"MR. BALDWIN GOES TO HEAVEN" BY DAMON WRIGHT
A famous gay Black writer faces his own self-denial and need for acceptance
while reaching for heaven's ladder with a white porn star
| |
| MR. BALDWIN GOES TO HEAVEN -- Spencer Aste and Kenyon Farrow (Photo by Joe Bly) | |
La MaMa E.T.C. (First Floor Theater) 74A East Fourth Street
(presented by La MaMa E.T.C.)
Th-Sun at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3:00 pm
$12/tdf, (212) 475-7710 "Mr. Baldwin Goes to Heaven" by the late Damon Wright, directed by Terrell Robinson, is both a religious and a sexual allegory. In this two-character play, a famous gay Black writer and an irreputable white porn star ascend to heaven together. The writer is a fictitious man named Baldwin, based on the famous Black novelist James Baldwin ("Go Tell it on the Mountain," "Giovanni's Room"). The other man, called Jake, is a white video maker and porn star, whom you might imagine from the coarse kind of pornographic movies. It is an unlikely pairing of souls designed to take the audience on a journey of self-realization, admonishment and questions of redemption.
The playwright establishes the character of Baldwin as "a famous Black writer" for whom, at the age of eleven, "the spirit came down in its beauty and its wrath and burned the shit out of this skinny black boy." Thoughtful and reserved, homosexual and "scared all my life" by his own admission, he is reflected antithetically in Jake, who was raised a heathen and is Caucasian, omni-sexual, histrionic and crude. As the pair ascend to heaven together, they experience fantastical realizations on what it is to live a life that is riddled with ambiguity and self-admonishment when confronted with the romantic and lyric aspects of evil. Director Terrell Robinson explains, "The character Baldwin is a public figure, a literary person who struggles with his sexuality. Jack is there to break down barriers. His role is to get Baldwin to come to terms with who he is, to admit to his sexual side. Admitting it is the salvation Baldwin seeks."
Author James Baldwin died in 1987, while Wright was in the process of writing this play. Wright attended the author's memorial and came out with the idea of a play in which Baldwin observed his own funeral, Huck Finn style. The role of Baldwin was originally envisioned for Terrell Robinson, who directed workshops of the play and from them, chose the director's role for himself, with Wright's assent. The play grew from these seeds was a lot more Michael McClure than Mark Twain, but there are reverberations of Twain in it, as when Jack goads Baldwin by calling him "My nigger Jim."
Playwright Damon Wright died in December, 1998. His full-length play, "The Quadroon Ball--An American Tragedy," was produced by La MaMa in 1997, directed by Terrell Robinson. It was a historical melodrama of the free colored society that thrived in New Orleans from the mid-eighteenth century to the Civil War. Wright's other plays included "The Murderous Power of Prayer," "Little Black Sambo" and "A Struggle to the End" and "Testimony." Wright was also active in the writers' lab of New York Theatre Workshop. He grew up in Long Beach, CA, graduated from Stanford in English in 1972, and previous to a ten-year employment at the New York Times' Arts & Leisure section, was administrator of Dance Visions, Inc.--Sounds in Motion, a NYC-based modern dance group headed by Dianne McIntyre. He was a member of The Dramatist Guild and the Musical Theater Collaborative. His work benefited from developmental presentations at Dixon Place and received staged readings at the American Globe Theater (NYC), Crossroads Theater (New Brunswick, NJ), New York Theater Workshop (NYC) and the Robey Theater (Burbank, CA).
Director Terrell Robinson a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a Usual Suspect of the New York Theater Workshop. He directed Wright's "The Quadroon Ball at LaMaMa," "Little Black Sambo" at the Adelaide Institute Center for the Performing Arts in Australia, "A Struggle to the End" at the New Theater (NYC) and a workshop production of "Mr. Baldwin Goes to Heaven" at the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab in 1996.
The cast features Kenyon Farrow as Baldwin and Spencer Aste as Jake. Set design is by Mark Tambella, lighting design is by Daniel Ordower, costume design is by John "Blue" McKineron and sound design is by Jacob Burckhardt. Dramaturg is Maxine Kern. Production manager is Ron Jones. "Mr. Baldwin Goes to Heaven" is produced in association with Bernadine Jennings, co-founder of Dance Giant Steps, Inc. [NYTW]
Related article: La MaMa sets 1999-2000 season schedule
| home |
listings |
columnists |
reviews |
what's new? |
cue-to-cue |
people page |
welcome |
| museums |
recordings |
what's cool? |
who's hot? |
coupons |
publications |
classified |