hope

Hope in the presidency

There is no perfection in human affairs. We are imperfect beings and our creations are always flawed. But this does not stop us from striving for perfection, knowing that our reach should exceed our grasp.

The preamble to the United States Constitution begins with, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union …” and then sets forth the things that the founders agreed to aspire toward, knowing that perfection is unreachable but that aiming for a “more perfect” future is still an ideal to pursue.

This idea is central to Judaism also, that the world was created imperfect and unfinished because it is the role of humanity to complete that work – or, rather, to advance in the direction of completion/perfection even knowing it is unattainable.

This theme appeared also in the poem by Amanda Gorman, the first United States National Youth Poet Laureate, at the inauguration last week of President Joe Biden. “Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed / a nation that isn’t broken / but simply unfinished,” she said.

That day, Inauguration Day, felt to many like a collective swerve away from an abyss. After the violence at the Capitol two weeks earlier, after four years of chaos and cruelty at the top of the U.S. administration, and at what we hope is the beginning of the end of the pandemic of our lifetimes, it felt like a move in the right direction, a reversal from the trajectory of spiraling rancour. The violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, so horrific and deadly, may have been the wakeup call that enough Americans needed to recognize the destination to which the “Trump train” was always headed.

The most fundamental component of a democratic society – the peaceful transition of power – was assaulted on Jan. 6, a day most of us never dreamed we would see, an experience that people in autocratic societies know too well but we hoped we never would. We may never know how close the United States came to genuinely losing its democracy but we can hope that the shock of the violence and the widespread refusal to accept the outcome of a properly run election opened enough eyes to the dangers of that approach. As President Biden said, “enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward.”

Regardless of party affiliation, the transfer of power seemed to many like a return to the project of a more perfect union.

By the skin of their teeth, the Democratic party held the House of Representatives and reclaimed the White House and the Senate. The new Biden administration better reflects the diversity of the country’s racial, religious, gender and other components, not least of which is exemplified by the first female vice-president and the first one who is not white.

The refusal of the outgoing president and his wife to adhere to longstanding decorum and decency and their petulant retreat to Florida before the inauguration was a slap in the face for the very idea of democracy itself. To the credit of the vice-president, Mike Pence, he stepped up where the president would not. So, too, did all the living former presidents, three of them in person at the inauguration and the fourth, Jimmy Carter, calling Biden the night before the inauguration to offer wishes of support. This was a powerful show of respect for the office that Trump never exhibited when he held it and which he further despoiled while leaving it. But he is gone now from there, ideally forever, and we trust that a less divisive and corrupt government will carry that country forward.

It is notable that our hopes for 2021 focus so much on a vaccine. The idea of this science – that injecting a dose of a virus into a body to develop an antibody to a more destructive manifestation – might be extrapolated into our body politic. The virus of extremism, tyranny and violence that we saw on Jan. 6 may have inoculated some Americans to combat the spread of such threats. As we strive for herd immunity in our public health, we can perhaps seek a similar degree of protection in our public life. There will always be bad people and bad ideas. Ensuring that they are kept in check and not permitted to reach pandemic levels is as close to perfection as we can possibly attain. We can hope that, in the spirit of Biden’s words, enough people will come together in defence of the great values that country was founded on to carry all of us forward.

Hope amid challenges

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz’s latest collection of poems offers comfort, even though she does not shy away from the tragedy of her Holocaust experience and ever-present memories of that period. From the very title, Out of the Dark, she gives hope. If she can still see beauty and love, then we can, too.

An established and award-winning writer, Boraks-Nemetz has published many books and her poems have appeared in literary anthologies. A child survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, she is an eyewitness to some of the most cruel aspects of humanity and openly wrestles, in these poems, with the death she has seen, with the hiding she was forced into and can’t completely shake the habit of, with the stark contrast of her life before coming to Vancouver and the world she has created here. While deeply marked by suffering, she makes space for the pain that others experience.

Out of the Dark is divided into three sections: Survival, Flickers in the Dark, and Into the Light. Even the most sombre first part, which includes poems about those murdered in the Holocaust, the impacts of war and the existence of antisemitism, starts with a poem called “Flowers of Survival,” in which a daughter recalls the words of her father, from whom she has been separated, forever: “‘Let the wind thrash us if it will // And the foul earth open to swallow us,’ you said, / ‘for in the end / neither the violent wind nor / the foul earth will succeed.’”

In midsection of the book, Boraks-Nemetz gives voice not only to her sadnesses and joys of making a new life in Vancouver, but of the immigrant experience in general. She writes of the difficulties of living in another place, both with regards to location but also in her mind and body, as well as in time, so different is British Columbia than Poland, so changed is Warsaw now from how it was during the war, so renewed a person is she, yet, she advises, in the poem “Identity,” “when they tell you / forget the past – let it go / they are in error // your past is your memory / and memory – a bridge / to you.”

As people are marked by what happens to them, internally and externally, so is nature, and Boraks-Nemetz has included several poems about its splendour, what it has witnessed and how we humans are threatening it, despite its strong will to survive.

