#Eisa Davis

[manwalksintobar]

if we’ve gotta live underground and everybody’s got cancer/ will poetry be enuf?  // Eisa Davis to Ntozake Shange

         dear ntozake,

I got sacks of mercury under the skin beneath my eyes either cried too much or i’m abt to the cool war’s burnin up my retina again does poetry start where life ends? i know i’m supposed to be cool: i wear corrective lenses that feature high definition tragedy. baby in the dumpster       ethnic cleansing assassinations       multinational mergers i’m supposed to shake my head write a poem believe in ripples. but i ain’t cool. i emit inhuman noises i imagine terrorist acts as i flick my imaginary ash onto the imaginary tray i imagine going insane with a purpose and writing it down feels sorta unnecessary does poetry end where life begins? berkeley girl       black girl        red diaper baby born of the blood of the struggle but with reaganomics and prince pickin up steam in ‘81 nothing came between me and my calvins 10 yrs old       unpressed hair       playin beethoven readin madeleine l’engle       got scared in my pants when i heard this girl testifying ‘TOUSSAINT’ in the black repertory group youth ensemble i was just sittin in a rockin chair pretendin to be 82 and talkin like I knew all bout langston’s ‘rivers’

i wasn’t as good as her and i definitely wadn’t cool so i gave up drama and decided to bake soufflés zake you wda beat me up in the playground if we’da grown up together and you did eighth grade       ‘he dropped em’ at the regional oratorical competition i saw another fly honey rip it this time it’s ‘a nite with beau willie brown’ i was bleedin on the ground i became yours no more soufflés i jacked for colored girls right off my mama’s shelf my mama fania who was sweatin with you and raymond sawyer and ed mock and halifu osumare dancin on the grass       back in the day in you i found a groove never knew i had one like that did that monologue over and over alone in my room my bunk bed the proscenium arch 13 yrs old       screamin and cryin abt my kids gettin dropped out a window didn't know a damn thing about rivers but i knew abt my heart fallin        five stories you were never abbreviated or lower case to me you just pimped that irony that global badass mackadocious funkology you not only had hígado you had ben-wa balls in yr pussy

betsey brown on my godmother's couch nappy edges in mendocino at the mouth of big river spell #7 after the earthquake in silverlake the love space demands had to be in brooklyn yr poems are invitations to live in yr body love letters yr admirers dream they coulda written themselves no one cd find a category that was yr size blackety black but never blacker than thou you teased me into sassiness when i had none to speak of made profane into sacred but never formed a church sanctified women's lives whether we were reading nietzsche or a box of kotex we were magical and regular you many-tongued st louis woman of barnard and barcelona you left us the residue of yr lust left us to wander life as freely as sassafrass cypress and indigo and even the unedumacated could get yr virtuosity cuz you always fried it up in grease you built an aqueduct from lorraine hansberry's groundwater and it bubbled straight to george c wolfe you never read what the critics said and you scrunched up the flesh between yr eyebrows like everybody else in my family

but zake is poetry enuf?

i beg the question cuz you grew me up you    and adrienne kennedy     and anna deavere smith and all my mothers you blew out the candles on my 26th so when there's mercury under the skin beneath my eyes and the world ain't so cool do you write a poem or a will?

like leroi jones said     if bessie smith had killed some white people she wouldn't have needed that music so do we all write like amiri baraka does or do we all get our nat turner on?

i beg the question cuz i wanna get my life right do some real work and i really don't want to kill any white folk i mean     can we talk abt this maybe it's just my red diaper that's itchin but i still got that will to uplift the race sans bootstraps or talented tenths or paper bag tests this time we uplift the human race and i know the rainbow might be but is poetry enuf?

it's a naive question but i'm old enuf to ask them once in a while if we do finally unload the canon clean it out stock up on some more colorful balls ain't we only gettin the ones that are available at a store near you? doesn't the market end up setting the new standards anyway? is poetry enuf if it ain't sellin? if ain't nobody readin it? can poetry keep a man     who can't read from droppin his kids out a window?

and how can i call a ceasefire to this cool war in stanzas of eights when we've declared poetry a no fly zone? we have learned to protect it and its potential politics like a mother shoot down anyone who might overdetermine a poem's meaning (while we poets divebomb everyone else's politics with impunity like we're the United States or something)

if poetry is just poetry we save it from the conservatives but doesn't that mean it's of no use to the progressives?

