Oberlin Theater Performs Zora Howard’s AtGN

ARTS & CULTURE

December 10, 2021 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 8

Oberlin Theater Performs Zora Howard’s AtGN

Yesterday, the Oberlin Theater department premiered its mainstage production of AtGN, which will be showing through Dec. 12. Courtesy of Maeve Hogan

Sydney Rosensaft Senior Staff Writer

On Dec. 9, the Oberlin Theater department premiered AtGN, a modern adaptation of the classical tragedy Antigone. While the play was originally written by the Greek poet and playwright Sophocles sometime around 441 BCE, Oberlin students are preforming Zora Howard’s 2016 version, which weaves contemporary questions into the ancient narrative. Howard, a writer, director, and performer from Harlem, intermingles present-day discus-

is something that a real person could do.” It took me a while to have the courage to actually do it, but that kernel entered my consciousness at Oberlin.

Then there’s the academic component. I took one Creative Writing class while I was here — really only one. I was an English major. At the time, I kind of thought that Creative Writing classes were too lightweight for me; I thought of myself as a serious English major and scholar. I was interested in reading very difficult books and writing very politically-oriented, analytical papers. I felt like if I wanted to write a short story, I could write a short story, but I didn’t need to take a class to do it. I realize how silly this sounds now, but that was really how I felt.

sions regarding performative and radical activism with the central tenets of Greek tragedy, offering profoundly resonant ruminations on individual consciousness and collective accountability. Oberlin’s performance of AtGN is the first-ever run of Howard’s script and is showing through Dec. 12.

Howard’s version of the play sets the show in a Black church with a majority Black cast. The play begins as Antigone returns from burying her late brother, Polynices, who was murdered for his homosexuality. Antigone and Creon, a priest, butt heads as she stands up for her brother. As the show progresses, arguments brew between family members and friends, resulting in the eventual deaths of Antigone; Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s lover; and Haemon’s mother, who commits suicide after the death of her son.

With Howard’s help, director Justin Emeka, OC ’95 and associate professor of Theater and Africana Studies, brings this modern spin on Antigone to the stage of the Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theatre. Howard engaged in transforming the story from script to stage, attending the initial rehearsSee Oberlin, page 13

ON THE RECORD Joanna Rakoff, OC ’94, Journalist and Author

Maeve Woltring

Arts & Culture Editor

Joanna Rakoff, OC ’94, is the author of bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Fiction, the ELLE Readers’ Prize, and a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller. Rakoff began her writing career as a journalist, and has written frequently for The New York Times, Vogue, Marie Claire, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other publications. My Salinger Year was adapted into a film that was released March 5, 2021 in North America.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did your relationship to writing develop before and during your time at Oberlin?

I come from a family in which no one is a writer. My parents were first-generation Americans, and though they were very intellectual, arts-oriented people, they considered the idea of being an artist — of any sort — a nightmare. As a very young child, I wanted to be a writer, but I couldn’t even articulate that desire or ambition because it didn’t seem possible to me. At Oberlin, it began to seem possible to me, partly because I made friends who were from a very different milieu — who grew up in households where it was normal to work in some avenue of the arts or in publishing or media. I started to realize, “Oh wait, this

After Oberlin, you went to graduate school and then decided to leave in order to pursue poetry writing in New York. What inspired this radical shift?

While I was at Oberlin, I was part of the department’s honors program. The program was designed to prepare students for doctoral work, which I planned to do, as it seemed like a safe way to be a writer to me. The truth is that my advisor and my mentor — David Walker and David Young — both said to me, “Don’t go into academia.” They kept suggesting that I go work at a magazine. All these years later it’s so obvious that they were saying to me, “Academia isn’t for you; you’re not someone who

Lily D’Amato

Arts & Culture Editor

As the Supreme Court is likely to undermine or overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in 2022, access to abortion and reproductive care in Ohio is under threat. On Wednesday, Dec. 1, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, in which the prosecution urged the Court to uphold a state law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Due to the 2019 “Heartbeat Bill,” which is likely to take effect in Ohio if Roe v. Wade is overturned, all of Ohio’s abortion clinics are likely to be shut down, forcing those seeking abortions to travel out of state.

This past Tuesday, Kendal at Oberlin hosted an educational panel on the historical, legal, and religious context regarding the issue of abortion, focusing largely on Texas’ Senate Bill 4, which bars any person from providing an abortion-inducing drug to a pregnant woman, and Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act. Panel facilitator and Kendal resident Mary Van Nortwick’s aim for the event was to spark a community-wide discussion about abortion access.

