Award winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks is famous for many plays, such as "Venus" and "Top Dog Under Dog," but one of her most unique and controversial plays, entitled "365," was performed at the Center for the Arts this past Thursday and Friday by the Inter-media Performance Studio.
The Pulitzer Prize-winner originally thought no one would be interested in a play like "365," with its unconventional form, in which sat down every day for an entire year and wrote the play, a culmination of 365 miniature plays.
"She has a way of connecting the past and the present by summoning the dead," said Dr. Marie Garnett, who spoke at the event and will be writing a book on the playwright.
"365" takes on new dimensions of theatrical viewing through digital characters, audience interaction and live dancers and actors. To be able to perform a week of Parks' "365" directors must sign a waiver saying they will not distribute the play and that all media creations belong to Parks. Parks is planning to take all of the different adaptations of 365 and put them into a published journal. Each play adaptation is different and spread out in a radical way.
"It is becoming a network of '365,' you can find examples of it on the Internet, on sites such as YouTube or Myspace," Garnett said.
To get around this media clause, performers are encouraging people in the audience to take pictures with their cell phones and added a part to the plays where the actual performers videotape themselves. Also the computer graphics and set material that were created for "365" will be used in other plays.
"365" in itself is a hard play to recreate for any director - many scenes begin with settings such as the entire world walking on stage.
"Parks' plays are very controversial, and not always very well received. I'd never seen more people groan, walk out or sigh during a play in my life," said author Rita Frieden, who also spoke at the event.
Parks is also famous for her more mainstream play "Top Dog Under Dog" which starred Don Cheadle as the lead and Mos Def on Broadway. Parks believed this play needed an African American male director, so the play was put on hold for three years for the right director.
Parks is known throughout the community as being very generous and charismatic. Her plays require so much involvement with the audience; many say it's obvious she wants to be loved.
"It is for these qualities that critics become possessed by her," Frieden said.
Parks is a theatrical genius with a heightened sense of poetic language. "365," however, is a hard play to read through for anyone. It is truly a visual play, and in itself a "thank you" to theatre.
"Parks' puts pure devotion and discipline into her all of her work, which is why everything she does is so powerful and moving," Frieden said.
Parks was born in Kentucky and as the daughter of an army officer traveled around the U.S. and Germany with her parents. Through this, Parks experienced separatists and confrontation, especially in Germany.
While in Germany, Parks was forced to connect with her language and identity as a foreign outcast; this connection would later transfer into her plays.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
