Surviving the World

A Photocomic Education by Dante Shepherd

Lesson #1283 - "What The-?"

Lately, I keep thinking about the greatest 'what the hark" moment in my life, which inspired the equation above. Here's the story:

I was once in a play called "The Dutchman". If you're not familiar with it, it's basically a play for two main leads - a white female and a black male - with assorted other background incidental characters who have no lines. Basically, my role was as one of the background characters. We had a black director who chose the play, and there was some heated discussion after it, but the production went off fine and was well received. It's a very racially charged play, set in a New York City subway car in the 1960's. Essentially, the white woman meets the black man on the subway, they get to talking, she comes off as a little crazy but they seem to be falling in love, and right before the end of the first scene, they kiss. Over the course of the second scene, their love quickly falls apart at her race-baiting, they get in a screaming match, and as he decides to leave, she kills him. And you find out that killing black men on the subway is something she does, and she's able to get away with it because she gets the bystanders to dispose of the body. The play ends with her basically eyeing her next victim.

Like I said, it's a racially charged play. Racial slurs. Race-related murder.

I was the understudy for the black male.

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I am flying out to Colorado tomorrow to catch some Cornell hockey over the weekend - is there interest in a possible mid-afternoon meet-up (like 2 or 3 PM ish) on Friday in Boulder? Email me and let me know! I'll post a heads-up about any possible meet-up either tomorrow or some other time in this space when I hear from enough people.