“At Kendal we always believe that it’s important for people to understand the background and the context within which decisions are made by any of our political leaders or government institutions,” Van Norwick said. “Kendal has been very isolated since the pandemic started. We were in complete lockdown for several months. This case could overturn nearly 50 years of progress and when this opportunity came up, we wanted to make education the priority … [so we could] provide a substantive approach to a topic that has However, a federal judge blocked the bill before it could take effect, citing Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protection of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.

Although Oberlin was recently redistricted from Republican Congressman Jim Jordan’s 4th district to Republican Congressman Bob Latta’s 5th district, the City still falls under the leadership of a pro-life representative. In June 2021, Latta sponsored a bill that would uphold the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal taxes to fund abortion clinics.

“This radical and immoral policy makes it legal for taxpayer dollars to support and enable the abortion industry,” Latta said on the House floor. “One of the most basic ways we can protect innocent life is ensuring that taxpayer money is not being used to fund abortions. As a defender of the unborn, I do not support the removal of the Hyde Amendment.”

If Roe v. Wade is overturned and Ohio abortion clinics are required to close, the nearest clinic for Oberlin residents would be 94 miles away, in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. In other parts of the state, the closest abortion clinics would be in Virginia, Illinois, or New York.

College fourth-year Aniella Day, who is a member of the Oberlin Doula Collective’s leadership circle, says that the majority of ODC’s partnerships have been on hold since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization trains abortion doulas, non-medical support people who advocate for the person receiving an abortion.

“We’re not trained medical professionals,” Day said. “It’s our job to facilitate

divided this country in many ways, especially as the Texas and Mississippi cases threaten abortion rights again.”

The panel featured Professor Emeritus of Religion Margaret Kamitsuka, whose scholarship explores the nexus between reproductive ethics and religion. At the event, she spoke about different understandings of abortion ethics between various religious traditions, stressing the contemporary pro-choice movement’s mobilization of a highly conservative interpretation of Christianity.

“Most people, both those against and in support of abortion, aren’t aware of these differences among the religious traditions,” Kamitsuka said. “I find that when I speak on the subject of abortion, that people — even people who consider themselves affiliated with the Christian tradition — are really unaware that current, very conservative viewpoints don’t represent the views that were held in Christianity traditionally and across its history.”

In an email sent to the Review following the panel, Kamitsuka emphasized the importance of discussion-based events like the one at Kendal’s, warning that threats to Roe v. Wade would undoubtedly affect the Oberlin community.

Nearly all forms of abortion would become illegal in at least a dozen states if Roe v. Wade is overturned, but abortion access in Ohio would not instantly disappear. That said, Ohio’s majority-conservative lawmakers are likely to renew a push to outlaw abortion in the state. In 2019, the Republican majority within the Ohio General Assembly passed a version of the “Heartbeat Bill,” which forbids abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. emotional and physical support. So the training that we give is about answering hard questions and giving physical support measures such as holding a hand, or rubbing a back, or helping with stress.”

ODC does the majority of its work with abortion clinics in Cleveland. If abortion became illegal in Ohio following the Supreme Court’s decision, Day is confident ODC would remain active.

“Everything would have to turn into something that is underground, like it was before Roe v. Wade,” Day said. “I think the collective would likely try to stay in touch with the people that we know from the clinic — ask them what they’re doing, and see how we can help in any way. Hopefully, we’d be able to get people to protests and help people figure out what would be a good way to challenge the ruling.”

Day also highlighted the ways in which social and economic inequality affect a person’s access to abortion rights. The reversal of Roe v. Wade would disproportionately affect low-income communities, where people don’t necessarily have the means to travel across state lines to receive reproductive care.

“In training, we’ve talked a lot about the fact that there are people who don’t have access to any kind of birth control and just don’t have the information that they need about how to use birth control or how they get pregnant by other means,” she said. “So it’s not always about education. It can be about things that happened to you in your life that you don’t have any control over.”

The Court is expected to rule on the Mississippi case in either June or July 2022.

WOBC Coverband Showcase Returns to ’Sco

Lauren Krainess

Last Saturday, WOBC-FM 91.5 hosted its semesterly Coverband Showcase, the first one to take place inside the ’Sco since fall 2019. While WOBC-FM hosted the showcase outdoors in the spring and summer, the event’s return to its usual venue revitalized the Oberlin tradition. Many first-year students took this opportunity to perform and participate in Oberlin’s bustling music scene.

