I saw Beau Willimon's Lower Ninth [his play about Katrina] and I will say this: Over a year ago I was nearly chased out of a theater workshop about Hurricane Katrina. A group of writers were brought together to discuss the impact it had on the country. And all I said was: Let's discuss those survivors who saw the hurricane as an opportunity to ditch New Orleans. If there were a cross in the room, they would've nailed me to it.
Ricardo Khan, artistic director of Crossroads Theater in New Jersey, had this phenomenal idea: he wanted to gather a group of writers and discuss current events and then build a theater project from it. First stop, New York City then on to London and Johannesburg. And in each city the theater artists would explore the relevancy of their recent chaos. You know—the bombings, post-Apartheid, Katrina. And trust me, in NYC you had a room full of eager writers eager to speak their truth, or at least comment on the truth of others.
But what happened was this: there was only one writer who was originally from New Orleans among us. And I felt a bit like an impostor. But what made matters worse, everyone was eager to sentimentalize. You know, the poor babies, the elderly, the evil Army Corps of Engineers. There was a collective sentiment growing that suggested the survivors of Katrina were simply the faceless impoverished needing some well-read New Yorker to send blankets of charity. And that's where I drew the line.
I certainly felt deep empathy and sympathy for the residents of New Orleans. I raged and cried and organized a rally for support on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles. My father's cousin and family lost everything and for at least three days no one knew if he escaped in a friend's boat, or had perished with his house. My actress-friend Claire was sitting on my sofa when she first saw the images of her hometown in chaos, and she kept screaming: that's my street. That store is around the corner from my grandmother's house. But other than me, the other writers in the room [except for the brilliant scribe with the French surname], were without a specific connection to Katrina, and were certainly not prepared for the wrench I threw into the gumbo. And that was what, you ask? I wanted to discuss the voice of survivors who were bludgeoned by the storm, but happy to have a reason to leave that hellhole. Yes, you could hear a dog bark fifty miles away.
I thought that was a legitimate request. And me, being the dramatist that I am, I'm always interested in the other side of the coin. The other reaction, or voice, that helps humanize and bring balance. In other words, I'm not interested in romanticizing the victimization of the poor and black. I like to explore the intelligence, the notion of choice. Now of course someone asked, Keith, what do you mean? So I said: my cousin's daughter moved to Houston following Katrina and sent letters to all of my family thanking us for our donations and to say she was saddened by what happened in her city, but now her children "may have a chance out of that hell-hole". Now, that's just one person. But it's one person who challenged my early sentimentality and I was eager to challenge my fellow writers'.
My request wasn't given much more attention after that. The sentimentality pervaded [understandingly so]. Maybe it was too early in the game to inject differing opinions. But my point is this: I don't think there can be a profound piece of theater until someone who survived the trenches of Katrina writes about surviving the trenches of Katrina. And although Beau Willimon's Lower Ninth courageously explores life on the rooftop, I still wait for that voice from Katrina who can speak for itself.