is poetry enuf? cuz that's all i'm doin. makin up stories    on stage     on the page keepin the beat and that's all my friends are doin and that's what a lot of folks my age are doin

but if we've gone and burnt up everything in the sky if there's nothin else to eat but landfill stroganoff if we've gotta live underground and everybody's got cancer will poetry be enuf?

my aunt angela says i can do my thang and keep swinging left hooks to oppression if i stay up stay into it stay involved just one form of praxis will do. it's just my guilt that thinks i need twenty-two what's enuf?

shouldn't i (or somebody) be our secular bodhisattva become a real power player but skip the talk show can't we stabilize, rekindle collectives and cooperatives and collaborations therapeutic communities that double as creative juggernauts a publishing house     a theatre where the plays cost less than the movies get the neighborhood coven back together take dance breaks in the cubicles sing until the flourescent lights burst into snow i ask you because you changed me zake you changed thousands of women and i know poetry can't be enuf if you drunk

i ain't tryin ta walk off wid alla yr stuff and i got nuttin but love for ya so that's why i gotta know i'm sittin on my bed encircled by every book you've ever published they're open like fans marking pages with the flint of genius all i want is for this circle to grow so tell me:

is this where poetry and life are twins? i felt so crumpled up when i started writing you poetry seemed so useless and dingy next to all the bright red bad news but now that the poem is over i feel wide open like an infant of the spring just tell me how to feed this light to my responsibilities and poetry just might be enuf           love           eisa

[garadinervi]

Lucille Clifton, here rests [Bibl.: Lucille Clifton, Mercy, BOA Edition, Rochester, NY, 2004], in Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez: A Conversation [Moderated by Eisa Davis, The New School, New York, NY, October 24, 2001], «Callaloo», Vol. 25, No. 4 (Autumn, 2002), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimora, MD, [pp. 1038-1074], p. 1040-1041 (youtu here)

[tinseltine]

Got the opportunity to attend the Opening Night Premiere of PEOPLE’S LIGHT MUSHROOM by Eisa Davis, directed by David Mendizábal.  Eisa is one of their New Play Frontiers Residents. Mushroom is the fourth locally inspired world premiere to emerge from NPF – launched with the support of The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Barra Foundation. This Residency is a long-term initiative to commission, develop and produce new plays that explore our American identities through the stories and concerns of our region.

Eisa began developing Mushroom in 2013 when she visited Kennett Square, PA returning many times to get to know the community and form inspirations for the characters.

“The play centers on the lives, loves, families and working conditions of Mexican mushroom pickers in Kennett Square, examining the recent strains placed on this cultural community by an oppressive governmental regime. It uses a series of experiments in form and non-linear storytelling to explore the characters’ dreams and fears.”

The play is seamlessly bilingual, 3 walls of the thrust stage are projected with subtitles in English when actors are speaking Spanish and vice versa.

Many community partners were also developed through this 10 year journey – LCH Health and Community Services, Chester County Food Bank, Coatesville VA, The Garage Community and Youth Center with many events and outreach programs still happening around “Mushroom”.

A Tinsel & Tine #MiniReview: Edit (Kenia Munguia) is a DREAMER (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) in school to become a nurse.  Her mother Lety (Laura Crotte) is undocumented and one of the few female mushroom pickers at this particular farm. Tyler (Todd Lawson) is a white male who has recently inherited the mushroom farm from his brother, but knows almost nothing about the business. Ignacio (Michael G. Martinez) used to manage the farm and wanted to purchase it, but Tyler’s brother turned him down years ago, so he moved on to start his own Stone Masonry company; but generously comes back to the farm to explain the basics to Tyler.  Epifanio (Angel Sigala) is Ignacio’s troublesome cousin. He’s a Mushroom worker who was recently hurt on the farm, but no one is sure of the circumstances. Rain (Maribel Matinez – really loved her vibe) is a black Mexican who grew up in the area, moved away to follow her spirit, is back temporarily, with family issues she’d rather not face. She also acts as a community arbitrator between the workers and management.  Tyler also finds her attractive.  Natrajan (Ahsan Ali) is a wealthy Pakistan immigrant here on a work Visa, he and Edit become romantically entangled.  There’s a narrator (Ahsan Ali) who plays several parts.

