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Friday, January 08, 2010

6. The Word Begins


I'm tired of plays like this, in which two actors regurgitate a stand-up routine into a one-act. In which a show boasts of the importance of independent thought and speech, but doesn't want us to actually think for ourselves. Where self-congratulatory nuggets pose as wisdom: "The only way to end war is to end war," and we can end racism if we "fuck ourselves beige." In The Word Begins, Steven Connell and Sekou (tha misfit) Andrews stress the importance of being specific, only to produce one of the most general bits of spoken-word I've ever seen. The result is straw-man theater, which offers up a sacrifice of unassailable facts in the hopes that we will accept it as wit and wisdom, ignoring the lack of reasons, emotions, or truth. What good is a spoken-word play that is all talk? Why are we content to just write a beginning?

[Read on]

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