About

White
Ryan
Arriving Home
Pledge
Meeting #1
Religion
Hymn
Benediction
Exercises
Ellen
March of the Workers
Kinder’s Jobs
Women
Male Bonding
Lenore
Meeting #2
Peggy
Survival
Middle of the Night
Ruth
Warriors
Telephone
Road

The first discussion of the possibility of Watchface tackling the subject of white supremacists occurred when all the members of the group were performing Sin at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in the spring of 1988. Kurt Fulton had seen a disturbing newspaper article and showed it to the others while they were out at a restaurant. This resulted in a discussion about the idea of “whiteness” and the Watchface members as part of that racial construct, though with a very different relation to it than the subjects of the article. The conversation also generated definite interest in the topic as another possible seven-person Watchface show. Kim X Knowlton in particular said she would be very interested in exploring the subject matter further.

Prior to the 1989 run of Bloody Mary at Dance Theater Workshop, while the show was still in rehearsals, Watchface was commissioned to create a production for the following season, and Kim seized the opportunity to realize the white supremacist project. She was eager to explore their disturbing mythology and lifestyle and turn it into a show. Iris Rose, who had a new baby at home and could devote only limited time to the piece, agreed to co-direct in a secondary position.

Kim spent many months researching the latest white supremacist dogma, receiving materials at a PO Box under an assumed name. She used what she learned to shape the story of a charismatic leader, Josiah White, and his extended family of true believers sharing a home in Dearborn, Michigan. In Kim’s scenario, Josiah was a polygamist with three wives who shared their home with his brother and sister-in-law and three single men who served various functions within this paramilitary band. Another brother, Adam, who never appeared on stage but was frequently mentioned, was serving time for counterfeiting on behalf of the cause and had joined a white supremacist gang on the inside.

Kim’s approach to the subject could be seen as either brave or naïve: she decided to portray the kind of people who are drawn to the hate-based group dynamic of white separatists, and she allowed them to express their philosophy from their own point of view without external commentary. She trusted the audience to recognize the absurdity and threat within the movement once their beliefs were clearly revealed.

Despite the fact that most of the members of Watchface had participated in the original discussion in Los Angeles, and some also engaged in exploratory improvisation workshops during the research phase, when Kim began pulling together the cast for White, all of them declined to perform with the exception of Kurt. As a result, for the first time in a Watchface production, the directors were obliged to fill the majority of roles from outside the group. Kim, Kurt, and Iris began recruiting the best performers from their circle of friends. For Josiah White, the leader of the group, they cast Richard Schachter. Richard had studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and had experience as an actor, but they also trusted him to carry the crucial central role since he had previously collaborated with Kurt on rou-tine as part of Watchface: The Spring ’87 Collection and was familiar and comfortable with the Watchface style. Kurt brought in Laura Breen, a visual artist and actress, to play Ellen, the youngest of Josiah’s three wives. Laura became an avid fan of Watchface after seeing Bloody Mary and was eager to be involved.

In 1988, Kurt had directed First green, which he co-conceived with choreographer Mike Kraus. The show combined Watchface techniques and Watchface performers with more traditional choreography and trained dancers. One of the dancers, Leah Goldstein, joined White‘s cast, along with Mike, to play the devoted revolutionary couple Peggy and Zak.

Vito Abate, cast as Zak’s sidekick Boone, and Helen Russell, as Josiah’s devoted first wife, Ruth, had been members of Kim’s acting class a few years earlier. Kim’s friend Linda Cassens, who played Lenore, the fragile, pregnant second wife, was an actress with an academic background in performance studies.

The only cast member Iris brought to the project was Robin Francis Robinson, the actor husband of her own husband’s coworker. He played Kinder, the eldest member of the group, a drifter with a varied job history who served as their live-in chaplain. Kurt played Ryan, a loner and survivalist weapons expert.

Kim engaged visual artist Andrew Moszynski to create the necessary furniture plus a suggestion of the White family’s home in Dearborn. He edged the back of the stage with a simple silhouette of a house and built a large table that sloped down toward the audience and was surrounded by stools of different heights, creating a forced perspective. Kim also asked Peter Dodge to compose the music. He was an old friend living in Ithaca, New York, who she knew when she also lived there during and after attending Cornell University.

Dance Theater Workshop was able to provide funding for the show, which they had received from a Jerome Foundation grant, but Kim also organized Watchface’s first fundraising event at Max Fish, a bar on the Lower East Side, in December 1989. Max Fish flyer The group had recently become incorporated as a nonprofit organization and were now able to accept tax-deductible donations. Max Fish ticket The fundraising event included excerpts from AAaaaw! A Tribute to Domestic Animals and Sodomite Warriors, Max Fish postcard as well as volunteers performing Christmas carols Nancy-style: singing along with songs you don’t know the words to while wearing headphones. Among the brave participants was Steve Buscemi mangling “Here Comes Santa Claus!” (See Nancy/Marty/Masterpiece Theatre for a detailed description of Nancy and its offspring.)