Through these characters much is discussed about many aspects of immigration in the US. Reasons for leaving your home country. Forming bonds with the community around you. The mushroom industry and more.   It’s not always simple to follow and its run time is 3 hrs with intermission, but it is very eloquently written and wonderfully thoughtful. It’s meant to remind you marginalized individuals are just that – individuals, unique and of consequence.

SEE Video of Opening Night Party with REMARKS by Zak Berkman, Producing Artistic Director and Playwright Eisa Davis –

https://tinseltine.com/philly-theater-recap-mushroom/

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also, for interest/reference, the titles of the individual mini plays in the mysteries (and playwrights), according to the show's program

Act I - The Fall

Song of the Trimorph (Lucifer's Lament) - Dael Orlandersmith

Falling for You - Liz Duffy Adams

The Eighth Day (Creation Hymn) - Jason Williamson

God's Rules - Johnna Adams

A Worm Walks into a Garden, or The Fall of Man - Madeleine George

Right of Return - Jorge Ignacio Cortinas

Cain and Abel - David Henry Hwang

Build It - Trista Baldwin

The Flood - Mallery Avidon

Fruitful and Begettin' - Nick Jones

Bright New Devil - Matthew Stephen Smith

The Moses Story - Ann Marie Healy

The Prophecy - CollaborationTown

The Annunciation - Jordan Harrison

Joseph's Troubles About Mary - Kate Gersten

The Shepherds - Kimber Lee

King of Kings - Kate Moira Ryan

The Slaughter of the Innocents - Chris Dimond

The Flight into Egypt - Kenneth Lin

Act II - The Sacrifice

Christ with the PhDs - Erin Courtney

Jesus Grows Up Fast - CollaborationTown

New Periods of Pain Part I - Craig Lucas

Something in the Water - A. Rey Pamatmat

Transfiguration - Billy Porter/Kirsten Greenidge

The Woman Taken in Adultery - Max Posner

The Raising of Lazarus - Amy Freed

Jesus Enters Jerusalem - Gabriel Jason Dean

Turning the Tables - CollaborationTown

The Conspiracy - Yussef El Guindi

The Last Supper - Jeff Whitty

The Garden of Tears and Kisses - José Rivera

The Denial of Peter - Bess Wohl

Christ Before Herod - Qui Nguyen

Judgment? - Marc Acito

The Remorse - Sevan K. Greene

The Road to Calvary - Jenny Schwartz

Act III - The Kingdom

New Periods of Pain Part II - Craig Lucas

The Death of Christ - Don Nguyen

The Harrowing of Hell - Lucas Hnath

Resurrection - Bill Cain

The Next Supper - Lloyd Suh

The Appearance - Ellen McLaughlin

Thomas Doubting (or, Doubting Thomas Doubts His Doubt) - Jordan Seavey

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene - Meghan Kennedy

Pentecost - Sean Graney

Walking Away from the Mirror and Forgetting What You Looked Like - Eisa Davis

The Death of Mary - Lillian Groag

The Assumption of Mary - Najla Said

The Coronation - Laura Marks

The Last Judgment - Michael Mitnick

Sermon of The Senses - José Rivera

[saifkadyrovroleplay]

Eisa Davis nel ruolo di Condoleezza Rice, consigliere per la sicurezza nazionale del presidente George W. Bush.

[tctmp]

Baby Ruby: Directed by Bess Wohl. With Noémie Merlant, Kit Harington, Camila Canó-Flaviá, Eisa Davis. The tightly scripted world of a vlogger and influencer unravels after she becomes a mother, in noted playwright Bess Wohl's feature debut.

[rebeleden]

Watch "Bulrusher: An interview with playwright Eisa Davis" on YouTube

[brandedcities]

People's Light 1st bilingual production celebrates Kennett Square's mushroom industry

Eisa Davis' play was translated by Mexican playwright Georgina Escobar. If you don't speak Spanish, the dialogue is translated on a screen.

