“I’m not arguing for the end of the world but then again maybe I am. This one, anyway.”
Alone on stage, Elizabeth Sawyer opens Jen Silverman’s Witch with a sentiment of finality. Both are right, and neither is alone, in thinking that the end is neigh. From Revelations to Nostradamus, James Baldwin to Octavia Butler, Chappell Roan, R. E. M., and Billy Joel, artists have broached the end since time first began.
“I can’t say I don’t have a grudge, because I do, clearly, I do have a grudge.”
Elizabeth Sawyer, Silverman’s, and maybe your, proxy, openly holds a grudge. James Baldwin also holds a grudge - and no one loved more through a grudge than him. In all of his works, written or spoken, he speaks with an anger, clear and succinct, at the systems that hold a boot to the neck of everyday people. In The Fire Next Time that anger is clear. So is the instruction to love, “… not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
That love, a love bell hooks defines for us in All About Love as ‘love for the self and love for the other,’ exists as Baldwin’s, and Silverman’s, driving force. That love pushes us to hope. This hope has structure, purpose, focus- or as Mariame Kaba lays out, hope is a discipline. In the essay, ‘Hope is a Discipline’, found in Kaba’s ‘We Do This ’Til We Free Us,’ she lays out hope not as an emotion, but as a practice. “…Hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism.”
Kaba, Baldwin, hooks, and Silverman all lay out different ways that our love of, our hopes for a better world should be practiced. Love and Hope do not exist separately from any other emotion we may face. They both exist within those feelings, sometimes even driving them. Silverman’s Witch gives us clear examples of how hope, love, and the lacktherof drive how we interact with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
Iowa Stage Theatre Company’s upcoming production is timely, precisely because Silverman’s writing is universal. With two weeks of performances at the Stoner Theatre, there is ample chance to get a glimpse of how people get get separated from themselves and each other and are forced to ignore these disciplines in search of false ones. But Silverman never leaves us purely hopeless, neither does Witch, under the direction of ISTC RAC Members Maggie Schmidt and Brittny Rebhuhn. They all masterfully use anger, sorrow, and betrayal to lead us as an audience to love, courage, and a disciplined hope.
“Do I have hope that things can get better? …maybe this is where we start.”
Do you?
No matter your answer, let Iowa Stage Theatre Company strike a small deal to push you to hope with their production of Witch by Jen Silverman, running October 4th - 13th at the Stoner Theater in the Des Moines Civic Center.
Tickets available here: https://www.iowastage.org/
Giovanni Bahena is an Iowa Stage Resident Artist who is an actor, artist, and activist. They're driven by authors and artists who challenge societal norms and fight for equality, equity, and community.
Production Photos by Alyson O'Hara
Photo Location: Salisbury House and Gardens