In the Blood Suzan-Lori Parks an actor packet by Madeline Kranz part 1 of 2
for The Theatre School at DePaul University’s production directed by Nathan Singh winter 2016
photographs by John H. White, black Chicagoan, photojournalist, & pulitzer prize winner more work here
Suzan-Lori Parks
biography
Suzan-Lori Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky, on May 10, 1963. A lively, imaginative child, Parks was an avid reader of mythology and folklore, and amused herself writing songs and stories. Her father was a career officer in the United States Army, so the family moved frequently when Suzan-Lori was growing up. She went to school in six states, seldom spending more than a year in the same school. While her father served overseas in Vietnam, the rest of the family lived in Odessa, Texas. The rhythms and similes of West Texas dialect made a lasting impression on Suzan-Lori Parks, whose work as a writer overflows with colorful dialogue, exploiting the rich resources of African American vernacular speech. in 1974, her father was posted to Germany and the whole family moved with him. Suzan-Lori and her brother and sister attended local schools, where they soon became fluent in German. Both of Suzan-Lori's parents emphasized the importance of education. After retiring from the Army, Mr. Parks became a professor of education at the University of Vermont. Her mother later became an administrator at Syracuse University. In high school, Suzan-Lori Parks dreamed of becoming a writer, but was discouraged by an English teacher who found fault with her spelling. Temporarily abandoning her dream, Parks entered Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts as a science student, but soon rediscovered her love of poetry and fiction, and decided to major in English and German literature. By her own account, the highlight of her college career was a fiction workshop taught by the esteemed novelist and civil rights activist James Baldwin. Baldwin set a formidable example of self-discipline and artistic integrity. He encouraged Parks to find her own voice and to explore writing for the theater. At the end of the year, Baldwin called Parks "an utterly astounding and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time." After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke in 1985, she spent a year in London studying acting to deepen her understanding of the stage. Returning to the United States, she settled in New York City, working secretarial jobs by day and churning out one-act plays by night. She haunted the small theaters of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway and produced her first plays in bars and coffee houses. Parks's first produced play, 1987's Betting on the Dust Commander, had a run at the Gas Station bar in New York City. A chance encounter with Village Voice theater critic Alisa Solomon led Parks to an association with the Brooklyn Arts and Culture Association (BACA). It marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with director Liz Diamond, who directed Parks's first full-length play, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom at BACA in 1989. Described as a "choral poem" of African American history, cast in metaphors drawn from the life sciences, Mutabilities brought Parks immediate acclaim. Critics praised her uninhibited, imaginative language, and highly original stage imagery. The play won Off-Broadway's Obie award for Best New Play. In 1991, Parks became an Associate Artist at the Yale School of Drama. Her next play, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1992), also premiered at BACA, but her work was quickly spreading to theaters outside New York. In the same year, her play, Devotees in the Garden of Love, debuted at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.Suzan-Lori Parks had also captured the attention of playwright and director George C. Wolfe, whose work -particularly his 1986 play The Colored Museum -- had close affinities with her own. When Wolfe was named to head the New York Public Theater in 1993, he was eager to schedule a new play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Her association with the Public began with a production of The America Play, directed by Liz Diamond, in which Parks first introduced the notion of a black man who works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, an idea that recurred in her later work, Topdog/ Underdog.
Her 1996 play, Venus, wove a fictional narrative around the true story of a 19th-century African woman, known as "the Hottentot Venus," who was exhibited as a curiosity, caged and naked, in Europe in the early 19th century. Venus opened at New York's Public Theater to intense publicity and won Parks her second Obie Award. That same year saw the release of a feature film written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Girl 6, directed by Spike Lee. The playwright's imagination continued to range over a panorama of literary and historical topics. For a number of years, she had contemplated a re-interpretation of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of adultery and atonement in Puritan New England. Her inspiration eventually produced a very different story. In the Blood, produced at the Public Theater in 1999, tells the story of a homeless woman with five children by five different fathers. Topdog/Underdog marked something of a departure from the exaggerated language and surreal imagery of the playwright's earlier work. Set in a single room, it explored the conflict between two brothers, ominously named for President Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth. It opened at the Public in 2001 with actors Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle as Lincoln and Booth, directed by George C. Wolfe. After a sold-out run at the Public, it moved to Broadway's Ambassador Theater, with rapper and actor Mos Def replacing Cheadle as Booth. In 2001, Parks received the coveted "genius grant" of the McArthur Foundation. Topdog/Underdog was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Suzan-Lori Parks was the first African American woman to be so honored. Time magazine named her one of its "100 Innovators for the Next New Wave." After the success of Topdog, Parks and her husband, blues musician Paul Oscher, moved to Los Angeles for six years, where Parks broadened her creative activities and taught a graduate playwriting seminar at the California Institute of the Arts. While seeing nine of her full-length plays produced, Parks has not confined her efforts to the live theater. In Los Angeles, Parks wrote a television adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005), produced by Oprah Winfrey, and starring Halle Berry. Her own book, Getting Mother's Body, a Faulknerian "novel in voices" set in West Texas, was published in 2003.
