Speak now or forever ...
FLC stages docudrama, 'Speak Truth to Power'

Geoff Johnson rehearses a scene from “Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark” on Monday night at the Fort Lewis College Mainstage Theatre. The play opens this Thursday, Oct. 18 as the focal point of a festival which also includes talks by noted human rights activists and free film screenings./Photo by David Halterman

by Judith Reynolds

We’re not bred to stand up to authority in our society,” Felicia Lansbury Meyer emphatically said. In an interview last week, the Fort Lewis College adjunct professor commented on what she sees as a national paralysis of moral courage. Meyer started the engine for this week’s Speak Truth to Power Fest. And she’s also the director of the Ariel Dorfman docudrama, which is the centerpiece of the collegewide effort.

“Two years ago, when I was in New York, I pulled Ariel Dorfman’s play off a bookstore shelf,” Meyer said. “It hooked me right away. It raised questions, the ones I’ve now been posing to the students: ‘What does power look like?’ ‘How do we speak truth to power in our lives?’ ‘What’s at risk when we do?’”

Meyer’s passion for Dorfman’s play hit a sympathetic note in the college’s Department of Theatre. Last year, the Season Selection Committee approved the idea of making Dorfman’s work the main attraction of the fall semester. Word got out, and other departments became involved; the project gained momentum. Now there are a series of events over the next two weeks: guest speakers, a free film series, a choral concert featuring Randall Thompson’s “Testament to Freedom,” special class discussions, and a reaction piece created by students in a seminar entitled “Theatre for Social Change.” That work will be presented outdoors after the matinee, Sun., Oct. 21.

Dorfman’s play is subtitled “Voices from Beyond the Dark.” The Chilean novelist, poet, playwright and activist adapted material from Kerry Kennedy’s book Speak Truth to Power. It is a big volume featuring portraits by photojournalist Eddie Adams and first-person stories by a variety of human rights activists.

Adams’ image on the cover shows a hooded prisoner standing alone in a desert. A hangman’s rope circles the neck and falls to the ground. The figure, listed as anonymous but placed in Sudan, appears inside the book alongside an essay on the state of human rights around the globe. Eerily reminiscent of photographs from the Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib, it’s an uncomfortable picture.

“When I bought the book, a DVD came with it showing a staged reading of the Kennedy Center production in Washington, D.C.,” Meyer said. “The play is being performed all over the country, all over the world.”

One of the more unusual presentations of “Speak Truth” took place a year ago in Qatar. Performed in Arabic, the production had 12 international human rights activists in the audience. That model has been employed elsewhere and will also be a feature of the Fort Lewis experience.

Two human rights advocates, whose pictures and stories appear in the book, will be on campus this week and next. Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in the Laogai Prison, known in China as the Bamboo Gulag, will be the first to arrive. One of eight children of a Shanghai banker, Wu was educated at a Jesuit school. In the late 1950s, he attended the Beijing College of Geology where his life as an activist began. His road of protest led to prison. His eventual release in 1979 led to life as an author and a champion of human rights. Wu will give a lecture at 2: 30 p.m. on Fri., Oct. 19, in the FLC Student Lounge, and he will be present at the Oct. 19 and 20 performances.

Felicia Lansbury Meyer, the director of “Speak Truth to Power,” takes a load off during rehearsals at Fort Lewis College Mainstage Theatre./Photo by David Halterman

Activist Marina Pisklakova-Parker developed domestic crisis centers in Russia and continues to train workers. Like Wu, Pisklakova-Parker has written several books on human rights abuses, particularly in the area of domestic violence. In Russia, she pioneered the first hotline for battered women, controversial to say the least. Eventually she became a member of the United Nations Global Research team investigating the subject. Pisklakova-Parker will speak at 1:30 p.m. on Fri., Oct. 26, in the Student Lounge and again that evening at the performance.

In the play, Dorfman introduces Wu and Pisklakova and some 49 other human rights advocates one by one. Dorfman uses exact testimony to tell first-person stories.

For speaking out, many were imprisoned and suffered physical and psychological punishment.

This is a work of storytelling, the oldest dramatic device in theater. With a small number of actors taking several roles each, Dorfman brings forth one story after another with limited commentary from two narrators, a First and Second Voice. Dorfman also includes a lot of technical directives, especially light cues, in and around the monologues. It’s somewhat rare for a contemporary playwright to do so. Many leave those decisions to creative directors.

“It’s a talky play, for sure,” Meyer said. “And it’s a play about light and dark. The lights come up. The lights go down. It’s very clear, but there also is a lot of aloneness.”

Stage Manager Matthew Mount said he has followed the script closely.

“Timing will be key,” Mount said. “The play is one hour and five minutes long, and I have to listen very carefully for everything. There are 81 light cues, 50 projection cues, and we’re layering images on side screens.”

In addition to portraits and names of the activists, other photographs will create a visual landscape for the monologues, Meyer said. She and Mount noted that many will seem abstract at first, “a gray blob may turn into something else,” Meyer said. “For example, a blurry photo of a camp with barbed wire may turn into Auschwitz. There are some very heavy images,” she added, “Abu Ghraib, for example.”

To further enhance a sense of drama, Meyer said she will employ other theatrical devices, a sound scape and a Greek chorus. Cliff Harris, a local percussionist who specializes in West African drumming will provide “a landscape of music,” Meyer said. Kathryn Moller, department chair, suggested Harris. “I didn’t know where to turn, so this was wonderful,” Meyer said

“We also have a kind of Greek chorus, not a traditional one,” she continued. “The students and I collaborated on ways to introduce movement. Through movement, we create moments of separateness, aloneness and togetherness. This is one way the actors suggest hope. The material can be overwhelming, but I think a message of hope essentially is in the play.”

After all, Meyer said, the play is about courage, the ability to stand up to authority. “Everything we see in the media and in society today sets us up to be afraid,” she said. “But without fear, there cannot be courage.” •