The artist and the city Essay Example For Students

The artist and the city Essay As Athol Fugard approached his 60th Birthday Celebration, an October-November festival of his works in Atlanta, Ga., he had a last-minute twinge of misgiving. Girding himself for the revealing readings from his published Notebooks, adapted by Theater Emory, the prodigious South African playwright cracked to one of his hosts, I feel as though you should carry me onto the stage in an open casket. As it turned out, no one was more alive to the words than their author. Listening, with head lowered and eyes closed, to the 1960s entries about his dying father (the unseen, pain-wracked figure that haunts his diaries, as well as the plays Hello and Goodbye and Master Haroldand the Boys), Fugard wept. When the lights came up, he mingled for a while with the audience, remembering names with the kindly care most famous artists can only manage for wealthy backers. The reading and reception set the tone for an often joyous and occasionally confrontational encounter between the artist and the city: five productions at three theatres, as well as an array of debate-sparking forums during his three-week resi dency. Fugard was hardly the Great Author on a Delta Stopover collecting a life-achievement award; he came as a working artist, and needed every ounce of energy enhanced by his daily five-mile jogs (whose pace frustrated a rollerblade-mounted cameraman from CBS Sunday Morning) around Piedmont Park. We call the festival a partynot a retrospectivefor good reasons, said Theater Emory artistic director Vincent Murphy. We celebrate a man whos as engaged today, artistically and politically, as hes ever been. Indeed, when Fugard wasnt acting as assistant director (a title he relished) to Del Hamilton on his stirring 7 Stages production of My Children! My Africa!, he was directing brush-up rehearsals of the American premiere of his Playland, a co-production of Californias La Jolla Playhouse and Atlantas Alliance Theatre Company. An intense, exorcistic encounter between a black night watchman and a white ex-soldier in a deserted amusement park on New Years Eve, 1989, Playland is unquestionably Fugards most overtly theatrical work since Master Harold more than a decade ago. (The playwright joked that the whimsical-garish-brooding carnival set by Susan Hilferty, and the masterfully coordinated lighting and sound designs by Dennis Parichy and David Budries, will shock a lot of my critics in terms of production values.) And as his first major utterance since the release of Nelson Mandela, Playland may be Fugards most politically provocative play since the height of his anti-apartheid writings. As my country moves forward, said the playwright in his precise, lilting tenor, no amount of political blueprinting or committees can cross the real hurdles in the hearts and minds of men. That is: forgiveness. Coming to grips with the violence in our past, having the courage to say, Yes, I did thisplease forgive me. De Klerk keeps saying apartheid was misguidedthats not good enough, man! To hell with misguided it was evil! Fugards voice has risen so that it is shaking with rage as he spits out the last word. We must acknowledge that evil, as Germany did with the Holocaust. Otherwise, well have as our first inheritance only lies and hate and bitterness. The New South Africa will be a hollow phrase. Fugard chose to continue Playlands premiere in the spiritual hub of the Civil Rights Movement, immediately after the La Jolla run, out of a sense of poetic justice. In the welcoming words of Michael Lomax, a leading Atlanta politician and creator of the National Black Arts Festival; Mr. Fugard, we have a kinship with you. The playwright has corresponded for years with Atlanta friends, among them Nancy Kearns, a former 7 Stages dramaturg who wrote to him in South Africa from out of the blue; and actor-director Brenda Bynum, a Fugard specialist who met and befriended him at the 1987 Spoleto Festival USA production of his The Road to Mecca. The womens letters stoked his fascination with Atlantas civil rights history and its place as Mecca for the black professional class. Even to this day, it seems to me Atlanta is a touchstone, asserted Fugard, whose bristly beard and weathered face recall the tough-nut merchant seaman he was in his youth. Perhaps the essential American drama is being played out here certainly the greatest experiment. It was at a Theatre Communications Group conference in 1990 that Fugard met Alliance artistic director Kenny Leona 36-year-old black man whose past performances in Fugard plays are part of Atlanta lore. They