her work Plays • • • •
The Sinner's Place (1984) Betting on the Dust Commander (1987) Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1989) The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1992) • Pickling (1990) (radio play) • Third Kingdom (1990) (radio play) • Locomotive (1991) (radio play) • Devotees in the Garden of Love (1992) • The America Play (1994) • Venus (1996) • In The Blood (1999) • Fucking A (2000) • Topdog/Underdog (2001) • 365 Days/365 Plays (2006) • Ray Charles Live! (2007) • Father Comes Home from the Wars (1, 8 & 9) (2009) • The Book of Grace (2010) • Porgy and Bess (2011) • Father Comes Home From The Wars (1,2&3) (2014) Screenplay Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005) • Girl 6 (1996) • Novels Getting Mother's Body: A Novel (2003) •
At the same time, Parks undertook her most ambitious theater work to date. She set herself the daunting task of writing one complete short play every day for a year. She held herself to this rigid program while fulfilling a demanding travel schedule, writing in hotel rooms and even while waiting in airport security lines. The resulting work, 365 Plays/365 Days, was produced by 700 theaters around the world, in venues ranging from street corners to opera houses. With major theaters in the largest cities acting as "hub theaters," coordinating the efforts of smaller groups throughout their metropolitan areas, it is the largest grassroots collaboration in theater history. She followed this massive project with Ray Charles Live!, a stage musical based on the life and music of the late Ray Charles. She has since completed two more plays, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 8 & 9) and The Book of Grace, and is reportedly at work on a second novel.
in the blood watch me!
In the Blood premiered at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival, where Parks was the resident playwright, in November 1999. It was directed by Esbjornson, and featured Charlayne Woodard, Rob Campbell, Reggie Montgomery, Gail Grate, Bruce MacVittie, and Dierdre O’Connell. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2000.
In the Blood Premier Review SLP Production Photos in depth Biography & Interview Interview on Father Comes Home from the War
her style
inspiration
greek chorus & tragedy "Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; by means of language which has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its varieties found separately in the parts; enacted by the persons themselves and not presented through narrative; through a course of pity and fear completing the purification (catharsis, sometimes translated "purgation") of such emotions." -Aristotle The tragic hero is "a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake." -Aristotle Aristotle suggests that a hero of a tragedy must evoke in the audience a sense of pity or fear. He establishes the concept that the emotion of pity stems not from a person becoming better but when a person receives undeserved misfortune - and fear comes when the misfortune befalls a man like us. A tragic hero is a virtuous man who commits, without evil intent, great wrongs or injuries that ultimately lead to their misfortune, often followed by tragic realization of the true nature of events that led to this destiny. The structure of Greek tragedy is characterized by a set of conventions. The tragedy usually begins with a prologue in which one or more characters introduce the drama and explain the background of the ensuing story. The prologue is followed by the parodos, after which the story unfolds through three or more episodes. The episodes are interspersed by stasima, choral interludes explaining or commenting on the situation developing in the play. The tragedy ends with the exodus, concluding the story. Nietzsche at the end of the 19th century highlighted the contrast between the two main elements of tragedy: firstly, the Dionysian (the passion that overwhelms the character) and the Apollonian (the purely pictorial imagery of the theatrical spectacle). Contrasted with that is nemesis, the divine punishment that determines the fall or death of the character. Greek tragedy also included a chorus that offered a variety of background and summary information to help the audience follow the performance. They commented on themes, and, may have demonstrated how the audience might react to the drama. In many of these plays, the chorus expressed to the audience what the main characters could not say, such as their hidden fears or secrets. The chorus represents, on stage, the general population of the particular story, in sharp contrast with many of the themes of the ancient Greek plays which tended to be about individual heroes, gods, and goddesses.
medea
euripides (431BC)
The play opens with Medea grieving over the loss of her husband, Jason’s, love. He has arranged to marry Glauce, the daughter of the Creon, the king of Corinth. The Chorus of Corinthian women (generally sympathetic to her plight) fear what she might do to herself or her children. King Creon banishes her, declaring that she and her children must leave Corinth immediately. Medea begs for mercy, and is granted a reprieve of one day, all she needs to extract her revenge.
