Last week I published the first part of my interview with actor/playwright Larry Powell. He discussed both The Reclamation of My Black Ass Imagination: An Awakening (which is part of If I Should Wake ending Friday from Greenway Court Theatre) and The Gaze…No Homo (his 12-part series based on his play of the same name, currently available from The Fountain Theatre).
In that interview we discussed the role his imagination has played throughout his life; how important it was for his survival and his learning to be comfortable in his identity as a gay male.
Today I’m concluding my conversation with Larry Powell with a traditional question and answer about racism in the theatre and in America.
When asked in 2015 by the Louisville Future about the racial divide in America, you said, “It’s true with anything down to the human body – you can’t just put a Band-Aid on it. You have to go into the wound, clean it out. It may burn.” Five years later, where is America in that process?
I think we are in the burning stage. I think we are in the pus and we have to continue to find the right ointment to heal. I think [it is] clear and plainly in front of our face. If we listen to each other and not be afraid to take the steps we know are right to take, we will heal.
As more POC receive acknowledgment, nominations and awards, what faith do you have that this is going to be the norm moving forward and not just a temporary change?
I have faith in this moment. I have to. Or else I would leave. I think that it is being made clear to us that we can speak up. Yes it can be dangerous – it absolutely can. In those moments we are understanding what do I have to lose really? We’re in a pandemic and seeing everything taken away from us anyway. I’m emboldened, that’s why I have faith in it.
Many Black artists have told me that they don’t think things will fundamentally change until they see people who look like them in the position of making decisions. What are your thoughts?
It can’t be people who look like me, but think like them. I’m with James Baldwin, whiteness is a state of mind. It needs to be people who are ready to face these issues. Particularly ready for Black, queer or trans folks to lead – someone who can rise up from the most vulnerable communities. When we have leaders from those communities then we’ll have real change.
Do you have faith in theatre?
I’m looking for tangible changes. Racism is something we have to eradicate and we have to continue and build the new thing that we want to put in its place. The universe abhors a void. You have to have the new things to fill in that space. I honestly feel it’s about narrative. Chicago theatre has a narrative. New York theatre has a narrative. Los Angeles theatre is struggling to find its narrative.
Playwright Jeremy O. Harris, whose Slave Play received 12 Tony nominations this year, told The Guardian in London, “The only time you can be free in this world is when you’re writing.” Do you agree and is writing enough for you?
Now that I am sure that I have decentralized the white gaze in my work and gotten into a new place in my Black imagination, I am able to experience that space of supreme liberation that my brother Jeremy is talking about. Writing is something we do alone and you go into that space and when you are sure it is just you and your muse, it is so freeing. I agree.
Is writing enough? For me it takes the words and the action. It takes the marrying of the two to really experience change and movement and evolution and expansion. That’s what I’m about. I’m really interested in how we move forward and grow tighter in a way that supports each other and is not trying to tear each other down and withhold information so that one person will suffer; all those crazy ways we try to make a living. It doesn’t work.
I have to go out and be part of the community and part of society and in some way take action. Yes writing is action, but there’s got to be something else I do to push the needle forward.
Having seen both of his recent works, I have no doubt Larry Powell will indeed push that needle forward.
Photo of Larry Powell (Courtesy Larry Powell)