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In the Whorl of it All, I do Know How to Smile

I do know how to smile. After naming a litany of things he had never learned to do, Whorl Inside a Loop’s Jeffrey (Chris Meyers) proudly proclaims, “But, I do know how to smile.”

In case you’re wondering, the play ended with an endearing standing ovation. I also didn’t hesitate to get on my own two feet at Second Stage Theatre and join in on the adulation after sitting at the edge of my seat, then back, then on the edge again once 100 minutes of wit, comedy and raw life had faded to black. The late cultural theorist Stuart Hall wrote, “But in order for me not to be authoritative, I’ve got to speak autobiographically.” Self-ethnography is that the very, very scary thing Hall is talking about. It’s that that thing in Technicolor or in HD: our life. But those stories are what save others. Storytelling is an age-old tradition that griots to healers to Greek playwrights have used in the course of preserving history and humanity for centuries as we know. Stories conveyed via art, film, palimpsest or good-old-fashioned writing are hearkened back onto to incite inspiration for generations to come, but like Whorl, one need only look at contemporaneity to do that. One only need look at the whorl that creates our own unique fingerprint, to do that.

In Whorl, ‘taking’ someone’s own oral history for personal gain becomes the contentious point of entry. Upon leaving, and during, you can’t help but to question who’s speaking for whose story. In the play, The Volunteer, played by Sherie Rene Scott, who also co-wrote the play with Dick Scanlan, is flanked by six black men during her theater workshop aptly named “Theatricalizing Personal Narratives.” The juxtaposition itself on the barely-there, barren set brings your focus directly onto the enigmatic cast of characters. Each of the six prisoners played by Derrick Baskin, Nicholas Christopher, Chris Meyers, Ryan Quinn, Daniel J. Watts and Donald Weber, Jr., whom also did double-duty with each reverting to a second character during the production. The characters are a set in themselves. The gesticulations, witty banter mixed with sexual innuendo, and manic conversations that take place bring your attention to each individual person. And as you look at them, and you feel their words, and their expressive eyes stare out while giving stately monologues, you are not just invited, but you are summoned to take part in the histories of murderers, the abandoned, the sufferers, the impoverished and the undeserved.

The Volunteer is a jovial, bouncy, seemingly ‘nonthreatening’ white woman. But in many ways, the prisoners are, too. Nonthreatening that is.

When the interactions take place within the prison, it’s not akin to being with the outsiders, you’re a fly on the wall with the forgotten. And sure, some may refer to those who are incarcerated as sea urchins, simply scraping the bottom of society’s floor. But, couldn’t we all theatricalize a narrative? Is that not the purpose behind Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York? To get behind it all. To understand why some have been rehabilitated while others have not? If not understand, at the very least take some empathy and perhaps some grace in the privilege of one’s life? Whorl brings its audience into this world while challenging its audience to think about the source of pain. While watching the men on stage I couldn’t help but think about incarcerated women, incarcerated transgender women and incarcerated transgender men. And though they’ve ‘been waiting on you at the doe,’ there’s a story there, too. Last summer, rapper Remy Ma was released from prison. Upon her release she conducted a slate of interviews where she discussed her sadness about the culture of women’s prisons. She discussed how families often did not visit their mothers, aunts and daughters. Yet, at men’s prisons, it’s an entirely different event with women and children lined up at the crack of dawn. And sometimes, not being able to see their male counterparts because the visiting rooms are so overcrowded. Are we so normalized to prison culture and mass incarceration for men that it is seen as necessity, while when women are imprisoned the act is too egregious and unforgivable? I suppose that complicates the notion of who is really forgotten. Both, but in different ways and under different value systems.

Back in Whorl, the story takes a turn when we find out The Volunteer is not working with these men for her pure self-edification. When she enters the prison, she is joking about switching from bras with underwire to sports bras. The writing in this particular moment confronts the audience with privilege because she has different cause to joke, laugh and smile. After each workshop is complete, she is able leave and return to her family and cast of friends who are gearing up for her role in Conquistadors: The Musical.

That’s where the other side of The Volunteer’s life is introduced and other cast members enter the stage. Well, they don’t so much as enter the stage, rather the same prisoners flex their versatility and raw talent by becoming complete opposites of what they had been playing on stage just moments before in their rehabilitative theater workshop. The energy changes fast. Mannerisms grow more complex. Titles had changed. And all hell essentially breaks loose before you are back in the prison workshop. The in and out of it all was quite tense.

Overall, the play itself alludes to the mass incarceration and prison industrial complex debates for black men. I too, have a male relative who spent over 35 years of his life in prison. He was incarcerated at the age of 16. A similar story in Whorl. When my relative had been released, a releasing officer told him: “Man, you shouldn’t have been in here this long.” In which he responded: “I just want to see my mother.” They drove off quickly, my grandmother jokingly told me later, and stopped at a Subway not too far away for lunch.

I guess, at the end of it all, my relative may not have known how to use a smartphone or download Netflix, but he too knew how to smile.

Photo Courtesy: Joan Marcus

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