Drama Masks: We’re going to be OK, dammit

This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof.

I guess it had to happen sometime, didn’t it? Nearly every recent “indefinite hiatus” announcement has had some variation of how the people are important, not the place. That’s nice, but it doesn’t stop the place from being dismantled piece-by-piece.

As I write these words, Aurora Theatre—which closed its final proper show this past Sunday—just announced its “General Open House Sale” to take place on Monday the 25th. As the notice reads, “We’ve got costumes, furniture, office furniture, office shelving + storage, computers, theatrical props, scripts, kitchen wares, concessions items, events shwag, and a slew of other miscellaneous items. Plus several mini fridges!”

If Aurora were a library, it would be hard to see a silver lining in their selling off all the books.

Naturally, one has to wonder how everyone is holding up through the constant madness. As someone who frequently promotes the idea of rebellious joy, I should also note that self-care takes priority. And as someone who knows a thing or two about depression and caring for someone with mental illness, I’ve seen how easy it is to forget the fundamental everyday necessities (eating, bathing, simply moving) because the darkness seems all-consuming. I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing more than one person I know give into that darkness. Not everyone is cut out for a long fight, but everyone needs support.

Many of our normal congregation spaces and activities have vanished over the past half-decade, whether due to this very-much-not-over-pandemic or simply economic factors beyond our control. The fact that we have so much less to do is all the more reason to strengthen those connections. I won’t burden anyone with the responsibility of guardianship, but I encourage everyone not to be afraid to be the life preserver for someone you see flailing. 

It keeps you from drowning just as much as them.

ARE YOU OKAY? BY JOE GOODE PERFORMANCE GROUP

That state of mind plays a crucial role in Are You Okay? (premiere through August 31 at Rincon Center, SF), the site-specific dance piece by the Joe Goode Performance Group. A recurring vignette features two performers fishing, with one repeatedly asking the other if they’re OK. 

“OK with what?” they reply. “Your life? The world? This?!” The one being asked doesn’t know how to reply, especially since they’re still coming to terms with feelings they have about their friend. It’s somehow funny and sad without letting you decide which is which.

Even before we get to that point in the show, the setting of the performance is an object lesson in contradictions. I can’t recall the last time I was in the Rincon Center, but its famous Art Deco design seems triumphantly anachronistic, in the same way that lobby murals of Native Americans are cringe-inducing. One has to wonder if the building was chosen because of this dichotomy of success vs. heartbreak?

As we wait to enter, several barefoot cast members walk among us with large yellow sunflowers on their lapels. With Stepford smiles, they ask if we’re OK, possibly out of duty more than genuine concern. It’s only when our unnamed host (the always wonderful Rotimi Agbabiaka) catches our attention that we’re finally told that contradictions are the order for the evening. He asks us to pretend we’ve already experienced the show’s gamut of emotions and somehow come out the other side unscathed. We’ll soon learn that’s a heavy order.

We’re guided, Disneyland-style, into the main area, where several stations are found in the otherwise-empty part of the building. There’s the wreck of a Honda Accord with “AYOK?” on the license plate; there’s a large children’s sandbox with various doll parts strewn about; and there’s one space where a man simply sits on an easy chair staring at a static-filled CRT television. As we walk freely among them, we hear voiceovers of people battling depression in various stages. (Highest praise to “scenographers” Katherine Matteson, Dan Sweeny, and Jack Carpenter.)

Eventually, the proper vignettes begin. Of the dancing, one can say that Goode’s choreography is effective at all times, letting his dancers convey “brokenness” as easily as concern. The dancing is almost an afterthought, however. Goode, who wrote and co-directed with Melecio Estrella, was clearly more interested in telling as many stories of sadness as possible. From the people in the car crash realizing they’ll never do the things they love again to the dancer lamenting about rapidly-increasing climate disasters. As our Host chillingly ponders at one point about living on the edge, “Maybe we should just accept the edge?”

For anyone familiar with depression, Are You Okay? rings uncomfortably true. Despite hundreds of years of therapies, medications, and constant distractions, our species is still capable of imagining the worst on a whim. Yet, Goode wisely refuses to give into nihilism, as exemplified by our recurring fishing duo, with one refusing to accept the knowledge that the other is not okay. One could make an argument that such check-ins are all the more difficult after DOGE-bags cut resources to those very things, but that doesn’t negate the importance of the connection itself. If anything, the show’s acknowledgement of depression’s depths and assurance of support stand as reason enough as to why such help should always be available.

There’s a moment in the show when someone tells a friend they wish things were different. The friend takes off his cap to reveal a mane sky-blue hair that matches his equally-surprising princess dress. Needless to say, the first person got what they wanted: something difference. It isn’t always that easy to help someone from the brink, but the benefit of having friends is that they often know how to make you smile without being asked. They’re they ones who want to take you to a safe space.

Speaking of which, the Rincon was pretty safe for the few of us who bothered to mask for the show. Both the Rincon’s lobby and the area of the performance are wide-open spaces. During the hour-plus runtime, CO² levels on my Aranet4 peaked around 879ppm, which may be the lowest reading I’ve ever gotten on the device inside a public place.

I won’t spoil the ending (mainly because both the scene and the final costume by Sara Estrella have to be seen to be believed), but it draws a distinct difference between optimism and ignorance. It clearly separates celebration as a means of distraction from celebrating having survived what you thought you couldn’t. It makes the opening “past-tense” speech make sense. It makes one long for a moment they could extend to eternity.

Through natural choreography, stunning set design, sincere performances, and immersive interaction, Are You Okay? is a great show because it doesn’t force its audience to answer “yes”—it allows them to.

ARE YOU OKAY?’s world premiere runs through August 31 at the Rincon Center, SF. Tickets and further info here.