Why
Visiting Mr. Green?
If I had to grandly declare a theme for our
2011-2012 season, it might be “How we, as a society, treat ‘difference.’” In Avenue
Q, a motley assortment of puppets accept one another and work, in their own
small ways, to make the world a better place.
In Beau Jest, Jewish parents
struggle to accept that their daughter may not choose to marry within the
faith. In Tommy, a young man struggles with a burden that makes him close
himself off to the world, and the world reacts in a variety of ways. In the Laramie
Project docu-dramas, issues of tolerance are viewed through many lenses,
and reactions to these views are explored, dissected and pondered.
On the surface, Visiting
Mr. Green doesn’t really fit in with this theme; it’s an odd-couple comedy
about a crotchety old man and a young, upwardly mobile man caught in the
corporate gerbil wheel. But boiling
underneath the light-hearted one-liners are themes of persecution, group
identity and what one generation can expect or demand from another
generation. Mr. Green and Ross have
nothing in common. Yet they have
everything in common. It’s all in how
you look at things. Both have allowed
difference to stand in the way of living and loving. And both need to find a way to come to terms
with that.
From the first line of the play, Ross and Mr. Green
confront their difference (that’s the seed of the comedy), but as the play
progresses, the characters embark on a journey leading them to confront their
sameness. Suddenly we’re in a deep, heart-wrenching
drama. They are both Jews, but that is
not what makes them the same. In fact,
they seem to occupy polar opposite ends of the Jewish spectrum. As Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard has written, “Jewish
identity is made up of choices. We pick, consciously or otherwise, from a sort
of identity menu that offers us options for behaviors that we understand as
‘Jewish’ because we see them as ‘Jewish things to do’ or as ‘done in a Jewish
way.’” So Ross and Mr. Green are both
Jews, but their shared Judaism doesn’t really share anything. At all.
And that’s a very potent metaphor for the larger
theme of the play; we are the same, yet we are different, yet we are the
same.
Although the characters are Jewish, the core
learning in this play is that people are the same everywhere. Everyone knows
someone like Mr. Green, and everyone knows someone like Ross. Their specific
characteristics make the story interesting, but their human-ness and their
individual struggles are universal.
We all face challenges. You may face the same challenges I face but
for different reasons. You may face different challenges than I face but for
the same reason. But we all face
challenges.
Tolerance comes from knowing that.
Acceptance comes from understanding that.
Visiting
Mr. Green is a blueprint of how we can move from hatred to
dislike, to tolerance, to acceptance and, in the process, learn not only how to
heal ourselves but also to mend the lives of those around us.
Krista Lang Blackwood
Director of Cultural Arts
Jewish Community Center of Kansas City