There are many poems in Out of the Dark that are dedicated to family, friends, poets and others, but the bulk of them are in the final section. Boraks-Nemetz seems to be saying that, despite our capacity as humans for brutality and destruction, we need one another and we are the only ones who can fix what we have wrought, and make the world a better place.

Healing after tragedy

Mishelle Cuttler has the challenge of supervising the musical elements of The Events, which features a different community choir every show. (photo from Pi Theatre)

In 2011, while he was out with his son, who was then 12 years old, writer David Greig read the news that Anders Breivik had killed 77 people in Norway – eight using a car bomb in Oslo, which also injured more than 200 other people, and then traveling to the island of Utøya to a summer camp for teens, where he shot and killed another 69 and injured more than 100.

“My son saw I was very affected and, because he was wondering why, I began to try and tell him what the news was and its implications,” said Greif in an interview with BBC Writersroom. “He just kept repeating the question why? why? why? and I found the discussion quickly became very profound, about the nature of evil and whether it is ever possible to understand someone who shoots children for a political reason. I found trying to answer these questions became a compulsion I had to try and understand.”

The result was The Events, which came into being when Greig met producer Ramin Gray at the Edinburgh Fringe. Gray had been having similar thoughts, said Greig. “That meeting made me know it had to be a play.”

It’s a play that has been staged around the world, and presenting it in Vancouver are Pi Theatre and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. After every performance, there will be a post-show discussion and, after the Jan. 17 preview, Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, director of inter-religious studies at Vancouver School of Theology, will speak about various aspects of the play.

While its initial questions came from the terrorist attack in Norway, The Events centres on Claire, a priest who works and lives in her community, including leading a community choir. When The Boy attacks that choir, Claire survives the shooting, setting her on a quest similar to Greig’s – and that of most of us, when such a horrific act is committed. She needs to know, why?

There are only two actors in the production. In Vancouver, Luisa Jojic will play Claire, while Douglas Ennenberg will play six characters opposite her, including The Boy, a grief counselor, the shooter’s father, a school friend of the shooter, Claire’s lover, and various others to whom Claire speaks in her effort to find understanding. A unique aspect of this play is that the choir is “played by” real community choirs, who have practised the music (score by John Browne), sing some songs from their own repertoire, and have some lines to read, but are not given the script.

Jewish community member Mishelle Cuttler has the challenge of being the musical supervisor and accompanist for the local show, which is directed by Richard Wolfe.

“The great thing about The Events is that the choirs are given ownership of the music,” Cuttler told the Independent. “We’ve provided each choir director with the material they need to learn, and my job is to facilitate their integration into the show each night…. I’ll be visiting each choir during their regular rehearsals and hearing how they’ve interpreted the music. I’ll talk them through how they will fit into the play, but they don’t ever see the full script. There will certainly be a lot of variables onstage each night, and that’s what makes this piece so exciting. The singers will be witnessing the show for the first time along with the audience.”

And the focus will be on the dialogue and music, without many other distractions.

“There will be a very small amount of recorded sound in the show,” said Cuttler, “but the majority of the aural experience will come from the singers, the actors and one upright piano.”

Pi Theatre has spent several months planning the logistics. “Essentially,” notes the press material, “more than 220 community members from 12 different choirs will participate over the show’s run.”

It also notes that, while Claire “struggles to understand the event that changed her life, we are asked to decide whether love and hope can survive in the wake of an inexplicable act of violence.”

The Events previews Jan. 17 and runs Tuesdays to Sundays until Jan. 28, with evening and matinée performances, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. Tickets ($31/$26) are available from pitheatre.com/the-events.

Replace your fear with hope

David Diamond, Theatre for Living, directs Reclaiming Hope. (collage graphic design by Dafne Blanco, photos by Wolfgang Rappel)

Starting on March 10, Theatre for Living (formerly Headlines Theatre) will be presenting a new event. Called Reclaiming Hope, it will “engage communities in identifying and transforming the narrative of fear that permeates our culture.”

Reclaiming Hope, led by Theatre for Living’s co-founder and artistic director David Diamond, will take place 12 times from March 10 to April 2 at various locations.

“The work that I do is really based in using theatre as a way to create dialogue in the community. We are a professional theatre company, but one that is really committed to collaborations with people in all communities,” said Diamond.

Diamond originally trained as a professional actor and came out of theatre school in 1975. He worked in professional theatre, radio, television and film for a few years before creating Theatre for Living with some of his peers.

“A number of us, writers, directors, actors, became frustrated in the late ’70s with the kind of work we were being asked to do. We wanted to do some kind of theatre work that was socially relevant. After complaining about that for a very long time, we decided we would stop sitting around and complaining, and we would do something about it.”

In 1981, Diamond and his peers created a play about affordable housing. It was a hit, and thus began the establishment of Theatre for Living.

