France is in the middle of a “snap” legislative election, surprisingly called by President Macron after his party did not fare too well in last month’s European elections. He dissolved the National Assembly and gave everyone three weeks to prepare for a new contest. Elections in France take place in two parts. The first trip to the polls (last Sunday, June 30) resulted in an unprecedented victory for the extreme right. During the last few days, however, the hastily formed alliance of left leaning parties (Socialists, Greens, Communists, and a more radical party, France Unbowed) has worked with Macron’s centrist coalition to form a blockade against the National Rally and prevent them from attaining an absolute majority in the run-off election, which occurs this Sunday, July 7. Attaining an absolute majority would require the President to appoint a prime minister from the extreme right, giving the National Rally, a party that has its ideological roots in post-war anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Holocaust denial, and strong nationalist, Euro-skeptical, pro-Putin, anti-immigration tendencies.
Recent demonstration in Paris against the extreme right. Photo by Jairo Cuesta.
The week between elections has gone slowly—one bright spot was waking up this morning to a stunning Labour landslide victory in the newly enlightened country to the north of us—but we have tried to remain optimistic. It’s hard to believe that the French people would hand over the governing power to a party that reeks of Fascism, in its purest European, racist, colonialist, classist form. An absolute victory for the National Rally on Sunday would mark the first time since the Vichy government, during the Nazi occupation in WWII, that France would be under the control of the extreme right, and signal the end to the great social experiment that has defined French culture for the past 80 years.
We recently attended one of the modern theatre’s finest interrogations of France and the French, Jean Genet’s play, The Screens. We also watched Ava DuVernay’s film, Origin, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s best seller, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I watched all six episodes of Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial, a Netflix documentary created with the intention “to show younger viewers worldwide that ‘democracy is fragile’ and help them better spot authoritarians in governments.” Meanwhile, a New York jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts; the US Supreme Court made several disturbing rulings; and Joe Biden teetered and tottered his way through the first Presidential debate. Then I got Covid—my first experience with the virus—and all of these political machinations, power plays, and posturings appeared in my fever dreams like the grotesque characters and landscapes from a twisted play by Jean Genet.
I’m no stranger to the plays of Genet. Not only have I recently seen Arthur Nauzyciel’s The Screens at the Odéon, but I’ve experienced several productions of The Maids, including a sublime version directed by Raymond Bobgan, when he was a student at The University of Akron. I also directed two of Genet’s plays: The Balcony (1991) at Cleveland Public Theatre and Deathwatch (2004) for New World Performance Lab.
Lee Worley and Jairo Cuesta in The Balcony, directed by James Slowiak at Cleveland Public Theatre (1991). Photo by Robert Schnellbacher.
Saint Genet, as Jean-Paul Sartre called him, and his extraordinary literary work embody the paradoxes and absurdities of our modern world. Renegade and effete, thief and intellectual, he gives us flowers that bleed and shit that smells like roses. Genet eroticizes power and authority, while, at the same time, mocking the obsessions of the elite and reifying the fantasies of the downtrodden. For Genet, a murderer is the hero, a prostitute can lead the Revolution, and the colonized lead the way to salvation. As the Odéon says on its website: Genet’s gesture transcends “reality through poetry to make the world tolerable.”
Joseph Lavy, Lee Worley, Jairo Cuesta, Kirk Brown, and Barry Saxon in The Balcony directed by James Slowiak. Photo from Cleveland Public Theatre website.
As I was contemplating writing about the events of this past month and the work of Genet, I found my notes from the program for Deathwatch. This production marked an important period in the work and research of New World Performance Lab. I always felt we were able to touch a deeper level of acting with this play. It was almost like Genet’s masquerades allowed us to reveal something even more true. The work that Jairo, Justin, and Chris did in the rehearsals and performances of this play resonated in the company’s performances for many years. Twenty years ago I wrote:
Genet is not easy. He challenges us each step of the way. He sets up polarities—male-female; good-evil; dynamic-static; life-death; reality-illusion—and then demonstrates how these seemingly contradictory principles actually complement each other. In Genet’s world, these elements cannot be separated. Like the yin and yang of Taoism, they form the whole.
Genet uses several devices to create his dream-like world. His characters depend on play, masquerade, and impersonation to reveal their fantasies and nightmares. One is never sure if the characters are play-acting or not—if what is happening is real or not. Genet turns all of our preconceptions around. We can no longer assume that we know what is good or bad—a murderer becomes a saint and acceptance of death is the way toward life.
Justin Hale, Jairo Cuesta, and Chris Buck in a rehearsal of NWPL’s Deathwatch, directed by James Slowiak (2004). Photo by Neil Sapienza.
Genet seeks freedom from the status quo, from the “straight” world, from accepted reality. He negates the “straight” world through his use of play. He demonstrates the fragmentation that occurs when the real world represses the artist in each of us. Genet creates a world of his own in which wishes are fulfilled and dreams liberated. Is it a “gay” world? No. It’s just not a “straight” world; it’s not a world of reason. It’s a sensuous and sacred world—a world of the body, the soul, and the Other.
Genet devises a ritual of re-membering—putting back together the fragments of self. What remains in the end? When the body is dead and the anima ascends, what will remain? Who are you? You alone? Do you dare recognize yourself? Each night the actors in Deathwatch confront these questions.
Jairo Cuesta, Chris Buck, and Justin Hale in a rehearsal of NWPL’s Deathwatch, directed by James Slowiak (2004). Photo by Neil Sapienza.
Genet designated Tiresias, the blind seer from Oedipus, as the patron saint of actors. Here’s why:
“…because of his dual nature. Legend has it that he retained the male sex for seven years, and for seven more, the other. For seven years a man’s clothing, for seven a woman’s. In a certain way, at certain moments—or perhaps always—his femininity followed in close pursuit of his virility, the one or the other being constantly asserted, with the result that he never had any rest, I mean any specific place where he could rest. Like him, the actors are neither this nor that, and they must be aware that they are a presence constantly beset by femininity or its opposite, but ready to play to the point of abasement that which, be it virility or its opposite, is in any case predetermined.
Saint Tiresias, the patron saint of actors.
As for divinatory powers of the saint, let every actor make an effort to see clearly within himself.” (Jean Genet, Letters, 62-63)
Justin Hale, Chris Buck, Jairo Cuesta, and James Slowiak in rehearsal for NWPL’s Deathwatch (2004). Photo by Neil Sapienza.
To play to the point of abasement. In the Shaker songs, we sing of being humble, being low, bowing and being simple. Ninety-one years ago Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. My mother was born. And also Jerzy Grotowski. Could it be that humanity is in need of a reset? So soon? After less than one hundred years? When I see what’s happening in Gaza, Ukraine, the hate and anger at Trump rallies in the US and within the National Rally in France, the colonizers continuing to colonize in New Caledonia, and men violently ignoring the rights of women, the indigenous, and minorities everywhere—then I think it’s time to look for that button—hit reset. Start all over.
But then I remember: in the country to the north of us, they showed some courage yesterday. And maybe on Sunday, in France, the sun will shine and not let the darkness prevail.
Let’s all sing a Shaker song!
Love is little, love is low,
Love will make our spirits grow,
Grow in peace, grow in light,
Love will do the thing that's right.
Love is gentle, love is small,
Love will find the best of all,
Find the peace, find the light,
Love will do the thing that's right.
Love is silent, love is strong,
Love will sing a quiet song,
Sing of peace, sing of light,
Love will do the thing that's right.
Love is wonder, love is grace,
Love will bind all in its place;
Bind the peace, bind the light,
Love will do the thing that's right.
