Cardinal Sins and Cardinal Signs of Summer

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“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of Sanford” - Red Fox

A good drama may end with something unexpected and surprise its audience. A great drama will end with something unexpectedly expected, a crafty sort of surprise that audiences find infinitely more satisfying. The unpredictably predictable ending is the fulfillment of a prophecy, the outcome foretold and foreshadowed at every pit stop along Route 66, during our Black Brougham’s journey south, to the crossroads. We know where we are heading. We just don’t know how or when we will arrive. Like the opening of Sunset Boulevard, narrated by the film’s dead protagonist floating in the pool who says,

“The poor dope, he always wanted a pool. Only the price turned out to be a little high.”

Or, “Laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth!”

"You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see - you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!"

All three prophetic voices, Joe Gillis, the 2nd Apparition, and the Oracle of Delphi are indeed telling the truth, they’re just not telling us the whole story, something my momma would call a “half-truth,” a rhetorical device that would earn the storyteller a whole ass whipping, or the infamous “unhappy happy ending” Staff Sergeant Self from 3rd Recon warns boot marines about, when their arrival in Okinawa falls on a Friday afternoon,

“Listen up Devil Dogs, do NOT make the pilgrimage up to Whisper Alley and BC Street to see my motivating snake show or Banana Show, you understand?. It’s not what you think it is, Leathernecks. Remember, even the best laid plans will not always get you laid quite the way you planned.”

Self is absolutely right.

Leland Stanford Junior University was founded in 1885 by Jane and Leland Stanford in memory of their only child, Leland Jr., who died of typhoid fever at 15. After his 1884 death, the Stanfords determined that they would use their wealth to do something for other people’s children.

They decided to create a university that was, from the outset, untraditional: coeducational in a time when most private universities were all-male; nondenominational when most were associated with a religious organization; and practical, producing cultured and useful citizens. The Founding Grant states the university’s objective is “to qualify its students for personal success, and direct usefulness in life” and its purpose “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.

During my most recent interaction with the students and faculty of Stanford University, I was extremely impressed by how much the university has indeed met its founding objective and purpose, yet I was completely surprised by how the day unfolded that led me to this conclusion.

I was invited to speak at Stanford by Dr. Diane Looser, the renowned Kiwi scholar and author of “Moving Islands: Contemporary Performance and the Global Pacific.” Her research draws international and intercultural connections within contemporary performance from Oceania, focusing on theater, performance art, art installations, dance, film, and activist performance in sites throughout Oceania and in Australia, Asia, North America, and Europe, with the aim to “rework the cartographic and disciplinary priorities of transpacific studies to privilege the activities of Islander peoples.” The students of her Humcore-139 course had just finished reading and watching Shakespeare’s Othello then my play, MOORE - a Pacific Island Othello and responded to both works with 750 words, including a question they would like to ask “the author.”

Though it shouldn’t have surprised me, both the composition of the class and the events that took place outside the classroom, during our conversation about how and why I use Shakespeare to push back against systemic racism, rocked me to my core. First of all, over 90% of the students in the class were BIPOC and their conversation forced me into the deepest introspection and impromptu articulation of what I do and why, that I have ever been compelled to express off the cuff, which was absolutely wonderful. During the same timeframe that we were discussing why anti-racist performance is important even when racism isn’t overtly present, police officers outside were taking statements, trying to ascertain how and why a noose was found hanging from a tree in front of the dormitory across the courtyard, which in itself was shocking, yet nothing new for a campus that has had a long history of such hateful gestures, for as long as I can remember, even predating my father’s time as a graduate student in the 60’s.

As Spring becomes Summer and I prepare to leave my home on the slopes of a beloved and active volcano in Hawaii, for a season of uncertainty in New York, Hollywood, or both, I leave that day at Stanford behind me with a renewed sense of purpose and urgency to embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly world we live in for exactly what it is - the world we live in, the only world we have to offer our children, and do everything within my power to show you better than I can tell you for whom the bell tolls.

Our reality is that 571 odd days from now, we will all sail beyond words once again. Red hats will be donned and the drums of grievance will mark time to the cries of angry men and women all across the country, charging up stairways to doorways to demand the return of something stolen, as the true winter of our discontent arrives with 2024 and the Year of the Dragon. It is a story with all the makings of great drama, but not the sort of drama we need in our lives, regardless of what side of the aisle one gravitates toward. And though we all know it is coming, the vast majority of us will be surprised, unsurprisingly.