"My Date with Troy Davis" at The International Fringe Festival
“My Date with Troy Davis” Written and Performed by Daniel Glenn Directed by Amy Surratt Reviewed by David Roberts Theatre Reviews Limited
There are only two opportunities remaining to see Daniel Glenn’s engaging “My Date with Troy Davis.” Do whatever you can to see this remarkable play before it closes.
This critic wonders why some Fringe shows “sell out” and others have to scramble for an audience. Despite relative quality, some performances turn ticket-buyers away, others sell only a fraction of available seats. Part of the reason might be that humankind would rather be “entertained” by musicals, comedies, and light drama than engage in a performance that profoundly challenges, for example, our complicity with capital punishment.
In “My Date with Troy Davis,” playwright and performer Daniel Glenn relates the true events surrounding the eventual execution of Troy Davis who was convicted of the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. Although the “facts” of this important case are well-known, Daniel Glenn approaches the case and the questions that still remain about it with an incisively different point of view.
Glenn interweaves, counterpoints, collides incidents from his life from the time of the alleged crime in 1989 (when he was seven) to the day of Troy Davis’s death. Whether in a relationship with Girl X or his students, or the children he worked with in India (including Khushbu), Daniel struggles with what it means to be a good person, a person who contributes to society and what essentially is required to BE that kind of person. Some events are real events, some absurdist realities concocted from his interface with a culture that murders without admitting it does: every time a human being is put to death by the state.
Daniel Glenn invites the audience to be co-defendants for all those who are on death row or who have been victims of capital punishment, co-defendants for all urban elementary and high school students administered the lethal injection of tracking, co-defendants of the world’s children who have to learn to smile despite looking forward to short lives, co-defendants of urban youth and young adults mostly male mostly of color electrocuted by a society which beckons and baits them into a penal system where they can be imprisoned or (legally) murdered. The power of “My Date with Troy Davis” is that ultimately we are all the executioners and we are all the executed: we are one.
The play ends with Daniel, clad throughout the play in prison coveralls and handcuffed, snapping back to reality and addressing the audience:
“(Snap back to reality.)
Okay, I have one last thing I have to confess. I lied a little bit. The truth is, Troy Davis was executed on September 21, 2011. Twenty-two years, a month and two days after Mark MacPhial was killed.
But see, on the gurney, as he said his last words, he did kiss me. He said, For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls. God bless you all.
(Put phone away.) I don’t need this. If I keep Troy here, and Khushbu here, and Girl X here, and hold them in my heart and let them tap dance on it, and if I look into the eyes in front of me and see myself, goodness will open up inside me like a seed; I won’t be able to stop it. And that seed will grow into a stalk that I can hold onto in this whirlwind of a world.
If they come for me now to shoot me with their chemicals, it’s okay. If lightening strikes, it’s okay. I’ve been blessed. I am blessed.
I’m ready.”
Daniel Glenn has blessed us. Troy Davis has blessed. We need to receive their blessings and learn how to pass them along “in this whirlwind of a world.”
MY DATE WITH TROY DAVIS
Presented by Daniel Glenn and the New York International Fringe Festival. Written and Performed by Daniel Glenn. Directed by Amy Surratt. Lighting Design by Daniel Winters. Sound Design by Daniel Hilton.
All performances take place at The Steve and Marie Sgouros Theatre, 115 MacDougal Street (West 3rd and Bleecker) in New York, NY. Tickets are available at www.fringenyc.org or 866-468-7619. $15 in advance, $18 at the door. Senior and Fringe Junior tickets available at the door for $10. Running time: 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission. For further information, visit http://www.mydatewithtroydavis.com/index.html
Remaining Show Dates Friday, August 24th @ 2:00 pm Sunday, August 26th @ 3:30 pm
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Friday, August 24, 2012
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