In a recent post, I noted that all influential political plays are leftist. A commenter mentioned that Alison Carey, Director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, was looking for non-leftist playwrights.So I wrote to her, she encouraged me to send her something, and I've drafted this plot outline for a play. Your comments are welcome.
For example, I'd welcome an obstetrician's or medical malpractice attorney's opinion on whether the scenario is realistic.
Affirmative Actions
(NOTE: This is merely a plot summary. It does NOT present the characterizations, which, of course, are crucial.)
Characters(NOTE: This is merely a plot summary. It does NOT present the characterizations, which, of course, are crucial.)
Jennifer: Diversity consultant, white, 35, 7 months pregnant.
Daniel, her son, a high school senior, white.
Melissa, an employment lawyer who represents a cancer-research biotech company, 40, white, 8 months pregnant.
Bob: Melissa's husband, a social worker, African-American.
Cedric: Jennifer's obstetrician, 30, African-American.
Lily: The operating room nurse. Asian.
Act I
Jennifer ends her conference keynote address, "Affirmative Action Benefits Everyone" and asks for questions. Melissa splutters, "If affirmative action is so beneficial, why, in every one of the world's 195 countries, majority Black or minority Black, colonized or not, in which Blacks were enslaved and not, is there not one country, at any point in history, in which Blacks don't have the lowest achievement rate and the highest crime rate?" Melissa goes into premature labor. Being from out of town, Melissa doesn't have a local obstetrician. Jennifer, who lives locally, recommends hers: Cedric.
During the cesarean birth, Cedric nicks an artery, the baby's (Leah) heart rate skyrockets and blood pressure drops. Cedric manages to stabilize Leah but her Apgar score is 4 (very unhealthy.)
Cedric tells Melissa and Bob that Leah appears to have suffered profound brain damage but claims it occurred naturally, the result of Melissa having a child at age 40. After a painful debate, Melissa and Bob decide to institutionalize Leah.
Cedric's guilt-and self-doubt-filled monologue is interrupted by a thought, "It seems odd that such short oxygen deprivation could have caused such profound damage." He convinces Melissa and Bob to have Leah undergo a more thorough set of scans.
Act II
The scans reveal a neck tumor that is blocking blood flow to a key part of Leah's brain. That and not Cedric's error caused the low Apgar score and projected profound brain damage.
If the tumor is malignant, Leah will likely die. If it's benign, she could grow up to be normal. A surgeon, with Cedric watching, removes the tumor. Leah immediately shows tiny but very hopeful signs of improvement. And the tumor is benign.
Lily reveals to Melissa and Bob that Cedric nicked Leah's artery. "He made another serious error six months ago. We all wanted Cedric to succeed because there are so few Black obstetricians, so we covered for him but I can' stand the thought that he could hurt more babies."
Under Melissa's withering questioning, Cedric admits he was admitted to medical school because of affirmative action and was kicked out and then reinstated only because he threatened to sue for racial discrimination. Bob and Melissa express rage and accusations not only to Cedric but to each other.
Melissa tells Jennifer and Daniel what has occurred. Melissa is surprisingly consoling. Jennifer debates whether to cancel her upcoming appointment with Cedric, and picks up the phone.
Daniel is completing his online application to Harvard. (The application is projected on an on-stage wall.) He has reached the ethnicity question. He is 1/8 Spanish. What box does he check? He and Jennifer debate it. His cursor hovers over the choices: White, Latino, Multiracial.
At the end of the curtain call, the cast steps aside to reveal, on the projected computer screen, a scrolling series of statistics on affirmative action.
14 comments:
Glad she spoke with you.
Did she tell you she was looking for historical plays? That was what her Times quote said, but at this point she might be looking for anything.
It's hard to say if the play you're thinking of is good, bad or ugly - none of the play is there, just the treatment.
I'm sure I could write a terrible treatment for a great play and vice versa.
Hi Marty,
Came here thanks to a google alert for "Oregon Shakespeare Festival." (I only mention this because I wonder where my readers find me sometimes.) Anyhoo...
I have no ideological problem with the play - I haven't read your site enough to know if our politics align, but in any case I agree that the literature could use this kind of discussion. The one thing that really set off my "HUH? Really?" alarm was Corazon's line about covering up two other babies. I have no idea if this is implausible in real life, but in my theater-goer head space I find this over the top.
Perhaps the couple decides to sue out of pure grief (or something else, you're the writer here...) and his AA admission to college comes out during trial prep? I think this opens up an avenue for discussing AA pro and con without, in my opinion, such a bludgeoning opening gambit.
Cheers,
John
Excellent point, John. I'll revise.
I thought you had a full length play on hand already? Didn't I read on your website that you had a manuscript which you could not get produced?
I wrote a different version of Affirmative Actions, which I could not get produced. I also wrote a book, the Silenced Majority, which was the only book I've written that is politically incorrect and the only book I have not been able to get published.
Having been unsuccessful with the previous version of "Affirmative Actions," I'm trying to do everything in my power to make it production-worthy. Hence, I've created this new treatment. I'll let it ferment a bit, make revisions, and then take the next steps: write a character biography, then, a beat-by-beat breakdown of the play, and finally, the script itself.
Even if a playscript or screenplay IS politically correct, it is extraordinarily difficult to get it produced, so when a premise is politically incorrect, it's absolutely essential that I make it as excellent as I can.
This must be why more playwrights are liberal. They are simply more creative than conservatives
Liberal plays are creative? Even many of the most famous are mere variations on the same theme: honorable hardworking blue-collar or poor person being screwed by The Corporation. (Look at the list of plays on my list. You'll see.)
