THE ANTIOCH RECORD

Yellow Springs OH

www antioch college edu

Thursday February 16 2006 Vol 61 Issue 25

Interview by Viktor Maco with Jaime Robert Carrillo, Director of Firebrand Theory’s Lynch PLAY

After the talk back I was fortunate enough to be able to sit with Carrillo and ask a few more questions before the cast left the next morning.

The Record: Thank you for coming, how is it that you came to perform here?

Jaime Robert Carrillo: Really it was because we were invited here by Jamila and her mother, as well as Louise Smith. We took the invitation as an honor in particular, because of Antioch’s reputation for being a tolerant, free-thinking and culturally sensitive college. It’s been a very welcoming community and we’ve been treated very well. We want to continue this play on other campus tours. We’ll be doing as long as we feel it’s relevant we want to make sure we are meeting the needs of our audiences.

The Record: Because of the segregated seating you chose to use the play’s run in New York the atmosphere must have been charged differently.

Carrillo: Yeah, it was very explosive. We separated these people and on occasion we separated friends, couples, and sometimes families.

The Record: It’s hard to imagine how that would have gone over here.

Carrillo: It was difficult but some people really got it. One night two women came into a sold out show and because we had something available in the white section we offered them those seats rather than turn them away. Instead they respectfully declined and said they would come to the next show because they understood what we were trying to do. To me that was an enormous compliment. Another time a white woman told me that she was very uncomfortable with the seating arrangement. Then she remarked on how since it was only 90 minutes long it seemed wrong of her to be that troubled by it.

The Record: The reaction to the humor was very strong. I imagine sometimes it is difficult to use humor in these kinds of situations because you don’t want some people to take the stereotyping and satirizing out of context. And even if you are respectful to the subject matter sometimes you’re not sure if you should laugh.

Carrillo: I agree, but it this case I think it’s okay to laugh even if it is seemingly inappropriate. It’s okay because it’s theatre and a theater is a place where explosive ideas can be explored without fear of dangerous outcomes. To me theater is where art portrays real life, and real life has many sides to it: happiness, violence etc. To show only one side would be a disservice to humanity. And the thing is, it’s not one groups pain. It’s not just black pain or white pain, it’s human pain. It is all our realities.