became instant friends and vowed to collaborate. Wagging his finger as they parted, Leon said, Remember, we have an appointmentmischievously using the playwrights favorite word for his personal destinies. Fugard has sensed he had an appointment to write a play about forgiveness and South Africa since the late 70s. I was in New York, and I found myself in a bar late at night I was still drinking at this pointand I saw this man who seemedto have a cloud over him. Just staring at his shot glass. I sat down near him, and he looked up and said, Im not a killerIm not a killer. It became clear that I was talking to a Vietnam vet, and that something terrible I couldnt grasp the detailshad happened in Nam. Playland may have begun at that moment. The haunted vet became Gideon Le Roux, the bedraggled ex-soldier wandering into the carnival at nightfall, who fought the black SWAPO forces on the Namibian frontier. The image that torments him is one that Fugard came upon in a newspaper. There were two white soldiers standing in a truck full of black bodies, which they were dumping into a pit. Each of them had an arm as they had dragged this dead young man to the edge of the truck, and I thought, My God its like two Roman Centurions taking an African Christ-figure down from the Cross.' By making Gideon one of those centurions, Fugard created a character so wracked with guilt that he drunkenly, desperately seeks out a black man to beg for redemption. By a strange fluke, it turns out to be a night watchman, Martinus Zoeloe, who also bears the invisible scar of Number 6 (as in the 6th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill) on his head. His compassion is tested to the extreme when the viciously taunting Gideon demands, Kill me or forgive me. Leon, whose two-and-a-half-year tenure has been marked by some white flight among subscribers in spite of a balanced, eclectic repertoire, saw that Playland had a message that Atlanta needs to heara message that doesnt make whites feel guilty or make blacks angry. As the director received freshly written pages of the play over the transatlantic fax last spring, America was reeling from the beatings of Rodney King and Reginald Denny; Atlantas street disturbances were among the worst in the country, second only to Los Angeles. It was uncanny to me, Fugard avows, his eyes wide with amazement, that my play was going straight into the two areas of the country where the pain had been the worst. I couldnt imagine how it would be received. One of those who took part in peaceful demonstrations in Atlanta in spite of classmates involvement in the near-riotswas Saul Williams, a 20-year-old student at prestigious Morehouse College. In his acclaimed professional acting debut in My Children! My Africa!, he was on the far shore of the debate, playing an enraged student who defies his teachers courageous plea for peace. I met Mr. Fugard with mixed emotions. I didnt know if such a play could be written by a white man. But I spoke to black South Africans who knew much of his work, and I was very impressed with the man himself. It was obvious the story came from the goodness of his soul. As much as the playwright appreciated newfound friends such as Williams, he was also profoundly affected by the angrier black students he addressed on local campuses and in the Alliance audience following preview performances. These exchanges, startlingly blunt even to the veteran of the apartheid wars, helped him clarify some of my own thinking about the situation in South Africa. Fugard quoted from his own Atlanta diary in an essay commissioned by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution: A black South African female student in her early 20s. She stared at me unflinchingly out of what I sensed was a deep well of smouldering resentment. I hesitate to use the word hate but it might well have been as strong as that. When she eventually spoke, the question was for Kenny, sitting next to me. How can you be his friend after what his people did to the black people of South Africa? Kenny spoke quietly. I will never forget his words. He is not a friend. He is my brother. If I do not forgive him, there is no hope for us in this world. Theater Emorys shrewdly selected repertoire of early, lesser-known Fugard worksHello and Goodbye (1965), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972) and the two-part readings of the adapted Notebooks: 1960-77opened a window of personal history through which to appreciate the most recent plays. For instance, the troubled anti-hero of Hello, Johnnie Smits, is spiritually shackled to and (in a transformation prefiguring