[manwalksintobar]

Ntozake Shange to Eisa Davis

          querida antigua eisa,

you almost got it-you really did ‘born of the blood of struggle’ we all were/ even if we don’t know it/ what if poetry isn’t enuf? whatchu gonna do then? paint     ? dance     ? put your back field in motion & wait for james brown to fall on his knees like it’s too much for him/ what? too much for james? yeah/ didn’t you ever see the sweat from his brow/ a libation of passion make a semi-circle fronta his body/ a half-moon of exertion washin’ away any hope he had of/ standin’ it/ can’t stand it & he falls to his knees and three jamesian niggahs in a stroll so sharp it hurts bring him a cape that shines likes the northern star/shinin' i say like you imagined the grease in the parts of yr hair or yr legs/or yr mother's face after rehearsal after she had you/ james falls to his knees cuz he “cain't take it"/he's pleadin’ please please please don't go we look to see who brought james brown to the floor / so weak/ we think/ so overwrought with the power of love that’s why poetry is enuf/ eisa/ it brings us to our knees & when we look up from our puddles of sweat/ the world's still right there & the children still have bruises tiny white satin caskets & their mothers weep like mary shda there is nothing more sacred than a glimpse of power of the universe it brought james brown to his knees lil anthony too/ even jackie wilson arrogant pretty muthafuckah he was/ dropped no knee pads in the face of the might we have to contend with/ & sometimes yng blk boys bleed to death face down on asphalt cuz fallin' to they knees was not cool/ the way to go/it ain't fallin' to our knees is a public admission a great big ol' scarlet letter that we cain't/ don't wanna escape  any feelin'/ any sensation of bein' alive can come right down on us/ & yes my tears & sweat may decorate the ground like a veve in haiti or a sand drawing in melbourne/ but in the swooning/ in the delirium/ of a felt life lies a poem to be proud of/ does it matter? can ya stand up, chile? the point is not to fall down & get up dustin' our bottoms/ i always hated it when folks said that to me/ the point eisa/ is to fall on your knees & let the joy of survivin' bring you to yr feet/ yr bottom's not dirty/ didn't even graze the earth/ no it's the stuff of livin' fully that makes the spirit of the poem let you show yr face again & again & again i usedta hide myself in jewelry or huge dark glasses big hats long pillowin' skirts/ anythin' to protect me/ from the gazes somebody'd see i'd lived a lil bit/ felt somethin' too terrible for casual      conversation & all this was obvious from lookin' in my eyes/ that's why i usedta read      poem after poem with my eyes shut/ quite a feat/ cept the memory'd take over &      leave my tequila bodyguard in a corner somewhere out the way of the pain in my eyes that simply came through my body/ they say my hands sculpt the air with words/ my face becomes the visage of a character's voice/ i don't know i left my craft to chance & fear someone wd see i care too much take me for a chump laugh & go home this is not what happened? is poetry enuf to man a picket line/ to answer to phones at the rape crisis center/ to shield women entering abortion clinics from      demons with crosses & illiterate signs defiling the horizon at dawn/ to keep our      children from believin' that they can buy hope with a pair of sneakers or another      nasty filter for        cheap glass pipe/ no/ no/ a million times no but poetry can bring those bleeding women & children outta time up close enuf for us to see feel ourselves there/ then the separations what makes me/ me & you/ you/// drops away & the truth that we      constantly avoid/ shut our eyes to/ hold our breath hopin' we won't be found out/ surfaces/ darlin'/ & we are all everyone of those dark & hurtin' places/ those dry bloodied memories are no less ours than the mornin/ yes the mournin' we may be honorable enuf to endure with our eyes open the coroner cannot simply bring her hand gently down our eyelids/      leavin' us to the silence of not life/ the solitude of the unreachable can ya stand up, 'chile? hands stretched out to touch again not so you can get up & conquer the world/ you did that when you cdnt raise yr head & yr body trembled so/ you scared yr mama that was when the poem took over & you gave you      back what you discovered you didn't haveta give up/ all that fullness of breath/ houdini in an emotional maze/ free at last but nobody can see how you did it/ 'how'd she get out'/ nobody'll know less you tell em/ do you really wanna write/ from twenty thousand leagues under a stranger's wailin? can you move gracefully randomly thru the landmines that are yr own angola/ hey, your bosnia! are you shamed sometimes there's no feelin' you can recognize in yr left leg? does the bleeding you'll do anyway offend you or can you make a sacred drawing like ana mendieta that will heal us all? do i believe in magic? hell yeah. shd you? i don't know. don't know how yr gonna find yr way out the maze/ ancient as it is no one can tell you the secret/ not me/ not aunt angela/ not yr mama beautiful as she is/ i usedta watch her legs cut thru space like a ninja in      ballet shoes/ i wanted to be tall & clear-eyed like yr mama/ & you come tellin'      me i cd beat you up in a school yard/ no my daddy wda bought the school yard & paid kids not to hurt me/ so what you see is not what you get i am not a poem/ i am savannah's mother/ savannah sat with her bottle      thru the children's class at stanze's once we moved to texas/ but i was always lookin’ for your mother's legs to come slicing the air/ ten years later/      2000 miles away/ed mock dead/ tower of power fallen/ sly stone disappeared/      oakland like the back of my hand/ now unknown/ "get it & feel good" i usedta      say sometimes still do/ diffrence is i cherish stupid lil things now/ did yr      mama tell you raymond asked our whole class after a bout with possessed drummers and gravity/ if we ever took our dance clothes off/ he could smell us comin'       cross the Bay Bridge/ he shouted & pranced like somekinda stallion/ like his sweat      didn't stink too/workin' in the other realm is dirty work/ makes us smell bad/      did yr mama tell ya? i know she didn't let ya believe makin' art was not a messy      business/ she cdn't have/ we were trained too well is poetry enuf, eisa? that's gonna be up to you? is poetry enuf for me? why do you think i wrote 'for colored girls' i wanted yall to come out from under yr starched pinafores & pressed      heads with some notion of dream & sanctity of spirit/ looks like some of it worked but remember i'm still writin' still dancin' fell on my knees so many times now/ i wrote rev. ike for a prayer cloth it's serious like that peaceful like that i sweat when i write/ do you?           the original aboriginal dancin' girl           love,           ntozake

