JOSEPH JOMO PIERRE’S BORN READY, WITH DAVID S. CRAIG’S SMOKESCREEN,
RUNS IN PREVIEWS FEB 9, 11-12, OPENS FEB 13 AND RUNS TO MAR 9.
THURS-FRI 8PM; SAT 9PM; SUN 2PM. $10-$30; SUN PWYC. THEATRE PASSE
MURAILLE, 16 RYERSON AVE. 416-504-7529. WWW.ARTSBOXOFFICE.CA.
It doesn’t get any more topical for Torontonians than Joseph Jomo Pierre’s Born Ready, a play about the pathologies of gun violence that debuted in 2005 and receives a remount this month along with David S. Craig’s marijuana-themed Smokescreen. Passe Muraille is, in fact, targeting the double bill to school audiences, holding forums, question-and-answer periods and late-night concerts in an unapologetic attempt to position the works as modes of community dialogue and outreach.
Yet Pierre, who grew up in the city’s Afro-Caribbean community and knows first-hand of what he writes, is hedgy about the work being understood as purely didactic, or moralistic. “But you have to fight against being defensive,” he explains. “I can’t try to defend what it is because I know where I created it from and I know where it came from; and some of the stuff is really hard to deal with, and it’s easy for an outsider to be critical of or reductive about some aspects of the lives I depict. But the work is what it is. And those people deserve to have a voice and that was the purpose of writing the play in the first place.”
Born Ready is, actually, not that simple at all, though on the surface it may appear to be. Pierre has set up the play in interior monologues, his two male characters — Blackman and B-Side — trading very intimate tales of where they come from and very burdened, ambiguous analyses of why they do the things they do. It adds up to something that’s as much a hazy meditation on adolescence as a confrontation of a current social problem and media fixation.
“I know for a fact that there are kids who are going to sit there and see themselves at different stages and not really be aware of what the possible outcome might be,” says Pierre. “It’s a very important age group to key into, because everything is so fresh. You are learning why and how you’re supposed to be an adult. There’s a line in the play where a character says, ‘You got some height on, you got some age on you. And those seem to be the only qualifications needed.’”
In a self-consciously contentious move, Pierre has included a third character: Peggy Sue, a gun personified as a woman, who drives the piece forward. Among other things, the character obviously calls into question the cultural perception of the gun, and gunplay in general, as wholly phallic.
“Peggy Sue is the one that stands up and says, ‘I have to articulate what is happening to me in the relationship I’m in,’” says Pierre. “Young girls need to see that if they find themselves in these [violent] situations, they have power within them — and not just to be the iconic ride-or-die bitch, the girl that’s on your side, but to understand that to be truly on someone’s side is to call them on their bullshit.
“The whole process is about empowering and giving a sense of hope,” says Pierre. “That’s why I write; I’ve been given the opportunity to say something, so I’ve got to do it.” DAVID BALZER