Reclaiming Hope, Theatre for Living’s newest work, was born out of an unexpected turn of events. Diamond and company were initially planning a new project entitled Freedom, which would focus on the idea that corporations may unethically possess the freedom to generate exceptional wealth. But, as Theatre for Living was raising money for this production, the Canadian federal election took place.

“The impulse for that project was grounded, frankly, in Harperism. It isn’t that those issues have now gone away, the issues still exist out there, but the juice of it changed dramatically. Changing the government hasn’t solved all of those problems, but changing the government has changed the perception of those problems.

“We had to really reframe the project. Added to that, we were having trouble raising money for that project, because it was really challenging the financial structures that we have built around us. One of the elements of Freedom that we decided to focus on in Reclaiming Hope is that we are being asked to be afraid, we are being asked to live in fear from so many different sectors,” said Diamond.

Theatre for Living decided they would mount a series of theatrical events that would look at the different ways that various communities are experiencing being asked to live in fear. They would use theatre to identify those voices of fear that take up residence in the community’s psyche. They would also use theatre to try to change the community’s relationship to those voices, so that, according to Diamond, society could move into a more actively hopeful realm.

“‘Hope’ is a verb. ‘Hope’ isn’t just sitting in your living room wishing things were different. ‘Hope’ is getting up off your ass and doing something to make our communities safer in a really human type of way for everybody.

“Somehow,” he said, “we have decided on this little blue speck of a planet, that there is a ‘them.’ That decision that there is a ‘them’ out there, that there is more than just ‘us’ living here is fueled by voices of fear.”

Diamond believes that he and his peers are not inventing something new, but rather reaching back into something ancient. Moreover, he intends to bring back the ancient idea that art itself can once again be seen as the psyche of the community.

Diamond and his company believe that the community may reclaim its collective hope through art.

“Years ago, both as an artist and as an activist, I got really tired of working against a world that I did not want. I made a real choice to work towards a world that I do want. So, at the heart of our theatre work, is the sense of reclaiming positive action,” he said.

An audience member unfamiliar with Theatre for Living’s style should expect to be very active when attending Reclaiming Hope. The event, though structured, will be different every night, as it unfolds with the stories of its nightly participants. As each show will be sponsored by different co-hosts, Diamond anticipates that the chemistry of the audience will be different every night. (For the schedule and tickets, visit theatreforliving.com.)

Diamond will begin each show with a discussion about the idea of living in fear. The audience will then choose one story that resonates the most. The person whose story that is will assume a role on stage, interacting with other audience members who will act out the voices of fear found in the story.

“Audience members will come to play those characters not because they want to play a theatre game,” said Diamond, “but because they have information to share, they understand the ‘voice.’”

Each event will be highly improvisational, and Diamond expects both funny and profound moments to occur. Judging by past events, Diamond expects about 60 to 150 people per night.

On April 3, the series of events will culminate in a day of action planning. This day will only be open to individuals who have attended at least one of the Reclaiming Hope performances. The daylong session will consist of a facilitated workshop where people will form groups based on ideas gathered from Reclaiming Hope. These groups will then make concrete plans for actions that will be the ultimate realizations of Reclaiming Hope.

“On some level,” said Diamond, “I think it is important as a culture, as an over-arching Canadian culture, that we understand and reclaim this idea that culture is not a commodity, that theatre is not a commodity, but it is a language, and we are all supposed to speak. And if we were all of us in our daily lives speaking more art, we would be living in a healthier world.”

Jonathan Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His writing has appeared in the Canadian Jewish News, and various other publications in Canada and the United States.

The Chanukah lights

The nights were getting longer already, but when we changed the clocks a few weeks ago, it seemed to change very suddenly into a new season. For our cousins in

Israel, the days might be a bit brighter – a video of shirt-sleeved Tel Avivians dancing last week as an antidote to the terrorist mayhem was an inspiring and somewhat envy-inducing scene – but the spectre of violence there is real and immediate.

It was 68 years ago last Sunday that the United Nations voted for an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state in Palestine. That was a day of jubilation, of momentous light, for Jews worldwide. Yet there is never total victory, never a moment when our enemies have permanently laid down sword, or stone or missile or knife.

In Jewish life, we light candles both to mark times of joy, as well as of grief. In Jewish rituals, the happy moments are tempered by the recollection of not-so happy moments.

At Chanukah, we light candles and curse the darkness. Hatred will not prevail. This is the message of Chanukah.

We see the darkness, but we do not succumb. We dance, as we saw in Tel Aviv. We give thanks for what we have, for the self-determination that is Israel and for the freedoms we enjoy in Canada. We rally ourselves and our neighbors to sponsor refugees and to raise funds for the Joint Distribution Committee to aid those who need it. Because we remember, or our parents do, what it is like to be refugees and to be in need. We advocate against climate change. We teach our children the values of tzedakah. We gather blankets and jackets for those in our own city who need warmth.

We will make our own light. We will celebrate not only our historical and contemporary victories, but life itself. We will love, laugh, dance, eat. L’chaim.