Vietnam, Alabama, Puerto Rico, NFL And Rape - We're With Alice In Wonderland

Just some running thoughts.

Ken Burns' Vietnam series is sponsored by David Koch and Bank of America among others.

Watching planes and helicopters fly into makeshift landing zones in the Vietnam series made me scratch my head when NPR reported that planes couldn't land in Puerto Rico because there was no electricity or navigation.  People have forgotten that navigation is nice, but not necessary in emergency situations.

But then Puerto Rico's 3+ million American citizens can't vote for president and their congress member doesn't have a real vote.  And you thought voter suppression was bad in Texas.  Maybe they should establish residency in Alabama, so they can vote  for Doug Jones for US Senate against the new Republican Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore.  You know, the guy who's been kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court because of his insistence on putting up a Ten Commandments sculpture in the Supreme Court.  Go to the link, this guy got support from Bannon and Palin for a reason.  He's way out there.

Blacks make up 25% of the Alabama population.  But restrictions on voting are a serious obstacle.  If you've been convicted of a crime, and blacks are much more likely to be in Alabama than whites, it's hard to recover your vote.  A Mother Jones article says a new law loosens that, but convicted felons are still barred forever.  The article says about 15% of black voters are affected by these laws.  So with an influx of Puerto Rican voters, maybe Doug Jones could win.  The election's in December so there isn't much time for Puerto Ricans to get their residency.

Then there's football.  People kneel when they pray to God, but if they kneel when the national anthem is played that's bad.  Because they are equating the flag and anthem with God?  That doesn't seem to be the logic.  But, in his Jabberwocky way, Trump is trying to change the debate from killing of blacks to honoring the flag.  Distinguishing between symbols of a false reality of America's justice for all and the harsh reality of rampant white supremacy is hard for most Americans.

Just as the Vietnam series is showing us how killing innocent civilians was  seen as ok to get better body counts,  to show we were winning when we weren't, Americans still believe that killing innocent black American citizens is ok, because - well I guess, you can't tell the good ones from the bad, like with the Vietnamese.

Betsy Devos is showing us the real values, by changing Title IX so that innocent men don't get besmirched by wrongful accusations of rape or sexual harassment.  Yes, that's not good, but it's not as bad as being raped. ["Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes."] and it's very difficult to get justice.  But we protecting men from being falsely accused of such crimes is more important.  As I say, Alice in Wonderland, we're there.  Just like it's better to be outraged that black men don't stand up for the anthem, than be outraged over innocent blacks being killed by police.

Stalking The Bogeyman - Anchorage Is Location Of The Play And Events In The Play

When he was 31, they found their son's diary that said he'd been raped..  It happened when he was seven.  David Hothouse (played by Devin Frey) tells his story in this play.  How it happened, why he didn't tell anyone, how it haunted him, how he stalked his rapist with the intent to kill him.

Cast discusses play with audience after performance

This is not a spoiler.  I'd read the 2004 Anchorage Press article about the rape when it came out.

I'd heard the This American Life piece David did.

I'd read the follow up Press article that came out last year that named his rapist.

And I heard him testify last year urging the legislature to pass Erin's law (it passed, despite  Sen. Dunleavy)  to require Alaska schools to teach students how to spot the signs of a child molester and how to report suspicions or if something happens.  So I knew most of what was going to happen on stage.

It didn't matter.  The play is riveting.  The story was adapted to the stage deftly.  It's one fast eighty minute ride.  The University of Alaska Anchorage actors are spot on.  Amazingly, Frey plays David at ages seven through 31.  And he's believable in all of them.  Yes, it's his adult body, but he manages to make being seven work effortlessly.  (Well for the audience, I'm sure he put a lot of effort into it.)
The play is especially compelling because most of it takes place in Anchorage.  The story is real.  The actors portray real people.  One of them was the principal of my son's high school.  
But the play itself doesn't preach.  Its instruction is merely reliving David's experience and David telling us about it - how it happened, why he didn't tell, how he had to repeatedly be around his molester, and how it affected him.  

This is an important play, not only because it speaks about the unspeakable, but it's a very good drama.   

You can see it this afternoon at UAA or next weekend.  You can get your ticket online here.  No, I'm not working for the UAA theater department.  I just think it's an amazing play that as many people should see as possible.  And for those of you outside of Anchorage, they are taking it on the road this summer.  The site says 'including "Mat-Su, Homer, Seward, Valdez and Fairbanks." Unfortunately, it looks like they're sticking to the road system. Maybe if other locations invite them, they'll think about coming.

I was thinking, at the end of the play, that we'd gone the whole evening without any humor to relieve the tension.  But thinking back I realized there had been some, but I couldn't remember anyone laughing.  I mentioned this to the director afterward, and he said some audiences laugh, others don't.  Devin said there was some laughter that night, but not much.  Actors also noted the extra tension of acting in front of some of the people they were portraying.  

The psychology department at UAA was also involved in this production.  Working with the actors during rehearsals and there were people there that night.  One student is doing research on theater as a means of communicating important issues and others were there to talk with audience members who might need counseling after the play.   

I got to talk to Devin Frey, who played David Holthouse, after the performance.  I pulled out my camera to take a picture, but he was interesting and so I did a short video as he was talking about learning from David about the role.  It's only about a minute long.  

But don't just take my word for it, you can read the New York Times review of when this played Off-Broadway.  This is the West Coast premier.  

And there's a lot I should have mentioned but didn't.  The director, Dr. Brian cook played an important role.  All the other actors (who are in the top picture) two of whom played multiple roles, and the playwright, Markus Potter, who heard the piece on This American Life and contacted David about making it into a play.  

I have to say, I never understood the spelling of 'bogeyman' since it's pronounced 'boogie man.'

Thanks to the cast and crew for a great evening.  I first included David Holthouse (which spell check keeps changing to Hothouse) in that sentence.  But my comments to David are more complicated.  I'm truly sorry you were raped and then haunted by your rapist for so many years.  I thank you for finding ways to tell this story and hope that it plays a role in helping children avoid what happened to you, and let them know how to reach out if it does happen.   And help parents interpret the  non-verbal signs of abuse their kids send while they try to hide what happened.  And I hope that you can now, or at least soon, leave this behind, and live the life you were headed for before that night.


[UPDATE 9:40 AM:  Again, I'm back.  I left out the most important point of this story  - the silence and denial over the issue of child molestation.  For whatever reasons, this is a huge sickness in our country (and I'm supposing world) that gets way too little attention for its magnitude and horrors.  The statistics I learned last year at the Erin's Law hearings are staggering - one in four girls, one in five boys are molested.  (This ranges from inappropriate touching to fondling all the way to rape as in this play.)  And while we get story after story in the news - today I'm reading about Dennis Hastert - yet we can just skip over to the next article and go on doing nothing.  Being in a dark theater with 100 or more other people watching live actors portray David's story communicates this horror in a way all the newspaper articles just don't do.]