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Gilmans
Fascinating Play Hits Close to Home
by Julie Johnson
This weekends Winter Term production of playwright
Rebecca Gilmans Spinning into Butter holds a mirror to the face
of Oberlin College. The play not only confronts realities of institutional
racism, but also brings to the surface inner tensions caused by the
inevitability of racism within the self. Spinning into Butter premiered
in 2000 and received the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center
for New American Plays and a Jeff Award.
Situated on a small liberal arts
campus, Butter opens in the office of Dean Sara Daniels, played by
junior Lara Dredge. A group of faculty and administrators are discussing
what do about the racist hate mail sent to African American student
Simon Brick. Focusing on the administrations reactions and their
decision processes, the play mostly shows interactions among the administration,
except for two students and one security officer, and all but one
of the characters are white.
What follows are horribly real scenes in which every careless and
politically incorrect comment and diminutive statement slurs out of
faculty and administration mouths as they wrestle with how to respond
to the incident.
I think [students] will recognize so much in this play. When
I saw this in Pittsburgh, everyone else just clapped and walked away,
and I was thinking, Does anyone else realize that Oberlin College
was just on stage? I decided this has got to be seen at Oberlin,
senior co-director of Butter Aqila Mayle said. Mayle and senior co-director
LeAnna Hallman have extended personal invitations to Oberlin administrators.
I realized how many similarities there were in what you feel,
and not just people of color, but any person who lives through any
form of oppression, sophomore Sehban Zaidi, who played Patrick,
the only person of color in the play, said. It really is our
pain that binds us in so many ways.
Not only is Butters commentary on the dueling necessity and
futility of politically correct language poignantly apropos, but the
play manages to also include non-race issues of exclusion and objectification.
You dont want to be the representation of your people
and at the same time want to be the best representation of your people,
Zaidi said.
Professor Ross, played by senior Peter Meredith, is an immediately
recognizable bleeding-heart liberal, who insensitively confesses his
romantic troubles to former lover Daniels and exposes a misogynistic
basis for relating to women. Another sub-plot introduces classism
into the mix as the faculty continually abuse their hierarchical power
over security guard Mr. Meyers, played by first-year Rick Sahlin.
I dont think anyone can ever understand everyone else,
and that makes it futile. I think thats what this play is about,
you learn things about people.
Dredges performance as Dean Daniels pulled through the characters
unrelenting cynicism and exposed the depth of her journey through
rediscovering the racism within herself.
I didnt completely relate to [Daniels], but there are
a couple things she says that do resonate with me, things I know I
have thought before, which makes it really difficult because you dont
want to identify with someone as screwed up as that. At the same time,
I think its important that I take responsibility for the thoughts
that I do have that resonate with that character and to acknowledge
and work on those things, Dredge said.
It was truly amazing, considering that Butter was an Oberlin theater
debut for everyone on the cast except one, how superb the acting was.
Meyers filled the shoes of the empathetic voice of reason to a tee
and senior Ariel Emmerson as Dean Catherine Kennedy made the stereotypical
anal-retentive character fabulously compelling
Oberlin campus is a very political campus, but in terms of theater,
its for entertainment purposes only or deep, macabre plays that
make you think but arent very political or socially relevant,
Hallman said. Oberlin has a huge history in terms of race relations
and has been a big part of dealing with race. Its been one of
the leaders, but it hasnt been lately and is actually declining.
Butter does a lot to expose what happens behind closed doors.
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