Sam Shepard) ultimately becomes his crippled father. Johnnie was described by Fugard as that very timid side of me, always at war with the brave devil in me. Notebooks contained the germinal idea of nearly every Fugard play. Foreshadowing Statements, based on the true case of a black principal and white librarian who were prosecuted under apartheid law for their secret love affair, the playwright recorded the eerily beautiful sight of two cobras first mating almost upright on a garden wallthen hacked to bits by the gardeners spades: Six seconds in which me n destroy something only God can make. Directed by Bynum with an intimate, Beckettian spareness that brought its streaks of poetry into sharp relief, Statements was the festivals surprising gem. Its principals, Rob Cleveland and mary Lynn Owen, had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary. There had never been a way for us to express all the difficult things about our relationship, the uncomfortable vibrations we get from both whites and blacks, said Owen. Suddenly we had a place for all of that feeling to pour out, to come into focus. The actresss sense of vulnerability was only heightened by the knowledge that the creator of her character would be sitting only a few feet away. But Fugard put her fears to rest by approaching her at a pot-luck dinner that 7 Stages threw for the playwright and Atlantas theatre community. Mr. Fugard said to me, Youll find Im a wonderful audience. I eat up everything you give me.' .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .postImageUrl , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:hover , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:visited , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:active { border:0!important; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:active , .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4 .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uf181d8ccd02ab2a43ac68b49e2ccdde4:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: McTeague Persuasive Essay We will write a custom essay on The artist and the city specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now One the amusement park setting of Playland:Â   I came across an old entry from my notebooks about such a parkan icon of my youth! As hard-up as our family was, my mum always scraped together a few pennies so that we could have a few rides. That was my Christmas and my New Years. It was exclusively for whites in those days, but with a few matinees set aside for other races.Years later, I was driving through Karroo and I saw this sad little amusement park, encamped on the outskirts of a little town. It struck me what a visual setting it would be for a play, and what a metaphora place where people could go to play and to forget the harsh realities of their lives. On turning 60 and the New South Africa:Â   Just when there was the temptation to start thinking, Okay, its the home stretch now, my country throws the biggest drama of my entire life |the release of Nelson Mandela~ right in my face, and says, No, man! Wait a minute! Youve got another guess coming: weve only just started!The past was simple: I was ready to stand and be counted as a dissident voice. The future will be infinitely more complexrich, and provocative. There was some disturbing talk recently of cultural commissars and the correct thing for artists to sayit sounded a little like the old South Africa but from a different perspective. So I expect Ill go on as before, the outsider. On writing, and a sense of place:Â   When I sit down and face what I still lovingly call the Inquisition of Blank Paper, I feel I must be in South Africa, so thats why I spend half the year there. That country gives me my stories, for I understand its codes of life down to my bones. I have a house in the Karroo, outside of a little village with only 10 or 12 permanent residents. I become a bachelor when I writethank God Sheila |his wife of over 30 years~ understands this. Im self-sufficient there, with my windmill and my orchards, in my island of serenity and silence. Playland was mostly written there. On spirituality and his themes:Â   As I looked over what I had written in Playland, I was amazed to find more religious imageryor let me say instead, spiritual concernsthan I had been aware of. This was certainly a departure for meBut as Gideon tells Martinus, Gods forgotten usits just you and me tonight. Thats the essential theme in all my writing. Its what we do to each other, and with each other, one-on-one, on thefaceofthisearth! Thats the arena. Thats our damnation, man, or our salvation.

