black plays or culturally diverse plays, I think
you're quite right, that money should go to
black theatres to do black plays.
And
mainstream theatres should do those plays
because they want to, not because they have
grants for it.
Smith:
[Applause.]
This is for Mr. Brustein:
Do you really
believe that standards are universal?
Hasn't
racism imposed itself on mainstream culture's
understanding of what is beautiful, what is
important, what is profound, what is meaningful?
Brustein:
No.
Smith: No?
Brustein:
Smith.
No.
No.
Brustein:
I mean, if you believe that you are,
as an ethnic or a racial group, entirely
separate from the rest of the country, then you
can probably make that argument.
But the fact
is I think we're all Americans together.
We
share a common culture, we share many cultures
as well --
Wilson:
We share some commonalities.
separate.
We are
In one of the critiques of my speech
you asked "What's next?
Separate washrooms?"
Separate toilets?
And I want to tell you, I
don't know the last time you've been to Harlem,
but above 125th Street all of the toilets are
black.
And if you go on Park Avenue, all of the
toilets are white.
they're Chinese.
If you go down in Chinatown,
Part of this 13th-floor
illusion we have is that we're all one people.
It's true we share some commonalities in
culture, but there is tremendous separation in
this society that you and I both live in.
And I
think that our failure to recognize that leads
to the cause of which we will not be able to
come up with a remedy for that.
Brustein:
Well, August, it's because I'm
somewhat older than you that I remember a time
when it was our driven desire, all of us, to
break down the separation between the races.
And that was our commitment.
To feel that we
have to go back to separate-but-equal, when so
much time, effort, and passion was poured into
trying to get rid of that so-called concept,
which was never separate or equal -- it was
separate, but it was never equal -- really
appals me.
Wilson:
And I think you should rethink that.
No, we're not trying to go back again,
we're trying to be included in American society.
Since whites have all the power in our society,
they have all the washroom keys.
And they're
simply not allowing us to participate in a
society as Africans.
Brustein:
people.
Smith:
As who we are.
I share a washroom with any number of
I don't have any problems... [Laughter]
We're going to have to conclude, and I
have this one last question for both of you.
OK, this is the last question for both
gentlemen.
"In his opening remarks, Mr.
Brustein expressed the hope that he and Mr.
Wilson might learn something from each other
this evening.
Would Mr. Brustein tell us what
he has learned from Mr. Wilson, and would Mr.
Wilson tell us what he has learned from Mr.
Brustein?"
[Ap[plause]
Brustein:
I learned that
behind Mr Wilson's
anger he is a teddy bear.
Smith:
Is that right?
Brustein:
That remark doesn't have any racial
connotations that I know of...
Wilson:
I consider myself a personable person,
but I assure you I'm a lion.
Brustein: I learned about the qualities of his
temperament, and that was good for me.
I had
met him only once, and then I read the speech,
and I was not prepared to find a man of such
quality.
I'm talking about the temperament, I'm
not talking about the artistic quality.
And I
like him.
Smith:
Wilson:
How about you, August?
Oddly enough, I think Mr. Brustein
comes across somewhat differently in person.
Smith:
Wilson:
Yeah, I think so too.
And I have somewhat the same feeling
regarding Mr. Brustein.
I anticipated and
expected someone else other than the person who
showed up here, because I knew him very briefly.
Unfortunately, I was not able to learn much else
about the positions which he espouses, other
than he as already articulated in his books and
his response to my speech.
And I would have
liked to, but I didn't learn much else other
than what was already there. I think it is fair
to say we haven't moved any further from where
we...
Smith:
Well, just because you haven't moved
from your positions doesn't mean that you
haven't learned something more about what is
there.
Do you
Brustein:
think?
I am confirmed in my notion that
drama is the opposition of two ideas, and I
think we've probably provided drama tonight, if
not enlightenment.
Smith:
Wilson:
You want to say anything else?
Yeah, I'd just like to say that hope is
not always endearing.
That sometimes it is
bitter with the overripe promise, and we need
more theatres to develop our artists.
Smith:
Thank you all so much for being among
us.
(1997)