Jason arrives and attempts to explain himself. He says that he does not love Glauce but cannot pass up the opportunity to marry a wealthy and royal princess (Medea is from Colchis in the Caucusus and is considered a barbarian witch by the Greeks), and claims that he hopes one day to join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. Medea is then visited by Aegeus, the childless king of Athens, who asks the renowned sorceress to help his wife conceive a child. In return, Medea asks for his protection and, although Aegeus is not aware of Medea’s plans for revenge, he promises to give her refuge if she can escape to Athens. She decides to poison some golden robes and a coronet in hopes that Glauce will not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea resolves to kill her own children as well feeling that it is the best way to hurt Jason. Medea elaborately cries and apologizes to Jason, and convinces him to allow her to give the robes to Glauce. Medea at The National Theatre, 2014 Eventually Jason agrees and allows their children to deliver the poisoned robes as the gift-bearers. When the children arrive with the robes and coronet Glauce puts them on gleefully. The poisons quickly kill Glauce and Creon who comed in contact with the poison trying to save his daughter. Medea has a moment of hesitation when she considers the pain that her children’s deaths will put her through, but steels her resolve to cause Jason the most pain possible and rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the chorus laments her decision, the children are heard screaming. Jason then rushes onto the scene to confront Medea about murdering Creon and Glauce and he quickly discovers that his children have been killed as well. Medea then appears above the stage with the bodies of her children in the chariot of the sun god Helios.
“Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand that I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.”
In the character of Medea, we see a woman whose suffering, instead of ennobling her, has made her into a monster. She is fiercely proud, cunning and coldly efficient, unwilling to allow her enemies any kind of victory. She sees through the false pieties and hypocritical values of her enemies, and uses their own moral bankruptcy against them. Her revenge is total, but it comes at the cost of everything she holds dear. She ! Synopsis & Analysis murders her own children in part ! Full Text (English Translation) because she cannot bear the thought of seeing them hurt by an enemy.
The play was received with mixed reactions. Perhaps because of the extensive changes Euripides made to the conventions of Greek theatre in the play, by including an indecisive chorus, by implicitly criticizing Athenian society and by showing disrespect for the gods. The play explores many universal themes: passion and rage, revenge, greatness and pride, intelligence and manipulation, the Other (Medea's exotic foreignness is emphasized, made still worse by her status as an exile), and justice in an unjust society (especially where women are concerned).
“Holy rivers are running upstream; Justice, everything, is twisted backwards. Men's designs are deceptive; their vows Though made by the gods, come loose. But fame will turn my life around to have respect: Dignity is coming to the race of women.”
The relationship between the Chorus and Medea is one of the most interesting in all of Greek drama. The women are alternately horrified and enthralled by Medea, living vicariously through her. They both condemn her and pity her for her horrible acts, but they do nothing to interfere. Powerful and fearless, Medea refuses to be wronged by men, and the Chorus cannot help but admire her as, in taking her revenge, she avenges all the crimes committed against all of womankind. We are not, as in Aeschylus' “Oresteia”, allowed to comfort ourselves with the restoration of maledominated order: “Medea” exposes that order as hypocritical and spineless.
Canadian premier of Black Medea
the
scarlet letter nathaniel hawthorne (1850)
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Full Text Summary & Analysis
“In all her intercourse with society there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those whom she came into contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind.”
In June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathers to witness an official punishment. A young woman, Hester Prynne, whose husband is thought to have died at sea, has had a child out of wedlock, and been found guilty of adultery. Sh is sentenced to forever wear a scarlet A on her dress as a sign of shame, and to stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd, the gossips, discuss their disgust at Hester’s actions, and their ideas for punishment. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses. Pearl “She named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a man and price, -purchased with all she had, -her mother’s recognizes him as her long-lost husband. When the husband sees only treasure!” Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's adultery. He angrily exclaims that the child's “...her sole treasure, whom she had brought so father, the partner in the adulterous act, should also be punished dear, and who was all her world” and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name — Roger Chillingworth — to aid him in his plan. “Pearl was born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin” (77) The minister of her church and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale “This poor, sinful woman hath an infant question Hester, but she refuses to name her lover. After she immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth, a sorrow, confided to her care - to remind her, at physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. every moment, of her fall...” (95). Dismissing the jailer, Chillingworth first treats Pearl, Hester's baby, and then demands to know the name of the child's father. Chillingsworth When Hester refuses, he insists that she never reveal that he is her husband. If she ever does so, he warns her, he will destroy “One thing, thou that wast my wife... Thou hast kept the child's father. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms even the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine!” though she suspects she will regret it. There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at husband!” (64) the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet, somber life with her daughter, “Here, woman! The child is yours, -she is none of Pearl. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual character. As an mine, -neither will she recognize my voice or aspect as infant, Pearl is fascinated by the scarlet A. As she grows a father’s.” (61). older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her “‘I have greatly wronged thee,’ murmured Hester. conduct starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the ‘We have wronged each other,’ answered he. “Mine church members suggest Pearl be taken away from was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth Hester. into a false and unnatural relationship with my decay.” (63).
