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HERE Arts Center's production of
Disposable Men
Written and performed by James Scruggs
Directed by Kristin Marting
03/22/2007 - 03/25/2007
PERFORMANCE TIMES
Thurs. - Sat. 8pm, Sun. 5pm
TICKET PRICING
$25 for all performances
$5 off for students, seniors over 65, and educators
ABOUT THE PLAY
HERE Arts Center's production of Disposable Men
This is richly interactive live multimedia one-man show comes to Atlanta direct from its sold-out off-Broadway run. Hailed by the New York Times as a "slyly funny play about racism," Disposable Men explores the uncanny relationship that African American men and classic Hollywood monsters like King Kong and Frankenstein share: first, an unfounded fear of them, and then, the imaginative ways in which they are killed. Using unexpected comic twists and turns to track through a history of lynchings and riots to contemporary police brutality, James Scruggs' tour de force asks why today the media tells us that black men are so disposable. |
Artist's Statement
In the year 2000, the phenomenon of the African American male as an endangered species was a constant and recurring thought in my mind. Living in New York City, I was bombarded with signals, clearly indicating that somehow the life of a black man was not as highly regarded as the lives of other men. This was very disturbing to me. In May of that same year, I created an eight-channel video installation that was shown in DUMBO. It dealt with the notion of the African American male as a larger-than-life, threatening being, who, because of this perception, was easy to kill without conscience. Images of naked black men falling in slow motion while red lasers tracked around their bodies were used in the installation. While this image was disturbing, it was simultaneously beautiful, and somewhat exotic. The projected image was shown in slow motion so that the falling man appeared to gracefully crumble, frame by frame, to the floor, like a dancer, it was lovely to watch… him die; just like a car accident, grotesque and violent, yet we can't wait to get close enough to see, we must see. There is a certain beauty in the twisting of the metals.
Disposable Men explores the phenomenon of black man as a disposable entity. Although the issues dealt with are very serious, humor is interlaced throughout. There is something healing about laughter, especially laughter directed at something not usually viewed as funny.
While researching Disposable Men, I discovered that the fear of African American men, and the distortion of our image reached heights only achieved in Hollywood Monster movies. It was not a stretch to go from instances when the entire town would show up for a lynching of a man who "disrespected" a white woman to a scene in Frankenstein where the entire town shows up to 'find the monster'. African American men have historically been given attributes of monsters, huge, and frightening. We must be killed by many men, in very unusual ways, and… as with monsters, it is not wrong to make the actual killing a public spectacle.
Fast forward to today. There are not many lynchings, but the perception and fear persists. Disposable Men explores how African American men, who were lynched and burned and regularly killed for a simple social faux pas, are perceived and dealt with today. Fifty years ago it was acceptable to kill a black man for giving a white man a "dirty look". That perception, that behavior, that pattern of interaction has morphed over the years and we live in a time where policemen can attack and kill unarmed black men and suffer no consequence. We are still perceived as Disposable Men.
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