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April 19, 2017 | What Did You Think?,
What did you think of 17 Border Crossings?
Congratulations, you made it across 17 Borders with Thaddeus Phillips. As is true of many of performances by Lucidity Suitcase, there is much to be mined after the experience.
What are notable experiences have you had crossing borders? Did you cross borders to arrive to the theatre? What might the world look like without hard lines drawn around it?
Perhaps, a little philosophical for an audience response blog – but it’s just that kind of show, isn’t it?
Fantastic! Meaningful, current, funny–occasionally hysterically so–beautifully yet minimally staged, original. Phillips’ ear for the tones of specific situations and languages is almost a character in itself.
So creative! Brought back great memories of pre-EU traveling, and current day travelling in many places around the world. Borders emphasize & distinguish cultures, but can also become walls which block the sharing of human experience. Halfway through the play, I was reminded of an experience I had in 1980, as a young college student in London. I invited a fellow student from Japan home with me for the holidays. Many of the kids 5+ hours from London didn’t return home mid-year. We booked flights and flew to Chicago via JFK. I traveled like most late 70s college students (jeans, army backpack), which my mother would later claim was part of the problems that followed, but my friend had dressed up – designer style – to travel. She had a carryon full of gifts for my family, but almost no cash. When the INS officer discovered that, she was detained & taken into, no kidding, a small, square room. I also had no cash (college students!), but was not detained. I explained our circumstances, but they said something to the effect of not believing, or not needing to believe, me. They roughly pushed her 1 direction and me in the other. I was initially angry, but then horrified and humiliated. The INS official didn’t even seem to believe we were in college together. I kept trying to find someone to help, asking various airline employees to call my parents, told them we were going to miss our connecting flights, etc. At the time, I didn’t understand the significance of not having enough cash, but could feel the bias and discrimination. After about an hour, after going through her luggage and asking her to open all her gifts (?!?), they let her go. She was so shook up it took her days to recover. We remained friends for many years, and I visited her twice, but neither she nor her family ever wanted to visit the U.S. Eventually, we lost touch, but, my vision was permanently adjusted to the injustices that take place right here in the USA. Back to the play, Phillips does a great job of highlighting the hassles of entering the US, both as a citizen and a newcomer. Through his humor and creative stage design, he manages to convey the challenges, and also the hilarity, of crossing borders. We loved it!
Brought back many memories of my own border crossings. Especially a tiresome interrogation by KGB functionaries as I was leaving Vladivostok by ship when the USSR still existed: painstaking inspection of my every book and notepad, piles of my shirts and underwear unloaded on the quay in the hot summer sun, droning questions about who I might have contacted, a flaccid brass band nearby playing Russian folk songs to give the passengers a Big Send Off, stern warnings not to take any photos of the harbor because it doubled as a Soviet navy base.
Makes me want to travel more. Although I don’t miss the Soviet Union.
An effective, imaginatively-staged production which held my attention throughout. I especially enjoyed the use of lighting (and the light fixtures themselves!) and movement in the simple Black Box space to add visual interest to a one-man performance piece.
The pro-undocumented-alien propaganda that ends the show is uncharacteristically a bit gratuitous, but understandable given the rigid lockstep of Cultural Marxism required in American arts (and at artsEmerson) today (but, hopefully, not for too much longer).
CORRECTION: An effective, imaginatively-staged production which held my attention throughout. I especially enjoyed the use of lighting (and the light fixtures themselves!) and movement in the simple Black Box space to add visual interest to a one-man performance piece.
The pro-undocumented-alien propaganda that ends the show is uncharacteristically sentimental and a bit gratuitous, but understandable given the rigid lockstep of Cultural Marxism required in American arts (and at artsEmerson) today (but, hopefully, not for too much longer).