Hester, hearing the rumors that she may lose Pearl, desperately goes to speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are Reverends Wilson and Dimmesdale. When Wilson questions Pearl about her catechism, she refuses to answer, even though she knows the correct response, thus jeopardizing her guardianship. Hester appeals to Reverend Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care. Because Reverend Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees something startling on the sleeping minister's pale chest: a scarlet A. Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold, he sees Hester and Pearl and calls to them to join him. He admits his guilt to them but cannot find the courage to do so publicly. Suddenly Dimmesdale sees a meteor forming what appears to be a gigantic A in the sky; simultaneously, Pearl points toward the shadowy figure of Roger Chillingworth. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband. In her discussion of this with Chillingworth, she tells him his obsession with revenge must be stopped in order to save his own soul.
“God gave me the child!” cried she. ‘He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness! -she is my torture none the less! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter... Ye shall take her not! I will die first!” Reverend Dimmesdale “The people knew not the power that moved them thus. They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the mouthpiece of wisdom, and rebuke, and love... The virgins of his church grew pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment that they imagined it to be all religion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar.” (118).
“I, your pastor whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!” (119).
Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, where she removes the scarlet letter from her dress and identifies her husband and his desire for revenge. In this conversation, she convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. Pearl, however, refuses to acknowledge either of them until Hester replaces her symbol of shame on her dress. Returning to town, Dimmesdale loses heart in their plan: He has become a changed man and knows he is dying. Meanwhile, Hester is informed by the captain of the ship on which she arranged passage that Roger Chillingworth will also be a passenger. On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives what is declared to be one of his most inspired sermons. But as the procession leaves the church, Dimmesdale stumbles and almost falls. Seeing Hester and Pearl in the crowd watching the parade, he climbs upon the scaffold and confesses his sin, dying in Hester's arms. Later, witnesses swear that they saw a stigmata in the form of a scarlet A upon his chest. Chillingworth, losing his revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a great deal of money, enabling her to go to Europe with her mother and make a wealthy marriage. Several years later, Hester returns to Boston, resumes wearing the scarlet letter, and becomes a person to whom other women turn for solace. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone with the inscription "On a field, sable, the letter A gules."
Governor
The Gossips
“The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.”
“When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.” (105). “Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “I’ll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such a malefactress as this Hester Prynne. What think ye gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgement before us five,that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not!”
“They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgement on an erring woman’s heart.” (55). “The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hat stumbled and fallen, amid the pitfalls of this world.” (92).
“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very girevously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.” “The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful over much, -that is a truth,” added a third autumnal matron. “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that , I warrant me. But she, -the naughty baggage, -little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown!”
‘My poor woman,’ said the not unkind old minister, ‘the child shall be well cared for! -far better than thou canst do it.’ ‘God gave her into my keeping,” repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. ‘I will not give her up!’ ‘Though wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can... Thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother’s rights, and how much the stronger they are...” (94)
“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, “let her cover the mark as well as she will, the pang of it will always be in her heart.” “What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not a law for it? Truly there is.” “They [the town’s children] pursued her [Hester] at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no distinct purport to their minds, but was nonetheless terrible to her.” (72).
“Had they taken her from me, I would have willingly gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own blood!” (97). .
mother courage
&her children bertolt brecht (1939)
Written by exiled German playwright Bertolt Brecht in 1939 at the height of World War II, Mother Courage is one of nine plays that Brecht wrote in an attempt to counter the rise of Fascism and Naziism. In response to the invasion of Poland by Hitler in 1939, Brecht wrote Mother Courage in a little over a month. Mother Courage shows the devastating effects of a European war and the blindness of anyone hoping to profit by it. Mother Courage and Her Children takes place over 12 years during the Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618-1648). Mother Courage is the play's "untragic heroine," a parasite of the war, she follows the armies of the Thirty Years War, supporting herself and her children, Eilif, Kattrin, and Swiss Cheese, with her canteen wagon. Courage is fixed on survival, and works tirelessly, relentlessly haggling, dealing, and celebrating the war as her breadwinner in her times of prosperity. She wins her name when hauling a cartful of bread through a city under bombardment.
