Nicholas Barnard Women Playwrights: Spinning into Butter 4/22/2002
1. I see three possibilities for Simon's motivations for harassing himself.
First, there is the explanation provided in the script, that Simon did what he did for attention. Essentially he was not connecting with anyone else on campus, was lonely and decided to draw attention to himself. Given the clarity of this idea in the script, I tend to favor it as the most likely.
Second, there is the possibility that Simon was a master planner, and felt the need that the school address its diversity issues, but realized the futileness of direct approach, so he devised the self-harassment scheme to begin the students talking, and achieved his goal. I tend to think that this thought line isn't plausible, because of Simon's freshman status, and the information provided in the script.
Finally, there is the possibility that Simon truly has a multiple personality disorder, which was exacerbated by his first year in college. This theory would tend to better support the clues given in the script, but I find it diminishing to Simon's character, as it implies a mental illness, and a lack of control.
2. I believe the character with the longest journey in this play Greg Sullivan. While his journey in this play is uncompleted, he starts out at the beginning of the play a pure bread WASP, totally unaware how people of other races feel and only interested in the subject as a method of boosting himself. But he (and presumably many other students) open a dialogue that will fundamentally be a starting point for all of them, and something that will force them to reevaluate their value structure. His journey is becoming aware of the value of inter-racial discussion, and becoming aware of how people of other races feel.
I suspect many people would point at Sarah Daniel's journey as the furthest, I see her as ending up where she started, aware of her internal racist tendencies, and knowing they are bad, but she is unable to fully divulge herself of them.
3. Sarah and Ross see each other as friends with benefits at the beginning of the play, and at the end they seem more like confidants, sharing their problems, feelings, issues and concerns with one and other. I see their relationship as having lost any sexual relationships, but having grown stronger and deeper, as friends that dually understand one and other, and still see each other as a mystery. Their relationship has deepened into something that would be a long lasting relationship in my mind.
4. I am very often in a minority. I either fortunately or unfortunately have the ability to be invisible as a gay man. I can let people know that I am gay, or not. In a more general sense, I choose to be silent at certain times, as it is not relevant to the situation. In the times before I was out, I was constantly silent. It was the most unempowering and discouraging thing that I have experienced. In many ways I feel that my silence stunted my growth in many ways, as there is a marked period where I consistently under performed, and in the words of a national report I figured “how to become invisible so [I would] not be verbally and physically attacked. Too often, [I had too] little energy left to learn.” In many ways, I chose to be a in the majority, denying any status as a minority. This seems fundamentally unfair to compare my experiences to those of racial minorities, as I could choose to identify myself as a minority, or not, but those who are racial minorities, cannot choose to be identifiable as a minority, they just are always identifiable as a minority.
5. My neighborhood, and friends in high school consisted of primarily white students and people. There were at my school a few “token” black students. I honestly find it hard to ascertain if people have changed their true feelings in their heart, but I surmise the people have made the intellectual choice to be aware of their racist tendencies, but still hold some racist feelings in their heart. My honest opinion of the best way to stop racism and intolerance is continual dialogue between people of all races. While this tends to be the most time intensive way of accomplishing these goals. It circumvents the “white cleansing” as Sarah Daniels eludes to of simple one-shot programs where members of the majority feel good because they did something “multicultural” and the members of minorities' feelings that the horse has been beaten once again to death. By truly understanding people first as individuals, and then as Black, Male, Female, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, American, African, Gay, Straight, Bisexual, trangendered, or any other number of quick and easy labels alluding to “minority” groups. We must start by understanding people as individuals, and then as members of a minority, only through this bottom up process will we break down racism and intolerance.
In a separate vein, we (I explicitly will include myself) as theatrical artists create works where we set out with the explicit goal of creating a cathartic experience that exists fundamentally to illuminate a specific cause or wrong; then show how the audience majority exactly what was done; implicate a group in which they belong to as the cause of the wrong; then allow the audience to walk out of the theatre cleansed, and relieved of any social responsibility to work towards any change, provided with the feeling of having done something meaningful by watching theatre.