Can the tradition of reviewing works of art continue in the Zoom era? Salvation South says yes, even if the production is virtual.
A Review of “Revelation: Created for the Stage by Karin Coonrod, Compagnia de' Colombari”
Hosted by The Andalusia Institute at Georgia College and State University, November 11, 2021
For the obvious reasons (trying to not kill each other), the performing arts in COVID-time have flooded the Internet tubes with video presentations of events we all long to see live. Music, book readings, and theater productions have struggled mightily to deliver their in-person magic to the flat screen.
This has been a cultural boon for those of us in the cultural boondocks. It is no replacement for the real flesh-and-blood thing, but as an exile in the hinterlands, I am happy to take what I can get. Sure, the internet remains a cesspool of disinformation, nasty tempers, and time-sucking diversion, but every cloud has its silver lining, I reckon.
A less salutary aspect of the internet is its ubiquitous social media meme culture. Originally conceived by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Wikipedia defines memes as “cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.” The idea has slipped a few notches from its glory days, mutating into a vehicle for semi-clever snappy repartee and quick-take communication overlain on a catchy photo or graphic. The original conception saw the meme as a vehicle for spreading and developing information; current practice finds it a mechanism for eliminating thoughtful consideration.
Among its contributions, meme culture has gifted us the Karen, that dread paragorgon of smug privilege, self-righteous to a fault, poised to bark about the problem with Those PeopleTM who persist in selling bottles of water, barbecuing in public, or otherwise enjoying life while Black. Karen’s foundational ethos is “Why can’t everyone be more like me?” and “Let me speak to the manager.”
Alas, Karens are nothing new. In 1964, Flannery O’Connor gave us an Ur-Karen in Ruby Turpin, central character in O’Connor’s short story “Revelation” and a creature all-too familiar to anyone with time served in the South. Now, acclaimed director Karin Coonrod – despite her given name, she is far from a meme-conforming Karen – offers a fresh take on this dark comedy classic in an audio-only presentation by her Compagnia de' Colombari theater ensemble.
Initially published in The Sewanee Review, and later in the collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, “Revelation” teems with an array of classic O’Connor characters, various “white trash,” a “pleasant” and “stylish” woman, an “ugly girl,” and a delivery “boy” who offers occasion for the chorus to share insights into racial matters. Colored is the “nicest” word used to reference Those PeopleTM; sadly, that word – yeah, that one – is prevalent.
And it is that word that makes “Revelation,” like so much by O’Connor, so damned problematic. Post-performance, cast member Deidra Starnes recalled the extreme discomfort the cast endured saying/hearing that word again and again. Emory University’s Dr. Nagueyalti Warren described the deep agony this story generates among her marginalized students, no surprise given the demeaning language and grotesque happy darkie/slatternly white trash stereotypes.
Coonrod counters these violations with an ingenious twist born of necessity. O’Connor’s estate stipulates that adaptations be strictly verbatim, no exceptions. Coonrod’s innovation lies in channeling O’Connor’s words through the mouths of the seven BIPOC performers who fill the secondary roles and relay the narration from one performer to another. Fragments of sentence and phrase tumble wildly as the baton passes at unpredictable intervals, shifting our perspective on language/stereotyping and establishing a frame that creates an inviting entry point for marginalized audiences.
O’Connor could not see, much less describe, a Black person in three dimensions; her Black characters were types, foils for the moral struggles of white folks for whom O’Connor wrote under the misapprehension that she wrote for everyone. She was not blind to the disfigurements of racism; like her fellow travelers Faulkner, Lee, et al., she was that rare fish sensitive to the essential reality of the water she swam in. But despite near-prophetic insight and prodigious skills of observation, evocation, and mimesis, she could not imagine a way out of the water for either her tribe or the marginalized others.
Coonrod’s staging faces this challenge.
Sarah Marshall’s inhabitation of Ruby Turpin will surely prick memories of anyone who has served significant time in the South. Tellingly, Marshall, the sole white cast member, is the only performer excluded from the narration relay. She speaks only for a decentered Ruby Turpin, prattling mindlessly, viewing the lesser-than down her nose and dismissing them at a glance.
The idealistic Mary Grace, seething at Turpin’s hauteur, finally launches her Wellesley College textbook in a precision strike on Turpin’s brow. Slapstick demi-violence ensues before this “ugly girl” delivers one of the great zingers in 20thcentury fiction.
“Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog,” she whispered. Her voice was low but clear. Her eyes burned for a moment as if she saw with pleasure that her message had struck her target.
O’Connor’s comedy of manners takes a sharp turn. Despite knowing the girl is right, Turpin wages a long, futile internal campaign to validate herself.
“I am not,” she said tearfully, “a wart hog. From hell.” But the denial had no force. The girl’s eyes and her words, even the tone of her voice, low but clear, directed only to her, brooked no repudiation. She had been singled out for the message, though there was trash in the room to whom it might justly have been applied. The full force of this fact struck her only now.
Turpin’s revelation (triggered by an act of Grace) culminates with a vision of souls marching to heaven, led by “white trash,” followed next by the Blacks and “battalions of freaks and lunatics.” Bringing up the rear “was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little bit of everything and the God-given wit to use it right.”
Yet it is her lessers ascending to Paradise in joy and ecstasy while her people endure scourging fire. Coonrod has her BIPOC cast sing a rounding lament of O’Connor’s words - even their virtues were being burned away – with Turpin excluded from the celebratory hymn. This sole variation from an otherwise to-the-letter recreation is an effective evocation of Mrs. Turpin’s realization that her virtuous life amounted to less than nothing.
At the post-performance Zoom chat, commenters seemed evenly split on whether Turpin’s revelation would create lasting transformation. Coonrod suggests we have witnessed an act of Grace, redemption authentic as Turpin, stripped of her illusions, begins to perceive a pathway into something worthy of a human being created in God’s image.
O’Connor, a deeply observant Catholic, wrote “Revelation” as her 14-year ordeal with lupus was winding down. Fixated on the fate of her mortal soul, her identification with Turpin is apparent. Perhaps O’Connor, like Coonrod these decades later, wishes us to believe in Turpin’s redemption, as she no doubt prayed for her own. But great artists resist the temptation to wrap it all with a neat bow; both the story and play leave room for us to decide. Where we come down likely tells us something about ourselves.
Before omicron upended our hope for a return to something like normalcy, Coonrod told me that she hoped to begin in-person staging rehearsals for “Revelation” in the coming spring. Whether that comes to pass as scheduled, there are likely to be several online presentations of this worthy production in 2022 available to the far-flung fans of Flannery. Sign up for the Compagnia de' Colombari email list to stay informed.
But wait, there’s more! The Andalusia Institute at Georgia College in Milledgeville offers an ongoing series of web presentations on the O’Connor legacy. See you in the Zoom rooms.