The Global Lovers

I feel compelled to respond to three remarks about The Global Lovers made by Tom McElfresh in his review for City Beat.  He accuses the production of being “tediously repetitious” and “anklebone shallow,” and claims that it fails to provide “additional enlightenment” after Scene 1.

In a telephone interview with Mr. McElfresh prior to the Fringe Festival, he pressed me to state in one sentence what The Global Lovers was about, what readers should take away from a performance.  Like many critics in the popular press, he was trying to reduce an artistic exploration to a simplistic sound bite, and I unfortunately assisted him.  Instead of explaining that the play was examining many facets of sex slavery, I emphasized its concern with the thoughtless consumption of girls and material goods.  For that, I apologize to Mr. McElfresh, for it evidently led him to write a myopic review of an ambitious production.   He erroneously assumed that the play had only one point to make.  In a sense, he was correct:  our “point” was to let the audience think for themselves about a range of issues associated with sex slavery.  It is, after all, a think-piece, much closer to experimental theater than conventional drawing-room drama.  With his critical remarks in mind, what follows is a synopsis of what he missed.

Repetitious?  Well, yes, in that repetition was a device intentionally employed in the play.  Chants using advertising slogans and jargon occurred throughout the play to allude to the constant presence of – shall I say, the repetition of? – mass marketing in our lives.  The play links this behavior to the marketing of sex slaves, and then, according to Mr. McElfresh, repeats this point alone.  If this were true, then the play would indeed be “shallow.”

Shallow?  Well, perhaps, if one sleeps through the play.   Our project wasn’t content to merely state what informed, conscientious people, including Mr. McElfresh, already know:  that sex slavery occurs and is horrifying.  We wanted to show how the process works, and what the treatment and its effects are like for these girls and women who are repeatedly penetrated on several levels simultaneously: physical, psychological, and emotional.  Girls and women in forced prostitution are not “working girls” charging a fee; they are raped daily, and sometimes beaten or otherwise punished if they are not raped enough.  Mr. McElfresh failed to notice the arc of Girl’s character from innocence and victimization, to resignation and near-madness (where Girl, a possession herself, examines the trash that comprises her possessions, items in stark contrast to those of Kentucky Woman), to anger (where she questions the use of language itself), and finally to defiance (where she turns the violence done to her back on Woman and her world).  This isn’t “anklebone shallow” material; this is the play’s penetration into the experience of a sex slave, with numerous points of contrast to Woman’s world of comfort and security.

No additional enlightenment?  Mr. McElfresh does not acknowledge the poetic imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and allusion this experimental drama uses to link the brothel to the bedroom community:  bird calls, snakes, tulips and other flowers, the names of mythical, historical, and contemporary women who have been raped, and the names used for prostitutes over the ages.  These strategies were used to suggest the extent to which prostitution and rape have been mythical, actual, and artistic occurrences over time, so much so that we take it for granted:  “It happens,”  “It can’t be stopped entirely.”  This play doesn’t want you to take prostitution and rape for granted.

The play includes other voices that allude to the levels of betrayal at work here:  a female broker who betrays the innocent, brothel customers who justify and joke about their behavior, the wife of the brothel owner who tolerates and supports his business and outlook, the brothel owner himself whose hypocrisy supersedes affection for his own wife and daughter.  Mr. McElfresh does not mention these characters; all he noticed were “members of a nine-woman cast running in circles, clawing the air and hissing.”  (Is he thinking of the five-woman chorus here?)  He does mention, somewhat dismissively, that Girl “spends the entire play on one pallet” – actually, she steps off the pallet in Scene 5 in a symbolic gesture of power – but he doesn’t recognize the confinement and transfer of goods that the pallet represents.

While we worked to put the best possible production of The Global Lovers on stage, we recognized that the Fringe Festival would be another step in the development of this play.  We knew that our current production was not perfect or flawless, and looked forward to receiving thoughtful, constructive criticism that would help us improve the play.  We did not receive this from Mr. McElfresh.  More than anything, we were caught off guard by the vitriolic tone of his review, and his lack of attention to detail.  We deserved better.

Piñata Productions (Official Website)