How to Work with an Indecisive Boss

How to Work with an Indecisive Boss There’s an unspoken truth in the world of work- although we usually get to pick our jobs we don’t get to pick our bosses. If we’re lucky, we get to work with the sort of boss whose a pleasure to be around- fair, pleasant, supportive, decisive, and encouraging. If this is your reality, then count your blessings and try to appreciate your situation. However, if you have a boss who’s something else, then it can pose some real challenges. One category of tricky boss includes the one who never seems to know what he or she wants. They either constantly waste time dragging their heels and delaying making any type of clear decision, or they’re forever changing what they tell you to do. Both of these types can be quite difficult to work with and can really impact your ability to perform your job effectively. But it’s not exactly easy to confront a boss who never seems to know what they want- so what do you do when you’re in this position?Learn your boss’s quirksTry your best to get to know your boss- including their decision-making behaviors and habits- as well as you possibly can over time. Although it can be tricky to expect the unexpected, as you get to know your boss more you may get better at anticipating how they’ll react to any given project or during any key decision-making moment, which may help minimize the ill-effects of their indecisive nature.Stay calm and kind, even when you want to screamYour best bet is to remain patient and do your best to anticipate your boss’s needs- and shifts- and try to work with them, not against them. First off, an indecisive boss is usually an anxious person by nature, and adding to their anxiety by developing an adversarial relationship with them will only serve to make matters worse. With the way many workplaces are structured, the fact is that you have to answer to your boss’s professional whims, as fickle as they may be. Once you know your boss oper ates this way, brace yourself and expect it. Knowing the madness is coming makes is a little easier to swallow.When you find yourself at a crucial point that requires a final decision from your boss, try and make the moment as stress free as possible. Also, do your best to reduce any external distractions that may make it challenging for your boss to concentrate and focus on the decision at hand. If it’s your job to present your boss with information so they can make a decision, be as clear and straightforward as possible. Always try to approach your boss in a calm and patient manner when a decision needs to be made- this will help put them in their best mindset to determine what they want at any given time.Keep a paper trailAlthough these strategies may prove helpful in a variety of decision-making moments, chances are it won’t completely fix the problem. The truth is, it’s hard for a leopard to change its spots. A boss who doesn’t know what they want wi ll likely remain this way- it’s just human nature to revert to your â€Å"core programming† and making lasting change is hard. That said, it would be helpful for you to get things from your boss in writing, so if they change their mind later on they can’t hold you accountable if projects go over budget and off schedule. Physical proof is always a good way to minimize the effects of their indecisiveness on your productivity and work reputation.A boss who never seems to be able to make up their mind and determine what they want when a decision needs to be made can be a challenging situation for you, but it doesn’t have to be an insurmountable obstacle. Use the strategies and advice provided here to make the best of a tough situation, and hopefully with a little time, experience, and luck, things will get better (or your next boss will know what they want and when they want it).

Social Change Within Developmental Psychology Essay

Social Change Within Developmental Psychology - Essay Example This suggested that alteration in the economy leads to further changes in an adolescent’s economic roles within the family. Adolescence, the stage of human life when one searches for his or her identity is influenced by the social alterations present within a particular society in which it takes place. Since the adolescent stage’s tasks is largely â€Å"identifying the self† taking in roles restricted by circumstances like social alterations in the economic structure, will probably affect their development. Social change â€Å"alter the social institutions and cultural belief systems that organize the adolescent period† (Crockett and Silberesein, 2000). This further implies that social change, such as fundamental historical events, provides significant avenues to adolescent development. Consider the great depression that happened in the United States. According to Crockett and Silberesein, the economic downturn put financial pressure and constraints in adolescents altering their role within the family. Since families had to undergo cost-cutting and should follow strict budget to make ends meet for them, the adolescents in the family would have to generate activities to produce income by finding work at an earlier age than the usual. But, â€Å"change is always relative to the starting point† (Greenfield, 2009) and the adaptation capability vary among every individual. Moreover, in times of social alteration, adolescents will develop change by adapting to the crucial challenges that can further strain their coping capacities through â€Å"setting goals, identity, efficacy beliefs and planful competence† (Crockett and Silberesein, 2000). Since the future is uncertain and no one can easily determine the upcoming social alteration, â€Å"the importance of family and community in supporting a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood in times of social change† (Crockett and Silberesein, 2000) is a very important factor that may shape an individual’s