I’m thinking of the red cloaks, for instance, that the handmaids wear in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. (The book has been made into both a movie and a brutalizing TV series.)
In Atwood’s imagined world, the handmaids are treated as childbearing slaves in a patriarchal Christian theocracy. For the past several years, the red robes that the handmaids wear in fiction have been showing up at real-life protests. This 2018 article from Variety notes their appearance at the first day of Robert Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings for the US Supreme Court, for instance.
In the light of the recently leaked draft of the court’s decision on Roe v. Wade, which was written by Justice Samuel Alito, it seems inevitable that the heavily conservative, heavily Christian Supreme Court will soon remove abortion as a constitutional right in the United States.
In this article in The Atlantic, “I Invented Gilead. The Supreme Court Is Making it Real”, Atwood talks about the concept of ensoulment and the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.
The argument that the anti-choice position is “about the babies” raises some questions, she says: “Is an acorn an oak tree? Is a hen’s egg a chicken? When does a fertilized human egg become a full human being or person? ‘Our’ traditions—let’s say those of the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the early Christians—have vacillated on this subject. At ‘conception’? At ‘heartbeat’? At ‘quickening?’ The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is at ‘conception,’ which is now supposed to be the moment at which a cluster of cells becomes ‘ensouled.’ But any such judgment depends on a religious belief—namely, the belief in souls. Not everyone shares such a belief. But all, it appears, now risk being subjected to laws formulated by those who do. That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all.”
She notes that the First Amendment to the Constitution makes it clear that there is to be no state religion, “But should the Alito opinion become the newly settled law, the United States looks to be well on the way to establishing a state religion. Massachusetts had an official religion in the 17th century. In adherence to it, the Puritans hanged Quakers.”
And Atwood has a warning. “The Alito opinion purports to be based on America’s Constitution. But it relies on English jurisprudence from the 17th century, a time when a belief in witchcraft caused the death of many innocent people.” The Salem witchcraft trials, she reminds us, accepted “spectral evidence,” which is based in the belief that “a witch could send her double, or specter, out into the world to do mischief. Thus, if you were sound asleep in bed, with many witnesses, but someone reported you supposedly doing sinister things to a cow several miles away, you were guilty of witchcraft. You had no way of proving otherwise.
“Similarly, it will be very difficult to disprove a false accusation of abortion. The mere fact of a miscarriage, or a claim by a disgruntled former partner, will easily brand you a murderer. Revenge and spite charges will proliferate, as did arraignments for witchcraft 500 years ago.”
+ In this challenging edition of the podcast The Ezra Klein Show, Klein speaks with scholar Kate Greasley about bodily autonomy and the question of when personhood begins. (If the highlighted link doesn't work for you, look for The Ezra Klein Show wherever you get your podcasts.) ...
Comedian Angie Belcher helps people to reframe their relationships to trauma and self-harm.
2. KILLING IT (COMEDY, NOT YOURSELF)
Angie Belcher, who is the comedian in residence at Bristol University, is launching a new course that will teach men at risk of suicide how to perform stand-up comedy — and it’s being funded by the National Health Service.
Belcher has recently completed a successful, government-supported, six-week course for trauma survivors in Bristol. In her new initiative, she’ll work with 20 men in northwest London, who will “graduate” by performing in a comedy show for at least 100 people.
According to this article in The Guardian, Belcher will lead her students “through the writing, performance and analysis of their personal stories to create a five-minute stand-up comedy set, using games, group and one-to-one work.” Guarding against the possibility of retriggering distress, the program will integrate support from psychologists, GPs, and suicide-prevention organizations.
Lourdes Colclough, who is head of suicide prevention at the organization distributing the NW London grant, said she’s very excited about the course “because we’re hoping it will reach men who, even though they’ve been diagnosed as at high risk of suicide, don’t think they have an issue and so won’t go to counselling or attend anything signposted ‘suicide prevention’.”
For Belcher, it’s about helping folks to reframe their narratives and claim their power.
“I hope that participants will use what they learn on the course in their practical everyday life,” she says, “so that they go into future endeavours with joy, hopefulness and playfulness rather than taking out their bully teenager-persona or their depressed 20-something persona or their grieving mother-persona or whatever it is.
