Daniel José Molina |
Hudes starts writing her plays about North Philly by
interviewing her relatives who still live there (she lives in Brooklyn ).
She adds a layer of fiction to protect the innocent, and then writes award
winning plays that are being staged in some of the nation's best theaters, like
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. While allowing the disenfranchised denizens of
a community where the most viable economy is drug trafficking to tell their
stories is empowering, it's not clear that Hudes' "Elliot Cycle"
contributes much else to her community.
The first act of Water
by the Spoonful is two seemingly divergent stories: one of a veteran
affected by PTSD who has just lost his adoptive mother, the other of a chatroom
for people struggling with crack addiction. The set, designed at OSF by Sibyl
Wickersheimer, is two columns of blue square platforms. The chatroom
participants use these as their individual worlds, but the vet Elliot (Daniel
José Molina) and his cousin Yasmin Ortiz (Nancy Rodriguez) are freer in their
transgressions of the blue boundaries. Towards the end of the first act we
discover their connective tissue - both stories are principally located in
North Philly, and Odessa Ortiz, a.k.a. Haikumom (Vilma Silva), is both the
founder of the chatroom and the birth mother of Elliot. The second act brings
the characters face to face with their demons, whether they be Elliot's PTSD or
Odessa 's guilt
over the death of her daughter, and the addictions that their demons bring with
them.
While there is a token rich white man in the chatroom (John
a.k.a. Fountainhead, played by Barret O'Brien), this is really about poverty in
North Philly. Elliot is a soldier, and we know that our military is built on
the backs of economically disadvantaged young people. For those who stay in
North Philly, the primary means of employment is selling drugs to local addicts
and recreational users from other neighborhoods. These problems are rooted in a
complex history of race-based socio-economics, including limited opportunities
for Blacks and Latinos, and white flight. One play played primarily for middle
to upper class whites in Oregon ,
however, is unlikely to promote equity and better quality of life for denizens
of disadvantaged communities. Granted, Hudes' documentary process of writing
plays that allows voices from an isolated and blighted community to be heard
from New York to Oregon
is empowering, but that empowerment does not necessarily create employment
opportunities for North Philadelphians outside
of the drug industry.
There are two good ways to avoid exploitation in creating
theater about disadvantaged communities: the first is to have significant ties
to the communities you're creating theater about, and the second is to use your
theater to work towards solutions for your community's significant issues.
Hudes has deep familial roots in North Philly, so it's not like she's telling
stories about somebody else's economically devastated community for financial
gain. However, it's unlikely that a play in Ashland
can have a direct positive impact on the economy of North
Philadelphia .
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