“Courage is the name they gave me because I was scared of going broke, sergeant, so I drove me cart right through the bombardment of Riga with fifty loaves of bread aboard. They were going moldy, it was high time, I hadn't any choice really.”
She is the play's wise woman, delivering shrewd commentary on the war throughout the play. For example, the defeats for the great are often victories for the small, the celebration of the soldier's bravery indicates a faltering campaign, the leader pins his failings on his underlings, and the poor require courage. She understands that virtues in wartime become fatal to their possessors and teaches a soldier to submit to unjust authority. The price the war will exact for Courage's livelihood is her children, each of which she will lose while doing business. Courage will ironically see her children's deaths from the outset, foretelling their fates in scene one, Swiss Cheese is captured by the Catholics and Mother Courage attempts barter with the soldiers to free him; but takes too long trying to negotiate, and Swiss Cheese is killed. Fearing to be shot as an accomplice, Mother Courage does not acknowledge his body, and it is discarded. The sergeant negotiates a deal with Mother Courage and Eilif is conscripted by the Recruiting Officer. He is later killed for executing peasants. Years later, Kattrin, alone in a village, is woken by a search party for the approaching Catholic army. She fetches a drum from the cart and beats it to waken the townspeople, but is shot. Mother Courage sings to her daughter's corpse, has the peasants bury it, and hitches herself to the cart. She resumes her journey with the wagon, in some sensed damned to her labor for eternity. As RECRUITER: ...people round here Brecht notes programmatically in the Courage Model Book, Courage, are so nasty I can't sleep nights. … bent on her survival, does not learn, failing to understand that no No notion or word of honour, loyalty, sacrifice is too great to stop war. With the taking up of the wagon, Brecht envisions Courage crossing an empty space faith, sense of duty. This place has that recalls Scene one, showing her treading a full circle like a shattered my confidence in the damned soul. The soldiers sing her trademark song, calling all to human race, sergeant. continue in the service of a war that continues across the generations.
“I hope I can pull the wagon by myself. Yes, I'll manage, there's not much in it now. I must get back into business.”
Set as a foil to Mother Courage is her daughter, Kattrin. Kattrin “suffers” the virtues of kindness and pity, and is unable to stand the loss of life around her. In contrast to her outwardly unaffected mother, Kattrin wears the traumas of war on her body; she is robbed of her of her voice, raped, and disfigured. Throughout most of the play she is a helpless witness, but her kindness will ultimately manifest when she "speaks," sacrificing herself to save the children of Halle. Kattrin's maternal impulses perhaps standing against Courage's relentless dealing and her resulting failure to protect her children. “
Tain't your fault, you can't speak, I know.”
The war in particular impinges on Kattrin's sexuality. As Courage notes, she is ever in danger of becoming a "whore"—that is, a victim of rape—and thus must lie low and wait for peacetime before considering marriage. Privately Kattrin will "play the whore" in a sense in her masquerade as Yvette, the camp prostitute, in a bid for sexual recognition. Yvette's red boots are one of the play's most ready symbols. An archetypal fetish object, they represent femininity and feminine eroticism. Thus, it makes sense that they belong to the play's whore. Kattrin dons these boots playfully in Scene Three, imitating Yvette's walk in a private daydream. Brecht’s Model Book argues that she does so because prostitution is the only way love remains available to her in wartime. Notably, her disfigurement will ultimately make her marriage impossible.
THE CHAPLAIN: […] when Our Lord turned the five loaves into five hundred there was no war on and he could tell people to love their neighbours as they had enough to eat. Today it's another story.
Two characters, the Chaplain and the Cook, are dependent on Mother Courage as their "feedbag." The Chaplain initially appears as a cynical, wooden character and after an attack by the Catholics, is ripped from his social station and left precariously dependent on Courage's wagon. He refrains from intervening in Courage's practices for fear of jeopardizing his position. Brecht’s Model Book shows him recalling a sense of his former importance and understanding himself as someone oppressed by the war. Indeed, as he will tell the Cook, his life as a tramp makes it impossible to return to the priesthood and all its attendant beliefs.
The Chaplain's rival for Courage's affections and bread, the Cook is an aging Don Juan. Darkly ironic, he is aware of the war as a continuation of business as usual, continually unmasking the divinely inspired military campaign as another massive profit scheme. In understanding his social position, he bears no loyalty to the rulers who would exploit him. As he tells the Chaplain, he does not eat the King's bread but bakes it. He comes to Mother Courage when penniless, their courtship consisting of their accounts of their respective ruin. Eventually the Chaplain falls for Courage. Focused on survival, she denies him, refusing his demands that she drop her defenses and let her heart speak. The arrival of the Cook will spark a rivalry over both Courage's affections and bread. When both men believe that Courage has rejected them, they reminisce about the good times they shared together in the service of the Swedish Commander. Apparently, like Courage, watch me! they have learned little from their suffering during the war.