My question is: what's going to be accomplished with a play that is as pointed in a conservative way as other plays are in a liberal way? I saw Paradise Lost at OSF this year and the politics of it were painful - not the particular ideology so much as the sockful-of-pennies caliber of "explaining" to the audience.
Do you write a play of, about, and woven from Affirmative Action, or do you write a play in which AA plays a role? That's not rhetorical, I honestly don't know.
Read "Spinning Into Butter." Deals with the issue of race without (no offense Marty) the polemical heavy handedness. Also makes the race issue more complicated and open-ended - which is really at the root of all great literature, not ideology.
After all, Willie's younger son ("Hap") walks away from his father's grave swearing that he will not let Willie's dream die - that is rather pro-capitalist. And there are plenty of happy, successful capitalists in "Death of a Salesman," it is just that Willie is not one of them.
Thanks, Anonymous, on correctly calling me on the heavy-handedness. As you can see, I've changed it as a result. I will try, also, in the dialogue to be nuanced without losing impact.
Anonymous, regarding Hap, it's clear that his efforts to try to make it as a capitalist are very likely doomed to fail. Arthur Miller throws not a sop to capitalism.
Hi Marty,
What if you layer it a bit more. Add one more character: Melissa, a 35 yo very pregnant woman in the audience, a 3x5 card submitter. (She's the one who has the baby...)
When Melissa's card is read out loud and has been responded to/is being responded to, Melissa stands up (a la constant gardener's female in opening audience scene... but not so boisterous or strong willed necessarily). Melissa is against AA and is debating this. She goes into labor.
Jennifer, not as pregnant as Melissa, knows of a great doctor! (somehow work it in reasonably to get Melissa to Jennifer's doc of choice, or not...) in any case the doc turns out to be Cedric.
Said incidents occur with baby and heart rate, etc.
Simultaneously, on the other half of the stage perhaps, Jennifer, updated with the outcomes, is tormented. After all, she's well intentioned. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, in fact is trying to serve everyone's good by advocating for AA. Jennifer’s sense of responsibility and deep caring got her into AA advocacy. But now, upon results of this operation gone wrong, she's tormented and questions her beliefs and sees that the system, even if originally set up to be beneficial to some, may be a case of the pendulum swinging too far to the other side... she essentially questions it all and herself. Because, (if she referred the doc) she feels responsible for Melissa's well being (or, if not a personal doc referral, Jennifer's still tormented because it may be her dear AA that may be the culprit of Melissa's tragedy.) It appears that someone's life is at stake...
Another scene: Postpartum, Melissa is bitter: I knew it, I told you, this sucks sort of thing. Totally righteous and vindicated and bitter because she just knew that AA was screwed. Now, ironies of ironies, while she was trying to save others with her arguments, now gets to use herself/her baby as a tragic example.
Then we get the results of the tumor, per your description, and we learn that in fact had this not all unfolded as it had, the tumor may not have been discovered, and the baby would have died.
Saved (by mistake) by AA? But at what cost? Loads of questions arise in your audience's minds, hopefully. Sends people back to re-assess their points of view. (At the end of the play, for additional impact, you could have a silent scroll of some statistical data of interest.)
Oh before the play ends, of course, the scene with the cursor and Daniel and his own application...
Thank you most recent Anonymous for your very thoughtful comments. I will reflect on them, you can be sure, and possibly make the change you suggest. Warmly, Marty.
This play sounds, I don't know, just a little bit disgusting.
On a related note: What exactly do you know and understand about the history of the African continent, pre- and post-colonial? Black Americans? Blacks in South America or the Caribbean? The Flynn effect?
Absolutely nothing, it appears.
I have a feeling Melissa is speaking your mind when she "splutters." What does she mean "at no point in history?" You must mean at no point in the modern era, because 500 years ago (and prior to the violent and traumatic period of European colonization) the African continent was no more crime-ridden or low-achieving, as you say, than Europe or Asia. In fact, from what little I know of world history, I seem to recall most of Europe being pretty barbaric for a few thousand years there, while the world's greatest centers of trade and culture flourished in Africa and the Middle East. I could be mistaken.
But nevermind the facts of history; back to the modern era. Should we talk about imperialism, neocolonialism, Apartheid, and other forms of institutionalized racism? Should we talk about the racially and/or ethnically "different" group of people that exists in every country, the Burakumin, the Romani, the Catholic and Gaelic Irish, the Mapuche, the Australian Aborigines, etc. who are or have been considered inferior, uncivilized, and unproductive by those in power, and who still suffer daily because of these misplaced beliefs? Beliefs you appear to espouse? Those in power, until between 10-50 years ago (and 50 is only twice my age, my friend, so I'm referring to when my parents were children) "black is bad" was the name of the game in many parts of the world, and it takes time to see sweeping improvement. Don't blame black people for being the victims of hatred, disenfranchisement, and sabotage, and then not recovering to your arbitrary standards within the arbitrary time-frame you set. I'm smarter than you, and I'm a black woman. Go figure.
It's pathetic that you would even suggest a black man who got into college with the help of (and not solely by) affirmative action is any more likely to make a mistake during a surgical procedure than a white man who got into college based indirectly on the "merit" of growing up in the suburbs and having parents who each made 50K a year. That's not smarter, or even just smart. That's the privilege of circumstance.
If there's anything you should have learned by now, as an adult, as a citizen of the world, it's that the system makes or breaks each and every one of us. If you are truly functioning under the belief that stupidity attaches itself to racial and ethnic makeup, you must be suffering from a serious case of vitiligo.
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