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Props Over Here · by R.H.S.
Commentating, Illustrating…
Tonight I attended a performance of Auction Block, a play from the same masterminds who brought you Platanos and Collard Greens, which appears to be about a Black man who falls in love with a Puerto Rican woman. This scenario may have been controversial or interesting circa 1928 but it’s the dawn of a nanotech age and I’m not moved enough to hunt down tickets for something guaranteed to be simultaneously boring, corny, and insipid. Naturally I ignored its existence even as radio promos inundated NYC airwaves for at least fifteen months.
Anyway, this particular showing of Auction Block was sponsored by a respectable and socially aware Latina sorority and held at an aging student center in the peripheral sub-campus of an gigantic central New Jersey University, which means that the play was FREE and plausibly worth checking out, or so went my rationale. Auction Block is billed as “a funny, inspiring and unforgettable contemporary Hip Hop retelling of the classic Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol” that chronicles the life and times of fictional Hip Hop mogul “Set 4 Life,” who is placed in the inconvenient position of having to “decide between redemption and damnation.” Well I honestly cannot comment on any of those claims, though I strongly suspect such praise to be a crock of shit.
You see, although I was present for this performance I was entirely unable to concentrate on the specifics of the play itself. Script, blocking, acting, timing – don’t ask me! My attention span was hijacked from jump. The audience was approximately 67% fly honeydips, and the classy ladies of the sorority were serving as hostesses and looking extra baaaaaaaaaaad (that’s “good” for readers who are ebonically impaired). And when I say bad I really mean it – these are sophisticated women who look right and bewitch you into bliss by accident. Any one of them is a Bonita Applebum on a bad day. Arroz con pollo nurtured physical perfection plus proper behavior, you feel me? And then the actresses – lawdy, the actresses! Angels of a whole ‘nother kind. Limber leggy ballerina types who gallivanted across the stage in revealing attire for the entirety of the play.
Now, I think the script intends to make a profound statement about the objectification of women of color through hip hop. Good readers, I am not so boorish as to be unreceptive to this message, whatever its more annoying nuances may be. I simply got distracted. Listen, it’s a bit difficult to stay focused on mind upliftment and being positive in this state of preoccupation. I am compelled to wonder if the play’s supposed moral is ultimately sabotaged by the undeniable grace and exquisite beauty of its female performers. Or maybe I just haven’t learned a thing. After decades of being harangued for my listening habits the dog in me doesn’t want to quit. But just because I’m mesmerized by our women doesn’t mean I am diametrically opposed to their attainment of equality, right?
In any event, after the curtains dropped the lovely sorority sisters served up a savory buffet, again free of charge. Surely we could wax dramatical and delve into hermeneutics and semiotics to deduce that this act was detrimental to progressive politics and indicative of mad -isms, but I must declare that I was quite charmed by the gesture. Count me out of your gendered games, campus revolutionaries. Go ahead and quibble over words like “conversate” and “niggardly,” raptivists. Just know this – the day that a mostly righteous red-blooded rap fan like myself must refrain from audibly adoring the finer specimens among us to placate dreadlocked sociology doctoral students is a sad day indeed. A few ruffians insisting that goddesses ain’t shit but hoes and tricks shouldn’t ruin it for everyone. Ladies, if you’re out there, show your boy some love.
Comments for "Props Over Here"
I’ll bet you anything that more than a few of those female grad students and activists were as distracted (and open) as you were.
— eauhellzgnaw Nov 28, 05:19 AM
Roger have you ever checked Jails, Institutions and Hip-Hop when it was playing at that performance space in SoHo?
— Jay B Nov 28, 06:58 PM
Hell no, isn’t that Danny Hochs’ one-man play?
— R.H.S. Nov 28, 08:12 PM
Yeah, it was. For some reason I wanted to check it out when I saw it advertised. But back in 96 I was fucked up on drugs.
— Jay B Nov 28, 11:01 PM
Whoa @ treetopping conversation right there.
— David Nov 30, 02:34 AM