Ensemble member Thom Cox on the issues in Black Diamond
From The Black Diamond Issue of ArtAntica
Mentioned in this entry: Thomas J Cox, David Catlin, Andy White, J Nicole Brooks and Philip R Smith
 There are so many things about Black Diamond that would be exciting and interesting to talk about: my first opportunity to be directed by David Catlin in more than seven years; how the circus element that is often an important part of a Lookingglass show is being used literally and metaphorically in a story set in Liberia of 2003; how fantastic it is to work with Matt Hawkins (fight choreographer) of the House Theatre, for which I have such admiration and respect. But when I looked at my script, a direct reference to the overall experience stared back at me.
On the title page of the script for Black Diamond is the statement “a crossroad where civil unrest meets the spirit world”. Crossroad is an apt metaphor for this show in many ways. The culture of Liberia itself is a crossroad, a meeting place between Americans of African descent (sometimes called Congo), indigenous people from a number of African tribes, and contemporary American culture. For many years, Liberians have been as influenced by American culture as by indigenous cultures, leading to strange-seeming intersections of American popular culture and West African beliefs. Black Diamond herself is described as looking “like Mary J. Blige in battle”.
Lookingglass’ production is also a crossroad of another kind. Though we have been conscious of racial diversity issues in casting and storytelling as far back in our own history as Of One Blood (Andy White’s original play about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman produced by Lookingglass in 1989), and as recently as Race and Sita Ram, we have never told a story that was written by a black playwright and had a ninety-percent black cast. In doing so, Lookingglass has stepped into a new crossroad.
The group of actors with whom we are working is incredible. They are vital in their integrity to the art of theatrical storytelling, phenomenally talented and skilled, and are incredibly excited to be telling this particular story with J. Nicole Brooks and Lookingglass. Thanks to Nicky (Dr. Slick, the Sepia Malaprop, playwright and Artistic Associate), David Catlin (co-director with Nicky, and Artistic Director of Lookingglass), and Phil Smith (who has the incredibly difficult and unenviable job of focusing on casting issues for Lookingglass), I have the honor of being a part of this cast. I must admit to some trepidation before entering the room, because there are so many potential hot-button issues in this play (racial issues; America’s past and present relationship to Liberia and Africa; violence and civil war on the African continent; rape and violence against women; the constantly shifting questions of “right” and “wrong” in relation to the combatants in this particular conflict). But, because of the integrity of all the people involved in the process, the focus has always been on telling the story, finding the crossroad where we as artists meet the deepest issues raised in the play. Not to say there has been no questioning, just that I don’t believe there has ever been malice or presumption.
If those issues could be expressed simply and succinctly in 800 words in an online magazine, there would be no need for the play. But I believe that some of those issues are about identity. How does civil war, in which the people of a nation are fighting against themselves, affect individual and national identity? What happens to personal identity when an American of African descent interacts with a woman fighting in a civil war in the only African nation founded by Americans of African descent? What is the relationship between black Americans and black Africans? What happens to the identity of a child when they are forced, through coercion or circumstance, to become a child warrior? How is our own national identity as Americans informed by our participation in the creation of Liberia, our participation in the advent of civil war, and our contradictory participation and abdication in its cessation?
Granted, these are pretty hefty questions. And they should be treated as weighty, important issues. Alongside those issues are more personal ones, just as weighty. How is my identity affected by being the only white actor in a cast of fierce black artists? What, if anything, can I contribute to this process that will be uniquely valuable to this process and the telling of this story? How can I, as an artist, learn and grow and evolve as a result of this process? How will this process affect the collective identity of Lookingglass as a company?
Based on my experience with this group of artists, I must refer once again to the script. “Do you know what was left in Pandora’s box after it released all of the sorrow and mischief into the world? Hope.” Crossroads are places of potential, and are inevitable when on journeys of evolution. As individuals. As companies. As nations. As humans.
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