White opened with the first of five brief monologues that occurred throughout the show in which specific characters shared their thoughts and backgrounds, as well as what brought them to the group. The opener was by tightly-wound Ryan, the weapons expert.

Ryan:
The world is not a friendly place. Some kind of terrible thing is coming. You can’t be sure what it is, but you’ve got to be prepared for it. There are men who want to destroy you; they are the enemy. Nature has no remorse, but it is consistent. Once a person knows the rules, knows all Nature’s secrets, you can form a plan of action, confident that you can survive anything.

My brother came back from the service a changed man. His natural instincts had been tampered with; he didn’t know who or what to trust. He wandered into the woods one day and never returned. The future belongs to the strong, to the ruthless, to the one with the plan. Be prepared.

The rest of the characters were introduced as they came and went around the large table stage left, their paths intersecting. Their interactions sketched their relationships simply and briefly. Once they were all assembled, they recited their pledge in unison.

All:
I hereby swear
Upon the red blood in my veins
Upon the white bones of the Aryan martyrs
And the white flesh of my children yet unborn
To fulfill my duty to my race
In my home and in the world
Man, be strong: protect and preserve us
Beget tireless warriors
Women, be pure: support and sustain us
Bear righteous heroes
White as a lily, white as a pearl
Sugar, flour, rice
And the White Man shall again sit upon his rightful throne at the pinnacle of the earth
And woe to the one who stands against him

The next scene, the first of two family meetings, laid out the basic story elements. After discussing ideas for the current newsletter and recruitment, they spoke of their hope of breaking Adam out of prison and the family’s cherished plan of moving to the “promised land” of the Montana wilderness after the birth of Lenore’s baby to join a larger group committed to the movement.

This traditionally theatrical, realistic scene was followed by Religion, an abstract, movement-oriented section – more typical of Watchface – in which the performers explained and illustrated an alternative version of Christian mythology that forms the basis of the belief system of many white supremacists. This excerpt describes the creation of man:

Kinder:
And Yahweh pulled the mud from the bottom of the mire
And formed his first man
And it was not good
And he cast it to the ground
And he tried again and again, three times in all
And three times Yahweh was not satisfied and cast them into the mud
The black, the brown, the yellow
And finally on the fourth try, he created in His wisdom and perfection
Man
A-dam
White Man

Kinder continued on with his twisted version of Genesis in which people with darker skin were the descendents of Cain and nine of the twelve tribes of Israel moved north to form the Aryan Nations of Europe. After a diatribe against the Jews, he ended by invoking his group’s shared destiny.

Kinder:
And take back the land promised to you in your covenant with Yahweh
Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana
Like your ancestors, moving north and west, into northern forests
The high country, Big Sky Country, Yahweh Country

This religious lesson was capped by an original hymn by Peter Dodge with lyrics by Kim
Hymn sheet music and followed by Kinder delivering a benediction as the would-be warriors began their bodybuilding exercises.

The next series of sections represented the daytime activities of the various group members, starting with Ellen’s monologue, in which the audience learned that she grew up in a motel and was ready to hitchhike on to her next adventure when she tired of the present company. March of the Workers was a complex movement section that followed Josiah, Zak, Peggy, Boone, and Ryan as they went to work at a General Motors plant where Peggy worked in the cafeteria, Josiah in management, and the other men manned the assembly line. Meanwhile, back at home, disabled Kinder remembered his past jobs, and the three wives worked at various household tasks, including sewing a Nazi-inspired flag bearing a large W – for white – instead of a swastika.
Women script They hung the completed flag above the dinner table just as the factory workers marched home again.

The second family meeting was preceded by Lenore’s monologue about her childhood fears and followed by Peggy’s, in which she confessed her desire to “blow somebody away.” The meeting opened with a letter from Adam who’d been injured by a black gang and feared for his life. A decision was made to accelerate their plan to break him out of prison and go immediately afterwards to Montana. This news was greeted with enthusiasm by warriors Zach, Boone, and Ryan, who had been eagerly waiting for such a moment and was preparing a special bomb for the occasion.

Ryan’s preparations for the prison break became a solo dance for Kurt. The text came from Kim’s research into survivalist manuals. An excerpt:

Ryan:
Get to a safe place, form a plan
Salvage clothing from the dead
Find direction by the North Star
Along a ridge top, you will find game trails that lead to water or clearings
Hunt frogs at night, club them, eat the entire body after skinning
Detect schools of fish by their smell in the water; lob in a grenade – food for days

Projected illustrations from the source manuals provided backdrops behind his movements.

A scene called Middle of the Night showed Josiah’s intimate life with Ruth, and later Ellen as well, as their three-way sexual encounter was seen in silhouette on one side of the stage. At the same time, on the other side, Kinder comforted Lenore at the big table by interpreting her disturbing dream in a hopeful light. In Ruth’s monologue that followed, she told of the humiliating and chaotic life that brought her to Josiah, her savior. Ruth script

Warriors began with a dance duet between Zach and Peggy that was partly inspired, ironically, by an 1857 quote from Dred Scott, the slave whose unsuccessful suit before the Supreme Court helped hasten the Civil War: “most people like to be sheep, not wolves and not shepherds.”