[garadinervi]

Sonia Sanchez, [«... the letter I wrote to Chinua Achebe on his 70th birthday»], in Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez: A Conversation [Moderated by Eisa Davis, The New School, New York, NY, October 24, 2001], «Callaloo», Vol. 25, No. 4 (Autumn, 2002), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimora, MD, [pp. 1038-1074], p. 1047-1049 (youtu here)

[erikahenningsen]

Hold This House Together | The Secret Life of Bees | Atlantic Theater Company

[racetrackshiggins]

This is all you came to So sad, so sad, so sad

[mobydickmusical]

Moby Dick musical lyrics: Dusk

- These are not official lyrics, they’re transcribed by me. 

- Source novel quotes for the lyrics, and notes, are under the cut.

DUSK

Track: 19

Characters: Starbuck (solo)

Range: A3-D5

As performed by Starr Busby/ Eisa Davis April 9 2018

Dusk

The Sun sinks away

Twilight’s last goodbye before the darkness

God, please light my way

Tell me how to get through this

Dusk

My soul is more than matched

She’s beaten blue and black

By a madman, he shouts and screams

He drilled deep down, blasted all my reason out of me

Terrible and cruel old man

Yet in his eyes I see a sadness

Shrivels me up, tears me in two

God, please help me help this man

I can’t leave him

Something has tied me to this man and I’ve no knife to cut the line

Something has tied me to this man and I’ve no knife to cut the line

Something has tied to this man

I hope

That the waters are wide enough

That the voids are vast enough

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

That he never, never finds what he is looking for

I hope

That God hides that whale like a goldfish

That God hides that whale like a goldfish

SOURCE QUOTES AND NOTES

The lyrics are for the mostly close to the novel (the chapter Dusk is written as a monologue for Starbuck), with some added phrases. 

The first verse with the description of the literal dusk and metaphorical tie-in isn’t from the book. It’s added to replicate the structure of Ahab’s solo earlier in the show, Sunset. 

The other main difference is honing in on, or adding, specific emotive language so we feel all the more pity for Starbuck’s situation. 

...I also feel like these kind of changes for this song will make more sense when we’ve heard how Dave portrays The Cabin, the previous song based on a chapter in which Starbuck confronts Ahab, ending in Ahab threatening Starbuck with a gun. Dusk in the book isn’t actually connected with this interaction at all (it happens long before it) so changing the lyrics to emotionally reflect that seems pretty reasonable just in itself. Then you add trying to create a specific emotional reception to that. 

Ch 38 Dusk

My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. 

Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he cries;—aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside [...] 

[...]  Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feed - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!

And other vaguely similar bits and pieces, potentially:

Ch 36 The Quarter-Deck

"God keep me! - keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.

Ch 51 The Spirit-Spout

Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.

[publictheater]

Our KINGS characters get by with a little help from their friends, enemies, and some Chili’s Margaritas.