Day 28: I Am Pythagoras

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the timing of plays dealing with global catastrophes. I said that these plays generally first start to appear about one and a half to two years after the catastrophe (GC + 1.5 = PAGC) but that the really important plays about the global catastrophe would only start to appear about 10 to 15 years after the event itself (GC + 10 = IPAGC) because that amount of time was enough to gain the objectivity needed to really address the event from a wide, universal perspective but not enough that the event's meaning had already solidified in our minds. I ended by suggesting that given this equation, the really important plays about 9/11 were due to arrive at any second.

I am a genius, guys! I am a genius for all sorts of reasons but I bring it up here and now because I read a play today about 9/11 that went a long way towards proving my theorem. The play is set in 2010 and 2011 and deals with a 9/11 widow who has devoted her life to victims and survivors rights and to the idea that we must continue to fight for justice through legislation. Her devotion has caused her to somewhat ignore her teenage son, who has struggled with the death of his father in his own way, leading him to isolate himself while he is bullied and ostracized at school. And at the same time, the town they live in debates whether or not to erect a memorial in honor of the dead man. Now, this play is not perfect. I don't even think it is very good. But the reasons why it is not very good are directly related to the reasons why it represents how the theater world has moved past its initial, raw, emotional reactions to 9/11 and into a kind of thinking about the events of that day that we will carry forward for many years to come. It's one of the first plays I have read on the subject that deals with 9/11 not as an event that happened to us but as a historical event. As such, the play has the timelessness that is crucial to any hope a work about a global catastrophe has to being considered important.

It's fitting that the story of the play tackles how those close to the events of 9/11 are dealing with it ten years after the fact. In a way, it's a subtle bit of meta in that it reflects what playwrights are now newly dealing with in regards to this tragedy. But with this new approach comes some related problems and this play has a bunch of them. There's the feeling that the play has discovered a previously unknown treasure trove of 9/11-related conflicts and it's not quite sure where to turn. It's like a kid in a candy store, dashing from conflict to conflict, stopping only long enough to sample the goods before running off to the next offering. So here, we get a wife and son who individually have not yet faced their own sadness in a healthy manner. Thus each face their own handful of resulting conflicts along with the conflicts they have with one another. And then there's the conflict the town has in regards to how they honor a man who really was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The attention of the play is divided and so its themes feels less than fully explored and the whole play feels a little skittish. But its approach, its perspective, and its central question of how we will face such a tragedy as it recedes into the past paves the way for the plays soon to follow.

I am motherfucking Pythagoras!