Zak:
People like to be sheep.

Peg:
They don’t want to be shepherds.

Zak:
They don’t want to be wolves.

Peg:
They want to be part of the herd.

Zak:
To breed and romp in the grass.

Peg:
Others steal their wool.

Zak:
And chop them into lamb chops.

Both:
Baa, baa, CHOP!

After listing a few of their enemies – the government, “lace-edged lavender liberals”, and “overweight crybaby conservatives” – and pledging their devotion to one another, their duet ended with a declaration of readiness.

Zak:
Time to be tested.

Both:
In action!

Peg:
Lean and hard.

Zak:
Battle-ready.

Both:
For action!

Zak:
Words won’t save us.

Both:
Only action!
Act now!
Act now!
Act now!

At this point they were joined by the other warriors and Kinder, who blessed a bomb that Ryan deposited on the dining room table. As they prepared for their battle at the prison, Ruth entered with the news that the birth of Lenore’s baby was imminent and that there were possible complications. Josiah changed course and rushed off to accompany the women to the midwife, telling the others to go on without him. Feeling abandoned and disappointed, however, the rest of the team could no longer summon the will to go through with their plan. In disappointment, Boone yelled, “But I’m ready. I’M READY!” and pounded the table, setting off Ryan’s precious bomb.

In the quiet scene that followed the chaos, Josiah talked to his contacts in Montana on a pay phone, telling them to expect the survivors of their band – himself, Ruth, Lenore, and new baby Abel. After his call was concluded, he addressed the audience directly and explained his philosophy of race.

Josiah:
“What’s so important about race?” you want to ask me. Ask yourself. And don’t cheat on the answer.

Equality is a dangerous lie. Equality does not exist in nature. When one group is superior to another, to pretend that they are equal is ridiculous. In the case of the white man, it’s suicide.

Following his last line – “There is only one thing that I am and only one thing that I want to be: white” – the show ended with news reports covering the explosion at the compound. The reporters’ voices were provided by Iris, Kim’s then boyfriend (later husband) Allen Coulter, and Iris’ husband, James Siena.

Kim’s gamble of allowing the characters to speak for themselves without some form of mediation worked for some and not for others. John Howell’s review in Artforum showed no confusion as to the piece’s intent.

Paradoxically, the vivifying conceptual torque was generated by the use of standard conceits. By laying out the heinous material in a “straight” fashion, a conceptual demilitarized zone was created in which charged subjects ricocheted in a free-fire way. The breaks in the semi-naturalistic action – the direct-address monologues, the hieratic movements, the cartoon-like set – only heightened the chill of unrelievedly racist attitudes.

For those who doubted the show’s intentions, Kim had decided to explicitly clarify her agenda in notes that were included in the program.

In the midst of today’s awareness of racism that still pervades American Society some 25 years after the civil rights movement, we offer this examination of racial extremists in the hope that it may shed some light on more subtle forms of bigotry. Little (if any) airtime has been given for white supremacists to really explain their beliefs publicly. Talk show hosts usually make it a personal mission to humiliate and badger their spokespeople so that nothing can be heard above the din of name-calling. In a sense, this is unfortunate, because given a chance to speak, they often express an alienation from one’s government, one’s neighbors, and oneself that is frighteningly pervasive in late 20th century America, and for that reason, we have examined the white supremacists in White.

She then included an address for KLANWATCH Project so audience members could make a donation to help stop racial violence. John Howell characterized Kim’s claim that bigots received “little (if any) airtime” for their views as “a myopic New York-centric view.”

The airwaves of the rest of the country are full to overflowing with their commentary, as any lengthy drive to the accompaniment of talk radio will confirm. Nevertheless, White etched a scarifying portrait of racist bile in action.

Some audience members were not as clear on White‘s intentions. Kurt remembers a friend telling him afterwards that he found the show “scary.” He wasn’t sure if the audience got it – or if he did.

Richard’s way of distancing himself from Josiah White’s beliefs was simpler and more direct than Kim’s. His entire actor biography in the program read, “RN Schachter is a gay Jew.”

White was never performed again after the run at Dance Theater Workshop,
Dance Theater Workshop program but many of the newcomers were included in post-Watchface projects (see epilogue) after the group broke up later that year. Laura, Linda, Leah, and Richard all appeared in A City Called Forest, which Kurt co-directed with Richard and Watchface’s Melanie Monios at La MaMa in 1992. Leah also danced in Kurt’s Gender Tennis at PS 122 the following year. Andrew provided elaborate sets for Iris’ Typhoid Mary 911 at La MaMa, also in 1992, and Helen and Laura played 1960s housewives in her play 1962 at Downtown Art in 1994. White proved to be a turning point between the tightly knit team that was Watchface and a larger, looser group of performers that continued on in its wake.
 

*Richard Schachter is referred to as both Richard and R.N. Schachter in programs and production notes.