According to College fourth-year and WOBC-FM Program Director Daisy Vollen, bringing the event back to the ’Sco was an easy transition and benefitted the showcase.

“I think that being in [the ’Sco] again definitely made the energy a lot higher and made it a lot easier for the bands and the audience to have more of a connection,” they said.

Vollen believes that the physical posters around campus, as well as the social media advertisements, helped recruit performers of all class years. They also said that by emphasizing that anyone could apply to perform regardless of experience or level of musical talent, WOBC-FM was able to draw in younger performers. According to Vollen, the number of first-year performers was fairly typical for the showcase.

“It’s also nice to make sure that underclassmen — and especially firstyears — have chances to get involved too,” they said. “It’s really nice, especially when there are bands that have a mix of grades.”

Double-degree first-year Matteo Herron played the nose flute with the Talking Heads coverband while dressed as a lamp. According to Herron, the band was made of solely first-year students and initially assembled for an open mic night performance earlier in the semester. As a first-year, Herron had never been to a Coverband Showcase before, and expected 10 to 15 people to show up to the event, so he expressed surprise over the large turnout.

“It was packed,” he said. “There was a line out the door, all the way around the building.”

Vollen also felt that the event had a great turnout, though they mentioned they had expected it given that the Coverband Showcase typically draws large crowds.

The event surpassed Herron’s expectations. He expressed some nervousness due to the large crowd but ended up enjoying himself.

“It was a lot more fun … than I expected it to be,” he said.

Herron enjoyed becoming more involved with Oberlin’s music culture through his participation in the showcase, and looks forward to continuing his engagement as the school year progresses. Photo by Katie Kunka

Erika Sharf

On Tuesday, the Latinx Music Union held their first indoor performance during the pandemic in Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space. The union’s latest event, the Latinx Musician’s Showcase, featured a variety of acts, including classical vocal performances, modern Latin songs, and solos on flute, guitar, bassoon, piano, and clarinet.

Daniela Machado, Conservatory fourth-year and cochair of the Latinx Music Union, said that the mission of the union is to spread Latinx culture to campus. She wants to facilitate a space wherein the Latinx community can share in cultural and musical learning.

“Latinx Music Union is about creating a space for learning, appreciating, and spreading Latinx music and Latinx culture on campus,” Machado said. “I really just don’t think there was an emphasis before our organization was started. It’s a space for Latinx creators, musicians, and people to just get together to share our culture and share our music and, really, it’s for everyone. I want to emphasize that it’s to share our music with everyone.”

Conservatory fourth-year Isabel Fernandez, who co-founded the organization in 2019 with Gabriela Linares, OC ’20, added that in addition to spreading Latinx culture across the campus, they are also working towards diversifying the repertoire studied at the Conservatory.

“Our organization wants to show the campus that there is this huge library of composers that are not performed at all,” Fernandez said. “Our motive is to start performing these pieces so that professors and deans can see that there is this whole world … that they can incorporate in their programs. In the Conservatory, we’re so used to performing so many works of Eurocentric and Western composers.”

For both Fernandez and Linares, their initiative to counter Eurocentrism in music and uplift Latinx voices is close to home. They drew from a shared musical repertoire in the process of realizing LMU’s initiatives.

“Gaby and I, we grew up singing with other composers because we were both from Puerto Rico, so we decided to create LMU to just bring to campus this whole other archive of composers,” Fernandez said. “The goal is to also showcase the Latinx musicians here at Oberlin and show that they are really talented.”

Conservatory first-year Gabi Allemana, who performed in the showcase, feels that finding a place to share parts of your identity through music is really important. A student in the Jazz Department, she sees the group as a vital part of her college experience.

“This is something I’d really wanted to be a part of since the [Jazz Department] is mostly one demographic,” Allemana said. “I did a lot of Brazilian music with my dad at home, and I’m trying to find a space where I can do that again. I thought this would be a perfect place to start, showcasing that side of me and doing that with other people.” On Tuesday, the Latinx Music Union highlighted a variety of Latinx musicians and composers in the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space.

Courtesy of Khadijah Halliday

Machado explained how being a part of the Latinx Music Union helped her connect with her culture as well. She’s found that establishing a space for Latinx music has given her a sense of respite and belonging.

“My mom is from Colombia and my dad is from Puerto Rico; I grew up around this type of music,” Machado said. “Coming here was a little shocking; there was a lack of what I grew up with that was so abundantly found on every corner. There wasn’t really a space where our music was played or shared. It’s just nice to have a space to share music that we all grew up with.”

