Whittier: A Play in Portraits by TyLie Shider

Design Statement

What do we center in our lives when the world falls apart? Grasping at straws for connection, community, safety, and compassion feels challenging and sometimes times felt impossible during the early days of COVID-19. I remember being alone, like so many others, glued to my phone, my television, my computer, searching for the last bits of humanity through my screen. And there was hope, in the midst of terror. A racial and social reckoning was on the precipice of the national consciousness in early 2020 and it felt like we could somehow repent, and try to fulfill the unfulfilled promises of our nation to those we had abandoned and ignored and silenced and stolen from and murdered. Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness. Freedom. Justice for all. It felt like coming to our inevitable karmic comeuppance.

With each day that passes, it feels uncomfortable to remember the hours at home, alone, watching and waiting to see what would come next. It is even more challenging to revisit those memories with the challenge of contextualizing it was our lives into the larger context and the history of this nation. Works like Whittier: A Play in Portraits provide us with perspective and give us a chance to reflect on those days and why those days matter. Why they should continue to matter. Whittier is a snapshot of life, a first-person source that allows us to return to that place in time and history, encouraging audiences to bring themselves to the work. I know that as time passes, like all things, Whitter as we understand it today will take on new life as history continues to write itself. New directors and designers who may not have experienced COVID-19 or remember the devastating murder of George Floyd will approach it with an understanding and perspective of the future. Whittier is a living text. A testament to the reckoning we were promised. Being able to keep going, to keep fighting, to bring new life to the world, to exist, that is the revolution.

When approaching the scenic design for this project the imagery that stood out to me was the inclusion of multi-media projections, found footage, and mass media. Living rooms are typically the heart of the home and most homes in the United States have a television as the visual focal point in that space. During COVID-19 the connection to other people happened on Zoom or Skype, every face was seen through a screen. What did this do to the way we see each other? How does the medium of a screen warp our understanding of who is on the other side? How has our media literacy as a nation dwindled? Have we become passive viewers, unwilling to question the systems and norms that tell us who to trust and what is true? Televisions, computers, and phones have become a way to connect us to the rest of the world but at the cost of dehumanizing the bodies on the other side, and the people on the other side, for commodification and consumption. George Floyd and countless other victims of police violence have been the victims of the violent action they faced at the hands of their murderers. These victims suffer another act of violence and appropriation as their likeness, their bodies, and their deaths become packaged and distributed to the masses. I wanted to tackle these questions with my design to create a representation of our society’s appetite for violence and horror and reliance on mass media.

I began the design with screens, as many as possible to fill the stage that acts as the building blocks of our world. Stacks of televisions build up a city skyline or adjoining buildings flanking the home in the center. The play is nestled in an era fraught with chaos and it feels like everything is falling apart. The home is a flattened 2-dimensional structure, reminiscent of the scaffolding of a house. The structure could be made of wood or rebar but transparency is key. Windows are hanging in the home made of flatscreen televisions. During the performance, they can be connected to create one large screen like different pieces of a puzzle, all emitting the same video from the same feed, or having a myriad of different channels going at the same time. I think when Akmed broadcasts his news segment, it can be a live feed that is duplicated across all the televisions. The televisions should never be off before or during the performance I want the audience to feel inundated with information mirroring the overwhelming and claustrophobic feelings that the news can give us. In the center of the home is a blacked-out doorway. I would like the doorway to feel like a portal either to the inside/outside world. Nothing is known, beyond that point, nothing is certain, and nothing feels safe. The only time I think the television should be off is at the very end of the play. When Akmed and Rachel bring home their new baby, the televisions should be off so we can focus entirely on this moment of humanity, celebration, and joy. This moment is a reminder to us all, that the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be live.