Thursday, April 30, 2009

ohhh, okay, its art, right?

I Just got through watching a show here in Montreal, "Le bruit des os qui craquent"... It is about child soldiers. First off i want to say my french sucks, so I can't say that I understood most of what was said. Heres the sticking point for me, and I'm willing to listen(and i did) to reasons for the theatre companies choices. In the advertising they talk of child soldiers in the congo, there are pictures in the front of the theatre, of children,African children, sad looking,with rifles,combat gear etc. So when the lights go down and the stage lights go up,,, why are there no african faces on the stage? yeah! I'm sitting there and the two actors playing the child soldiers are white, I'm sitting there thinking, interesting choices, (as i said, my French sucks.) The actors are wearing that camoflage makeup, so i can't really tell, but as it goes on, yep! So what's the deal? The writer took the words from a girl who was a child soldier, the work is good, but am I finicky about not seeing black faces on the stage ,when the text and theme is about black children, it reminds me of kevjumba In his "Asians just aren't cool". I asked others who saw the production about the choices and I heard; (a)They wanted to give a universal theme to the play;(b) They wanted to get away from the idea of child soldiers being only African As in this could be any child anywhere, So why then use the images of African children in the selling of the show. Why use African child soldier stories?
I have ruled out, the lack of French speaking Black actors. maybe Kevjumba is right (i'll paraphrase) "Black just aren't cool."

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