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summary, characters, themes full text
PLACE:HERE TIME: NOW in the blood in chicago
URBAN POVERTY,HOMELESSNESS, IN CHICAGO
poverty United States of America Racial Demographics (2014) Population:! ! ! ! 318,857,000+ people
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White alone, not hispanic or latino: ! ! Black or African American alone: ! ! Hispanic/Latino: ! ! ! ! Asian alone: ! ! ! ! ! American Indian or Alaska Native alone:! Two or more races:! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! 2.5%
62.1% 13.2% 17.4% 5.4% 1.2%
2015 Federal Poverty Threshold ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Illinois Poverty Rates (2014) Population 12,571,848 ! | ! No. in Poverty 1,804,535 Poverty rate: ! ! 14% ! ! Child Poverty rate: ! 19.9%! ! Female poverty rate: ! 15.3% ! ! African American: ! Hispanic/Latino: ! Asian American: ! Native American: !
(25th nationwide) (27th nationwide) (23rd nationwide)
30.6% 19.9% 12.3% 21.4%
African American: ! Hispanic/Latino: !
44.7% 24.1%
1 2 3 4 5 6 !
person ! ! ! ! people! ! ! ! people! ! ! ! people! ! ! ! people! ! ! ! people! ! ! ! +$4,160 per additional person
(383/436 US districts) (399/436) (369/436)
$11,770 $15,930 $20,090 $24,250 $28,410 $32,570
United States Poverty Rates (2014) 46.7 million people! ! ! 14.8% (of all Americans) ! ! ! African American ! ! ! ! 26.2% Hispanic ! ! ! ! ! 23.6% White ! ! ! ! ! ! 10.1% Native American! ! ! ! 28.3% 15.5 million children! !
Chicago Poverty Rates (2014) (IL 7th congressional district) Poverty rate: ! ! 22.1% ! ! Child Poverty rate: ! 34.4%! ! Female poverty rate: ! 21.9% ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
21.1% (of all children)
African American children ! ! ! American Indian/Native Alaskan children! Hispanic children ! ! ! ! White children ! ! ! !
37.1% 47% 31.9% 12.3%
Poverty rate for Single-parent families headed by a female! 30.6% People with disabilities ! ! ! 28.5%
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf http://talkpoverty.org/poverty/ http://blackdemographics.com/cities-2/chicago/
poverty & race Poverty continues to disproportionately affect African Americans and Latinos in America; a result of the cumulative institutional, social, and historical racism, prejudice, and disadvantage that manifest in education, healthcare, housing, employment, politics, legal protection, and social services. The effects of hardship in one domain spill over into other domains, resulting in a continuing racial disparity in poverty. Those living in poverty often cannot access the same quality of healthcare and education as those above the poverty line, so they are unable to pursue upper level job opportunities. Residents of a predominately black or Hispanic neighborhoods have access to roughly half as many social services as those in predominately white neighborhoods. The collateral consequences of felony conviction, also disproportionately affecting to Blacks and Latinos, include bans on entering many occupations, on voting, jury service, and receiving federal college loans and grants, which harm both ex- offenders and their communities.
mothers, families & race More than 35 million mothers live with minor children in the United States; 6.5 million, nearly one in five, are poor; and another 3.6 million live between 100 percent and 150 percent of the poverty line. About 1.5 million households with 2.8 million children or four percent of all families live on less than $2 a day, the World Bank standard of poverty. This number has nearly doubled since 1996. The challenges of unequal pay and low wages that many women face—especially women of color—are compounded by the additional responsibilities many mothers bear, particularly single mothers. For many mothers, quality child care is unaffordable, work schedules are unpredictable and inflexible, and they have no paid sick or family leave.
Overall population !
Black women are the head of 29% of all Black households which is more than twice the rate for ‘all women’ at 13 percent. These are households defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as having a female head and no spouse present. Only 33% of Black women who gave birth were married which is almost the opposite for ‘all women’ at 64%. These additional responsibilities may also explain why Black women are slightly overrepresented in the workforce compared to all women and even higher than Black men (67%). Even though Black women are overrepresented in the workforce they still have a higher unemployment rate than ‘all women’, 10% to 6% respectively. All of these factors help explain the higher poverty rate for Black women (29%) than ‘all women’ at 17 percent.
homelessness People experiencing homelessness on any given night, US: ! ! ! 578,424 (2014) People in families experiencing homelessness on any given night, US: ! 216,197 (2014) Chronically homeless (6 months or more), US:! ! ! ! 109,1812 (2010) Over the course of a year, 1,593,000+ individuals experienced homelessness (2010) When compared to the total population and those living in poverty, those who are homeless are more likely to be adult, male, African American, not elderly, unaccompanied/alone, and disabled. In 2010, one out of every 141 persons in Black families stayed in a homeless shelter, compared with one out of every 990 persons in White families.