“I want participants to leave the course with a different part of themselves – their comedic persona – so that they can enjoy their lives in a different way and hopefully in a better way.”
As The Guardian notes, “Stand-up comedy is regularly listed as one of the toughest jobs in the world, featuring heavily in 90% of people’s top 10 fears.” Belcher points out that, on the other side of that fear, stand-up puts comedians, “in a physically powerful position .... You can speak directly to an audience about important things, which means you have the opportunity to change their lives. As a comedian, you could be the reason why someone in your audiences does something differently.”
+ The UK’s National Health Service has it goin’ on when it comes to the arts. In 2020, the government launched a £1.4 million social-prescribing fund, which includes arts and culture as well as other activities, some of which have to do with greater contact with nature. (The Stage)
+ The English National Opera recently launched the Breathe Programme, which uses singing techniques to help people with symptoms of long Covid, including breathlessness. According to The Lancet, the Breathe initiative seems to improve both mental health and breathing. ...
In this grainy video from 2011, Carol Burnett sings Stephen Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here” from Follies. Her introduction is hilarious — and her singing will give you goosebumps.
3. SONDHEIM'S FINAL PICK
Stephen Sondheim considered Carol Burnett one of the outstanding interpreters of his work. I did not know that.
But they go way back, and, on May 16, Burnett received Signature Theatre’s Stephen Sondheim Award. She was the last winner to be handpicked by Sondheim, who died in November.
In the letter he wrote in 2019, selecting Burnett for the award — Covid delayed delivery of the prize — he wrote, “We all know Carol Burnett is a multitude of talents. To begin with, she can sing, and I mean sing! Her singing in fact is the most underrated gift she has. Then she can act, and not only that, sing and act at the same time, which is not as easy as it sounds. Especially if you also happen to be one of the funniest women alive.”
Burnett met Sondheim in 1960, when she was rehearsing a Thanksgiving TV special with Dick Van Dyke. She had just sung a number in her charwoman character, which would become a trademark, “and,” she told The Washington Post, “this young man came up to me and introduced himself and said, ‘I’m Stephen Sondheim, and I really liked what you were doing.’ I had no idea who he was.” Sondheim had recently written the lyrics for Gypsy.
Burnett would go on to feature Sondheim’s work on The Carol Burnett Show, which ran on CBS from 1967 to 1978. At a landmark concert in 1985, she performed “I’m Still Here” from Follies, sealing her reputation as a Sondheim interpreter. And, in 1999, she was cast, at the composer’s request, in the Sondheim revue Putting It Together, which ran on Broadway for 101 performances.
Burnett, now 89, is also friends with Randy Rainbow. I did not know that either. At the gala presentation of the award, Rainbow told the crowd, “We bonded over our shared love of Sondheim and cats — the animal, not the musical.” ...
The lovely Drew Facey
4. FLIGHTS OF ANGELS
Most of you will know by now that set, production, and interior designer Drew Facey —winner of 18 Jessie Awards — died on May 11 in Merida, Mexico, where he had moved with his husband Kelly Murphy. Drew passed due to complications from a full body inflammation that began in October. It caused a low red blood cell count and severe anemia that affected his internal oxygen levels and ability to breathe.
Drew was the sweetest guy.
My job here isn’t to add to the many obituaries, although I will quote a clutch of my favourite sentences from The Globe’s: “At the age of 10, he asked his parents for a subscription to Architectural Digest. They obliged. Christmas and Halloween decorations in the Facey household required precise, perfect arrangements, overseen by Drew.”
My job is to let you know that there will be a memorial for Drew at 3:00 p.m. on June 20 at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage. ...
Shayna Jones and Kwesi Ameyaw on Brian Ball’s set for The Mountaintop (Photo by Kathryn Nickford Photography)
5. SEEING THINGS
Tonight, I’ll be seeing Pacific Theatre’s production of The Mountaintop, so you can look for that review on my blog by late afternoon tomorrow. ...
Here’s the link to“Broader Broadway”, the most recent issue of FRESH SHEET. (I took last week off.) “Broader Broadway” includes items about this year’s more inclusive Tony Award nominations, art and abortion rights, the puppet Little Amal, and a production of Giselle in Lviv.
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