Outside the comfort zone part 2

I'm working with classes studying dramatic literature, and we have recently wrapped up Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 in one class, and we're about to move on to Fences by August Wilson. In another class, we are working with Amiri Baraka's Dutchman,  which I have always found deeply powerful and disturbing and painful. 

Preparing for these discussions, I have been directed to Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro.  This play shared the Obie Award with Baraka's Dutchman in 1964. While I was familiar with Baraka's play and its award, I had never heard of Kennedy's play before this year.

Why? Some of the onus is on me, of course. I need to expand my understanding of plays outside of the standard canon, and outside of my own perspective. 

Still, I knew about Dutchman- and the two plays shared the Obie! Dutchman is included in several anthologies, while I'd not seen Funnyhouse of a Negro mentioned anywhere- not even mentioned as sharing the Obie, when the preface to Dutchman mentions the award.

 Adrienne Kennedy

Funnyhouse of a Negro is also powerful and difficult and disturbing. It is more personally poetic, I think. The play takes place in the mind of Sarah, a woman with a Black father and a white mother, seeking for a place to be, a way to be,  in a world that leaves no room for her and her complicated identity.

I'm also rereading Baraka's essay from The Revolutionary Theatre (1966), and August Wilson's essay The Ground on Which I Stand (1996). Two different voices, approaching the same issue. 

I will look for more of Adrienne Kennedy's work. I need to hear more of these voices. 

Women's voices are there,  we need to uncover them and lift them up. Black voices are there,  queer voices are there, so many voices are there. We need to uncover them, and lift them up. 

Or maybe, just listen without assuming we already know what is being said. Or maybe, just listen without defending or excusing ourselves. Just listen without trying to fix it or correct it. 

Just listen. Allow ourselves to be disturbed, uncomfortable, ashamed, afraid, moved.

Change is not going to happen while we sit back, satisfied that we have already done our parts. 

My students teach me so much more than I teach them. 

Another note: Beverly Cleary died a few days ago. She was 104. "If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it," Cleary is quoted as saying. 

I think it goes for plays, too. There are still voices missing. 

So we should write.