Posted on 04/27/2015 5:37:44 AM PDT by SJackson
Actors Quit a Ferguson Play That Doesnt Blame Wilson
Posted By Mark Tapson On April 27, 2015 @ 12:39 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments
[1]Progressives know that history will be remembered, and thus the future will be shaped, not through textbooks but through dramatic treatments of historical events: movies, television, plays. Thats why left-leaning actors are quitting a new play, about the controversial shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri: because it doesnt promote a narrative about the incident that suits the progressive agenda.
Ferguson is written and directed by the openly conservative Phelim McAleer, a man who is not intimidated by controversy or leftist fury. He is the filmmaker behind Not Evil Just Wrong (about the global warming hysteria), FrackNation (in which he takes on environmentalists and anti-fracking activists) and the upcoming Gosnell (about the mass-murdering abortionist, a film being scripted and directed, respectively, by writer Andrew Klavan and Justified actor Nick Searcy also prominent conservatives).
The play is opening in Los Angeles, but McAleer also hopes to put the show on YouTube and bring the production to Ferguson itself. His goal with the play, as with all his work, is to rescue the truth from propaganda and shine a light on both.
The actors discomfort with the script is very revealing because, as McAleer puts it in an email he circulated in response to a Los Angeles Times article [2] about the actors, The script is comprised entirely of Grand Jury testimony. No added lines. Just the truth. But the play is Verbatim Theatre, word-for-word testimony heard by the Grand Jury. The only agenda is the truth. Nowhere in the L.A. Times piece is this made clear about the script.
At the end of the play, the audience is invited to vote on whether Wilson should have been indicted. This time the audience gets to be the Grand Jury, McAleer wrote on the plays Indiegogo crowdfunding page [3]. The performances in Los Angeles will be dramatized staged readings with interactive voting. Every night the audience will decide whos telling the truth, decide whos lying, and decide if they would indict Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown.
One actor, Philip Casnoff, showed up for the first rehearsal of Ferguson without having even read the full script. He assumed that the testimony would consist of a variety of viewpoints that would, at the very least, reflect a fog of war, if not actually condemn Officer Wilson. But then he realized that the testimony didnt bolster the Hands Up, Dont Shoot narrative that the left used to gin up angry protests nationwide; instead, it supports Wilsons side of the story.
The play ends with the prosecutor asking a witness, Do you feel like this could have ended up any other way? The witness replies, Yeah, it could have, if Michael Brown had just stopped running, meaning running toward Wilson. It could have ended another way. The officer had no other choice.
The Times reported that after those lines were read in rehearsal, an awkward quiet fell over the cast members. Several members, the Times claimed, requested changes to the script that would add more balance to the final witness perspective, that would be more sympathetic to Brown. McAleer rejected those requests.
It felt like the purpose of the piece was to show, Of course he was not indicted heres why, actor Casnoff said. And when he learned that the playwright was an unapologetic conservative, Casnoff, who describes himself as very liberal, left-wing-leaning, thought, Whoa, this is not the place for me to be. He and four others of the 13-member cast quit the play.
He claims that he wrote this to try to get to the truth of it, but everybodys truth is totally subjective, said a black actress who resigned. When you come to the matter of what really happened, nobody really knows for sure, because everybody has a different take on it It just didnt feel right to me.
It didnt feel right to her because she wants to believe the shooting of Brown was racial injustice. But shes wrong. Yes, people interpret events subjectively; thats why the law requires evidence, and thats why the claims of witnesses who told investigators that Brown had his hands up, was shot in the back while running, was shot while lying on the ground, etc. were recanted or debunked because the physical evidence proved them false. The truth is the truth, says McAleer. If it doesnt fit in with their beliefs, they need to change their beliefs.
Another actress, Donzaleigh Abernathy, the daughter of civil rights movement leader Ralph David Abernathy, asked a question in rehearsal that was often heard during the Ferguson investigation: Why not shoot him in the leg? Its a question that never fails to elicit eye-rolling and head-shaking from law enforcement and anyone else who understands that violent confrontations dont go down like they do on television.
The Times described Abernathy as one of the scripts most heated critics. Prior to a cast meeting scheduled for last Thursday night, she said, I want to hear what he has to say face to face. I actually want to know, on a moral level, how can you do something like this that you know will divide America? Does it make you feel good? Obviously he has a personal agenda. What is his personal agenda?
Of course, what divided America over Ferguson was lies, not the truth. What divided America was the race-obsessed lefts opportunistic agenda, not McAleers. These are people who claim to love diversity, McAleer said, and they dont love diversity they just want people to agree with them. Or else.
McAleer is undaunted by the desertions. Im determined to fight this attempt at censorship by the theatre/Hollywood establishment, he wrote on the Indiegogo page. The show will go on. The truth about Ferguson will be told. If the rest of what the Times describes as the decidedly more liberal cast quits and some are threatening to [3] McAleer said he will find a new cast. Theres got to be some actors in L.A. who arent scared of controversy, he told the Times.
There are, but there arent that many who arent scared of the truth.
Sounds like an opportunity for others.
Good work director! Hang in there! If there is one thing leftists hate more than anything, its truth.
Hands up, don’t shoot. Let’s rob, then loot.
Reality rarely favors the leftist agenda.
Maybe Clint Eastwood will play the cop...he's had experience.
Lynch mobs don’t care about facts.
Looks like the Truth set them free.
JUst as an aside, when did people star using the term ‘go down’ instead of happen? It just sounds faintly “ghetto” to me.
Facts do not matter. The only thing that matters is the revolution.
You’re right - we’ve seen this all before...
This is precisely the reason that I have dumped all of my Democrat friends. They are no longer interested in an honest exchange of ideas or in recognizing facts. They are simply idealogues that push their memes. I have no interested in conversing with fools.
“When the legend becomes fact, you print the legend”.-THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.
There is a vast movement to make legends into facts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.