For Fernandez, founding the Latinx Music Union was an essential means of sustaining her selfhood as a performer. Having grown up with this genre of music, Fernandez feels her identity is completely tied to her musical heritage.

“It was ingrained in my culture,” Fernandez said. “It was ingrained in my musical studies too. For me, it’s important because, personally, it feels like I’m not complete without it. As a performer, I want to show my true self, and that’s a part of me.”

Allemana explained how she hopes that the event will promote and share Latinx music and culture on campus and within the Conservatory. In the days prior to the performance, she started to get excited about sharing that part of herself with the audience.

“I think it’s gonna be really powerful to show that side of me,” Allemana said. “In the Jazz program, the Latinx side of the music isn’t really showcased at all, so I think it’s gonna be really cool to actually get a whole group of people together that are all from different Latin American countries.”

Similarly, Machado explained that the show is truly a representation of the diversity in Latinx music. She feels the showcase highlights the plurality of the Latinx experience.

“Latinx music isn’t just from one place,” Machado said. “It’s from a whole bunch of different places, and we have people from all over showcasing their music and what Latinx music means to them.”

Audience members enjoyed classical vocal performances from singers such as Ricardo Perez Guerrero, who sang “Estrellita,” a song by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce; and Isabel Merat, who performed “El Majo Discreto,” a song by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. The show was not limited to voice performances and featured a variety of musicians including Gabriel Cruz Ruiz, who performed a Venezuelan folk ballad on flute; and Maya Irizarry Lambright, who performed Eugene Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 27, No. 3.

What was perhaps most exciting about the showcase was the opportunity for a full house of audience members to engage with this music. During the more upbeat songs, the audience was invited and encouraged to have fun and dance around to the music onstage. Fernandez was moved by the audience’s enthusiasm.

“It was also a very emotional scene,” she said. “It was really packed; there were people standing up in the back because they couldn’t sit, so it was very great to see the support. Because you know, I feel like we work so hard and we don’t show our skills enough and what we’re capable of. It was just a very great experience.”

The Latinx Music Union is unsure whether they will be holding another showcase next semester. In the meantime, the ‘Sco will be hosting a show featuring Latinx artists and musicians on Jan. 15.

From First- to Fourth-Year: How Oberlin Influences Personal Style

Jocelyn Blockinger

When I first arrived at Oberlin in the gloomy fall of 2018, I had little to no style. I didn’t know at the time, though it should come as no surprise, that my staple wardrobe of an oversized, beige windbreaker; black leggings; and Air Force 1s did not cut it for Oberlin’s curated blend of styles mostly consisting of vintage throwbacks to the ’90s. Tasked with the challenge of defining my personal style for the first time, I found myself surrounded by the perfect canvas. Since that fall, I’ve been constantly inspired by the fashion of Oberlin students and have sought insight into how their styles came to fruition.

When I talked to College fourthyear Izzy Halloran, she said the greatest change in her style has come from gaining confidence and learning how to pick clothes she feels best in. Speaking on some of the bolder choices she made during her first year, Halloran mentioned that she tries to not be too critical of her past self, a lesson on self-compassion for fashion we would all do well to learn.

“I’d like to think I wore my most embarrassing ’fits in high school, but I definitely took some unfortunate fashion robe include antique, brown Blundstones; bright orange, alpaca wool mittens; and, of course, a new winter jacket. Sprecher cited Huckberry as his go-to source for fashion and accessories.

Oberlin students naturally encourage each other to express themselves through style and acknowledge how the growth we experience as people throughout college is often reflected in our clothes. This culture has allowed people to explore their style in individual and unique ways, creating a more open conversation about fashion and self-expression.

chances my freshman year — specifically, the very oversized denim jacket with pins on the pockets, which I have since retired,” she said. “I really came into my own [second] year at Oberlin. My [first] year I experimented with style and began to understand what I liked to wear.”

In addition to developing her style choices, Halloran has also had to account for ways in which her body has changed in the last four years.

“Something I think we don’t talk about enough is second puberty, which I underwent after we were sent home two years ago,” she said. “Strangely, I have grown a few inches, my chest grew, and my hips filled out.”

College fourth-year Luke Sprecher, on the other hand, only recently began to experiment with his personal style.

“I never thought of myself as having bad style; I just wasn’t so concerned about the way I dressed,” he said. “It started with needing a new winter jacket, but quickly turned into an opportunity to really think about what I liked in terms of style for maybe the first time. My wardrobe is a lot of basic staples, but I’ve grown to really enjoy adding to it.”

Recent additions to Sprecher’s ward-