Of the sheltered homeless population: Male! ! ! ! 63% Female!! ! ! 37% White, non-Hispanic! ! 38.9%! Hispanic/Latino!! ! 9.5% Black or African American ! 39.4% Other single race! ! 5% Multiple races! ! ! 7.2% under age 18! 18 to 30 ! 31 to 50 ! 51-61 ! ! 62 and older!
! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! !
22.6% 23.5% 35.0% 15.6% 3.2%
Single !! ! ! 63.1% Veterans ! ! ! 9% Disabled! ! ! 38.6% Had a severe mental illness! 26.2% Had a chronic substance abuse problem!
34.7%
http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/2015/05/linda-homeless-hollywood-los-angeles/ http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/2015/08/shelly-homeless-hollywood/
“This is Melody. She hears voices. She’s been homeless for the past six months and told me that one of the dangers at night for her is that she can be raped, as she has already been assaulted before. During the day she walks around downtown begging for change or food. She is often shunned or ignored by people or chased away by security guards for being a ‘pest.’”
homelessness , children & families Among industrialized nations, the United States has the largest number of homeless women and children. Not since the Great Depression have so many families been without homes. The statistics below are the best estimates of the extent of homelessness, but it is important to note that they are undercounts. Homeless families comprise roughly 37.4% of the total U.S. homeless population. (2012) • People counted in the single adult homeless population (about 2.3-3.5 million annually) are also part of families: Among all homeless women, 60% have children under age 18, but only 65% of them live with at least one of ◦ their children Among all homeless men, 41% have children under age 18, but only 7% live with at least one of their ◦ children • 29% of adults in homeless families are working • The proportion of homeless people who used emergency shelters and transitional housing as part of a family increased from 30% to 35% from 2007 to 2010, with the majority of homeless families consisting of single mothers with young children. •
Families of color are overrepresented in the homeless population. Nationally: 43% are African-American ◦ 15% are Hispanic ◦ 38% are White, non ◦ Hispanic 3% are Native American ◦
Over 85% of homeless families are headed by women. The typical sheltered homeless family is comprised of a mother in her late twenties with two children. • Most single-parent families are female-headed (71%). Singleparent families are among the poorest in the nation and as such, are extremely vulnerable to homelessness • Many family shelters do not accept men into their programs, causing families to separate when they become homeless • 53% of homeless mothers do not have a high school diploma • Over 92% of homeless mothers have experienced severe physical and/or sexual abuse during their lifetime • 63% report that this abuse was perpetrated by an intimate partner • 1 of every 4 homeless women is homeless because of violence committed against her
Approximately 12.5 million children, or 1 in every 30, will experience homelessness over the course of a year. This is an increase of 64% since 2007, and an 8% increase from 2012. In any given day, researchers estimate that more than 200,000 children have no place to live • 42% of children in homeless families are under age six • From 2011 to 2012, the number of unaccompanied children in shelter increased by 28%. • Children experience high rates of chronic and acute health problems while homeless. • By age 12, 83% of homeless children had been exposed to at least one serious violent event • Almost 25% have witnessed acts of violence within their families • 15% have seen their father hit their mother • 11% have seen their mother abused by a male partner • Children who witness violence are more likely than those who have not to exhibit frequent aggressive and antisocial behavior, increased fearfulness, higher levels of depression and anxiety, and have a greater acceptance of violence as a means of resolving conflict
As many as 1 in 3 Americans have a criminal record. Mass incarceration and hypercriminalization serve as major drivers of poverty; having a criminal record can present obstacles to employment, housing, public assistance, education, family reunification, building good credit, and more.
homelessness , poverty & incarceration
According to the best estimates, effects on families traceable to the prison boom account for almost two thirds of the increase in racially unequal risks of child homelessness. Maternal incarceration leads to placements of children in foster care, while paternal imprisonment increases the risk that children will go homeless.
