377 days, blog #149 Politik or give me love over this

As I drove through the foggy cold drizzle to work the other day, a Coldplay song shuffled into hearing.  Politik.  I used this song as inspiration for directing Romeo and Juliet six years ago and listened to it almost daily, often on repeat (probably to the chagrin of those with whom I lived at the time).  I found the lyrics and the music particularly resonant with the mood I wanted to create – which I will try to explain if I can, but will likely do so poorly without any visual to support it.  

The song opens with a very loud beat – almost like a crash.  I used that to open the play.  You know, the opening scene where the Capulets and Montagues explode into a fight over nothing at all.  I set the scene in a Starbucks.  I had a brilliant fight choreographer.  It started the whole play with tension – something I wanted to happen.  I wanted the audience to feel it.

The tragedy, of course, is that tension went beyond the stage… and forced me to get distracted from the larger ideas of that play for quite some time.  But I find myself revisiting it a lot in recent weeks.  Some people seek out the Bible for wisdom.  Some people (me) look to other antiquated texts to grasp how another human being – another artist – dealt with a similar situation a half millennium ago.

Anyway, I used a piece of the song again.  Right after the whole Tybalt/Mercutio/Romeo being banished debacle.  It was the first scene of the second half of the show.  But to transition from that very tense scene to Juliet’s impatient sighs (and to allow a re-maneuvering of the stage furniture) I took the twenty or so seconds when the volume of the song diminishes to mostly piano and Chris Martin pleading, “give me love over this.”  It was something that worked a little better in my head… but it still placated that awkward silence of the audience after they just saw Tybalt beaten to death with a piece of lumber (I didn’t use guns in my modern interpretation).  

Give me love over this.

Often when I get to that part of the song I repeated the verse.

Give me love over this.

This… whatever this heightened, impassioned, hasty misunderstanding of racial bias and police brutality and good public servants and the desire to create a system that is safe for both those who enforce it and those who live within it… is getting so crazy and tense.  It feels like that dangerous emotion I directed into a show six years ago.   At least the only result of that were a few broken friendships… most of which have mended, with some strength and honesty they lacked before.  At least I can take the ownership of a lesson from that and the lessons I have failed to learn.  Plays are much more manageable than the reality of society.

A reality that feels like the awkward silence after Tybalt’s death.  Awkward for the observers.  Still volatile and hot-blooded for the players.  And there is no option to drown it out with a scene change and a snippet of Coldplay.