A Powerful New Play

The cool cane saved the day yesterday as we attempted to enjoy some spontaneous entertainment. It was an interesting evening which left us with lingering heavy thoughts.

Late in the afternoon, I got a message from a good friend who always seems to know what is going on in town: If you guys don’t have plans tonight-- I suggest a trip to Woolly Mammoth for its pay what you can preview of Antebellum-- we went last night-- original new play with some interesting and heavy themes- racism nazism war and hollywood to mention a few.

I was somewhat bored and declared that we should go. What we didn’t realize was that most everyone else was already in line at 5:30 to get the pay-what-you-can tickets given out at 6:30 for the 8:00 performance at Woolly Mammoth. By the time we got to the box office window at around 6:45, they seemed only to have standing room tickets available. We looked rather forlorn, knowing that neither of us was up for standing through the entire performance. But then the ticket person said to me, “Is he with you?” as he pointed at David and I stood there with my striped cane. When I nodded affirmatively, he pulled out box tickets reserved for handicapped people and said, “Enjoy the show.”

Along with many others, we dined at Teaism and waited for time for the show.

By 8:00 the theater was packed with almost no empty seats and about 25 people standing to see the premier of Robert O’Hara’s new play Ante Bellum. It’s a complex play that strangely juxtaposes the premier of “Gone with the Wind” in Atlanta in 1939 with scenes from Nazi Germany. It seems that before the war many African-American jazz musicians fled discrimination in the US to move to Germany, where they were (and once again are) welcomed. But with the rise to power of the Third Reich, they fared no better than Jews as Hitler attempted to purify the Aryan race. They were often sterilized and imprisoned.

Much of the story is told through one such musician, who suffers at the hand of the Nazis but then appears in Atlanta on the opening day of Gone with the Wind. Through a series of flashbacks we see what happened in Germany and how it relates to the scene in Atlanta, much of which takes place in a Jewish family’s house.

The heavy subject matter involves homosexuality, nudity, self-mutilation, gender-changing, suicide, and betrayal. But there are also scenes that show incredible love. There are discussions of racism and anti-Semitism along the way.

It’s an action-packed couple of hours. The many intricate relationships are finally made perfectly clear by the last scene, which is something like the final act of a Shakespeare tragedy. Definitely a play that makes you think.

We stayed afterwards for a discussion with the playwright and the theater’s artistic director, during which they asked the audience for their feedback. It was so interesting to see scenes being altered as people made excellent suggestions.

By chance we ran into Aileen of Infinite Connections, who was one of those in line at 5:30. Next time we will know that no one in Washington ever waits until the last minute for such a deal as this. People naturally line up early for a bargain. And this was just that, thanks to my cool cane.