An Unobstructed View
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Part of the problem is that some tales are simply more interesting or better told than others. This is as true on the stage as it is on the page: the two adaptations of Terkel’s Race I’ve seen here both failed because of the respondents’ banal, repetitive, or disingenuous observations on a complicated and difficult subject. Missing from the cacophony of anecdotes and opinions is something only a thoughtful commentator can provide: a way of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Though oral historians do organize and shape to some extent by deciding what to leave in and what to take out, their conscious standing back from analysis is the intellectual ancestor of lazy contemporary journalism, where quoting a liar from each side passes for reporting.
Alex Kotlowitz–author of the award-winning study of Cabrini-Green, There Are No Children Here–ventured into oral history in a series of public-radio essays featuring people telling their own stories. He and Amy Dorn have now adapted these essays into a piece for Pegasus Players, but it’s not a play. Instead it’s a patchwork of scenes, each a first-person account from someone living in Chicago, that lacks even the connective tissue of a subject like working or race: these are simply stories Kotlowitz found, and found interesting. There is no drama here.
When: Through 6/26: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jennifer Girard.
