Theater's day of reckoning: Monique Gaffney: 'It’s time to even the playing field' - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Monique Gaffney is a longtime San Diego actor, dramaturg and is the daughter of the late Floyd Gaffney, who co-founded the Department of Theatre & Dance at UC San Diego, and from 1971 until his death in 2007 helped lead San Diego’s Common Ground Theatre, one of the nation’s oldest Black theater organizations.

I grew up surrounded by the influences of a father immersed in the world of Black theater after Langston Hughes approached him following his avant-garde performance at Adelphi University and asked, “… (you ever) think about doing Black theater?”

At least that’s the story I’ve been told. This rich legacy has defined my experience and greatly shaped the artist I have become. I watched my dad teach and direct theater until the day he died. I remember going to rehearsals sometimes, going to countless opening nights, and tip-toeing downstairs to dance the night away at the cast parties.

I remember staring at the framed poster of a Black man dressed in his finest leisure suit complete with bell bottoms, and a fedora covering part of his full afro that extended across his square shoulders. The words “No Place To Be Somebody” printed at the top. I was schooled about my place in this world: That Black is beautiful and to be celebrated, but that there were also those who feared my Blackness. As history has shown, the past struggles of racial inequality persist. There has always been a price to pay for freedom in this country for all people of color.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, it is political to be a person of color. Being Black is in right now, as the day of reckoning arrives slowly. Black culture is at the center of public affairs in this country. Conversations that are long overdue, and rarely (or never) happen, are now happening. Demands have been made locally and nationally. Numerous “statement letters” in support of racial equality and inclusivity have been created and posted for all to see. Space has been created for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) artists to be heard.

I don’t know how long that door will be open, though. The question remains how many theaters will truly hold themselves accountable and keep their word. Honoring promises to do better is not enough. Action is necessary. While it’s important to be supportive, recognizing the harm done from the past and accepting the call to change is essential. Only time will tell, I suppose.

I feel like writing a long letter, much like James Baldwin did to his nephew in “The Fire Next Time,” in honor of what it means to be Black in America.

The journey from being considered three-fifths a person, as boasted by the Constitution to enable the South to get more votes, to being considered a whole person has been fraught with much violence — mentally, physically and spiritually. It does something incomprehensible to a person when they’re seen as something of no value — aka inferior.

It breeds a society of implicit bias, thereby perpetuating stereotypes and preconceived notions of race and discrimination. To see Black bodies still hanging from trees (like those of Dominique Alexander in Manhattan and Robert Fuller in Palmdale); knees pressed against necks (like George Floyd, and in 1963 the photograph of two White officers watching three White officers assault a Black woman on the ground with the caption, “Birmingham Cops Manhandling Negro Woman”); continued police brutality; and to witness the violence experienced by Black protesters policed in the streets versus the treatment of White protesters in the Capitol riots, I can see we still have a long way to go.

If the righting of wrongs isn’t discussed, then there’s little chance for the evolution of change. The pain embedded in the past will only heal if it is faced head on; otherwise everything gets stuck. Conversations don’t happen, and movement forward is either hindered or it moves in slow motion causing change to be irrelevant.

For all voices truly to be heard, not only is it important to tackle institutionalized racism by attending EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) trainings, and learning how to be anti-racist, but also the deeper, challenging work of identifying implicit bias. People need to be made aware of how their subconscious thoughts and beliefs can influence their behavior towards all people of color.

The mini character assassinations that people of color encounter daily have to end. Racial inclusivity calls for the elimination of barriers in order to create access. This means, more identity-conscious casting, more BIPOC artists in charge and in the board rooms, and more opportunities to audition and create work. In-depth conversations about representation also need to happen. White theaters need to “think outside of the box” and question what representation means and how to effectively do it.

It’s time to even the playing field, and that’s more possible now because of digital platforms. Also, now theaters can produce and promote their shows, without worrying about big budgets to pay the actors and production teams. This opens the door for collaboration and less competition, and further helps to dismantle a systemic problem.

In the words of the late, great pioneering artist extraordinaire Douglas Turner Ward, who wrote an article in the New York Times titled “American Theatre: For Whites Only?”: ”With rare exceptions … American legit theatre, even at its most ambitious seriousness, is essentially a theatre of the Bourgeois, by the Bourgeois, about the Bourgeois, and for the Bourgeois. A pretentious theatre elevating the narrow preoccupations of restricted class interests to inflated universal significance, tacitly assuming that its middle-class, affluent-oriented absorptions are central to the dominant human condition. A theatre rarely embracing broader frames of reference or more inclusive concerns.”

Although written in 1966 at the height of the civil rights movement, few things have changed, but that is not enough. Serving as the dramaturg for Common Ground Theatre’s digital theatre production of Douglas Turner Ward’s “Day of Absence,” I was reminded of all the dehumanizing experiences Black people faced trying to live in this world. Especially the Black actor who endured the mockery of minstrel shows and White actors in black face, and was crudely acknowledged, denied existence because of skin color.

The problem with the prescriptive institution of racism is how it has limited the dreams and aspirations of the BIPOC artist. It is time for a healing, time to renew government support and sponsorship in the arts. Create new programs (far better than FDR’s Federal Theatre Project of the 1930s) that are well funded and truly offer artists an equitable wage to earn a living. Some are in the works, but we need more. In the words of Langston Hughes, “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun/Or fester like a sore — /And then run?/Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load/Or does it explode?”

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Theater's day of reckoning: Monique Gaffney: 'It’s time to even the playing field' - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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