Laws prohibiting “camping� in public ! o 34% of cities impose city-wide bans ! o 57% of cities prohibit camping in particular ! public places. Laws prohibiting sleeping in public ! o 18% of cities impose city-wide bans ! o 27% of cities prohibit sleeping in particular ! public places, such as in public parks. Laws prohibiting begging in public ! o 24% of cities impose city-wide bans ! o 76% of cities prohibit begging in particular ! public places. Laws prohibiting loitering, loafing, and vagrancy ! o 33% of cities impose city wide bans ! o 65% of cities prohibit the activity in particular ! public places. Laws prohibiting sitting or lying down in public ! o 53% of cities prohibit sitting or lying down in ! particular public places. Laws prohibiting sleeping in vehicles ! o 43% of cities prohibit sleeping in vehicles. Laws prohibiting food sharing ! o 9% of cities prohibit sharing food with ! homeless people.
welfare
Welfare dates back to the New Deal where the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) gave states unlimited matching funds and offered poor families extensive rights, with few requirements and no time limits.
watch me! 2’10” welfare history
watch me!
In 1996 Clinton, vowing to “end welfare as we know it,” replaced AFDC with with TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). TANF capped federal spending, and required states to maintain at least 75% of 1994 spending, but gave states flexibility in administering federal funds and determining need. Up to 30% can be moved to child care/social services block. The fundamental difference between the new TANF and former AFDC programs is that, under TANF, no individual or family is “entitled” to welfare. As a general rule, individuals must participate in work activity within two years of receiving assistance and families are limited to a total of five years assistance in a lifetime. If a program participant refuses work requirements, states have the option to reduce or eliminate assistance to the whole family. This could include the loss of Medicaid. The exception to this provision is when the participant refuses work because they cannot find or afford child care for a child under six years old. Federal law currently requires parents who receive TANF to “cooperate” in efforts to identify the biological father of their child – the federal law requiring this is written in gendered terms and assumes that a biological father must be identified. TANF provided cash bonuses to states with the largest reductions in unwed childbearing that are not accompanied by more abortions. States were also required to eliminate cash benefits to unwed teens under age 18 who did not reside with their parents. TANF allowed states to impose family caps on the receipt of additional cash benefits from unwed childbearing. Just a fraction of poor families that are eligible for welfare in Illinois actually receive it. Only 9 percent of poor families in Illinois received TANF cash benefits in 2009, one of the lowest rates in the nation. And the benefits that that 9 percent receives doesn't go as far as it used to. Compared to 1996, when adjusted for inflation, Illinois families get about 18 percent less cash benefits. Residents of a predominately black or Hispanic neighborhood have access to roughly half as many social services as those in predominately white neighborhoods. States with more blacks and Hispanics on welfare are more likely to impose lifetime limits, family caps on benefits, and stricter sanctions for noncompliance
TANF initially seemed successful. The economy boomed, employment soared, poverty fell and caseloads plunged. Thirty-two states reduced their caseloads by two-thirds or more, as officials issued press releases and jostled for bragging rights. The tough law played a large role, but so did expansions of child care and tax credits that raised take-home pay. Just one in five poor children now receives cash aid, the lowest level in nearly 50 years. The recession that began in 2007 challenged that success. As the downturn wreaked havoc on budgets, some states took new steps to keep the needy away. They shortened time limits, tightened eligibility rules and reduced benefits (to an average of about $350 a month for a family of three). Since 2007, 11 states have cut the rolls by 10 percent or more. They include centers of unemployment like Georgia, Indiana and Rhode Island, as well as Michigan, where the welfare director justified cuts by telling legislators, “We have a fair number of people gaming the system.” Arizona cut benefits by 20 percent and shortened time limits twice — to two years, from five. Since the states get fixed federal grants, any caseload growth comes at their own expense. By contrast, the federal government pays the entire food stamp bill no matter how many people enroll; states encourage applications, and the rolls have reached record highs. Many people already found the underlying system more hassle than help, a gantlet of job-search classes where absences can be punished by a complete loss of aid. Some states explicitly pursue a policy of deterrence to make sure people use the program only as a last resort. Among the Arizonans who lost their checks was Tamika Shelby, who first sought cash aid at 29 after fast-food jobs and a stint as a waitress in a Phoenix strip club. The state gave her $176 a month and sent her to work part time at a food bank. Though she was effectively working for $2 an hour, she scarcely missed a day in more than a year. “I loved it,” she said. Then the reduced time limit left Ms. Shelby with neither welfare nor work. She still gets about $250 a month in food stamps for herself and her 3-year-old son, Dejon. She counts herself fortunate, she said, because a male friend lets her stay in a spare room, with no expectations of sex. Still, after feeding her roommate and her child, she said,
“there are plenty of days I don’t eat.”
“I know there are some people who abuse the system,” Ms. Shelby said. “But I was willing to do anything they asked me to. If I could, I’d still be working for those two dollars an hour.”
The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow. Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said. Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors.
Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll
do what I have to do.”
read more: Welfare Limits Left Poor Adrift as Recession Hit ”Getting By” stories of welfare