I caused the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This is my conclusion after speaking with Argos MacCallum of Teatro Paraguas about the company’s reading of The Way of Water, Caridad Svich’s play about four people affected by said disaster.
“The
values instilled in us in this culture are optimism and pragmatism, but
the pragmatism is often very short-sighted,” MacCullum says. “We deal
with the problems of each day, and it keeps us from seeing big picture.
It’s really in nobody’s interest to keep this oil culture going, but as
characters—as all of us—they are trying to be productive all the time.”
A
pacific man dressed in black—as theater folk are wont to do—with wild
gray hair and matching beard, MacCallum didn’t ask me to feel
responsible for the spill as I sipped my Stumptown brew at Betterday Coffee.
No, I took the guilt upon myself the night before as I moved through
the play’s 116 pages of back-and-forth dialogue that rises in tension as
the characters simultaneously argue in spirals of conflicting points of
view.
At first, I identified with the characters’ inherent
confusion, the sense of betrayal and hopelessness in the face of
corporate vagary. Then I marveled at their inability to see outside the
context of their immediate situation, the way they perpetuate the
underlying circumstances. And finally, I applied my nascent theory of
nonparticipatory political action to the background narrative, dismayed
to acknowledge that I destroy lives, communities and ecosystems. And I
don’t know when or how to stop.
Set in a small southeastern
Louisiana town several months after the explosion on the Deepwater
Horizon oilrig, The Way of Water steps into the lives of Jimmy and
Rosalie Robichaux and Yuki and Neva Snow. Jimmy and Yuki are commercial
fishing partners and longtime friends. While casting lines, they trade
updates and platitudes, and provide a little exposition for the
audience: Yuki doesn’t eat breakfast and it makes him weak; Jimmy’s been
suffering from occasional dizziness. A bite on Jimmy’s line turns out
to be a “nasty yellowfish,” “poisoned,” so he tosses it back. Here, the
conversation turns to the oil companies, which Jimmy comes to call “Big
Pig,” and I pull out my pen for the first underline: “Resistance is more
powerful than a job sometimes,” Jimmy says.
We discover later
just how impossible protest is—Yuki has an unexpected child on the way;
Jimmy is three months behind on his mortgage; and the $50 their wives
earn selling fake flowers goes right into living expenses.
Yet
all they can do is complain. When Rose challenges Jimmy to find another
profession, he indignantly says that fishing runs three generations deep
in his family. When Yuki hooks a monster fish while Jimmy’s in the
hospital, they fight over the split, using part of it to buy fast food.
You see the irony, don’t you?
At this point, I begin to think
about the politics inherent in everyday decisions. For instance, if I
were to shop at Albertsons or Whole Foods, rather than tend my own
garden or buy from area farmers, I would help determine the amount of
purchase and influence a foreign company has over this community, the
cost of goods and labor practices. If I were to buy a home, I’d justify
an outrageously overvalued real estate market (yes, still!) and a
reckless banking industry. And when I drive my car, I approve the
methods and practices of the oil and gas industry. I pollute the air; I force chemicals into shale to extract the oil; I spill millions of gallons of crude into the gulf.
“There certainly is some self-censoring,” MacCallum says. “Hopefully, [the play] makes us aware of our own internal conflicts.”
The Way of Water
8 pm Saturday, April 21
Donations accepted
Teatro Paraguas
3205 Calle Marie
424-1601
Follow The Curator on Twitter: @mji76
Santa Fe Reporter