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Looking Back at Bad Men: Dark Noon and Pre-Existing Condition
Colonialism and abuse, addressed onstage.
Despite, we are told, the fact that the peoples who came across the Bering Strait thousands of years ago were “complex and diverse … for all their differences, one belief held true — that no one could own the land.” This might be broadly accurate, and certainly it presents a clear and convenient set of progressive values with which to align ourselves (in case we were confused over the moral fiber of the pillaging, raping settlers) — but again, it’s too easy. Hundreds of years before covered wagons, cowboys, and even Columbus, the city-state of Cahokia —in the twelfth century, the biggest New World metropolis north of Mexico—had already risen, expanded, moved toward a variety of hierarchical practices that sure looked a lot like enclosure and eminent domain, then declined and collapsed. The play’s four figures are designated by letters, A through D. A, the authorial avatar, is navigating the traumatic aftermath of an abusive event and the ensuing break-up; B (Dael Orlandersmith), C (the excellent Sarah Steele), and D flow in and out of her orbit as friends, therapists, moderators of a domestic violence support group, lawyers, family members, and tentative first dates.
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