Extra Credit--echoBOOM and the New Art of Questions

echoBOOM did not promise to be a light-hearted night of entertainment. I was undeniably nervous walking into the theater, but I felt my presence at the performance of echoBOOM was unavoidable as I had numerous friends who had worked hard for weeks. The play did not ease into its subject matter, with the pivotal plot event occurring in the opening scene with numerous school shootings executed with brutal precision by one Brody Grayson, who repeats his name numerous times so the audience will not forget it.

The play was defined by questions. Brody’s sister, Ashley, became consumed with the desire to know the answer to one simple question: Where is my brother? Political figures in her community seem to believe that acknowledging Brody’s location will somehow validate his action. Her persistent need to visibly bury her brother is continually denied; in grief and pointed protest, she burns the crosses meant to memorialize the death of all those killed in the shootings. All except Brody. More questions follow from the mouths of mechanical, unfeeling members of the media. Their questions have little meaning. Though they continually speak, they say nothing of substance. The same could be said for the politician in the play. At one point, the politician’s son remarks to his father: “You never say anything. Just say something.” His circular rhetoric about “making things better” and “bringing justice” satisfies only temporarily. Perhaps the greatest questions in echoBOOM are those asked of the audience indirectly through the action of the play. Does technology breed isolation? What comfort does religion offer in times of great suffering? Is every individual still worthy of being treated as a human being, regardless of their actions? Why do we place value on what the media says? Are we content with the political rhetoric?

The play’s ending speaks powerfully about the suggestibility of the public and the distortion of the media. In the end of the play, Ash joins her brother in a reenactment of the original school shooting. Two guns resound destruction rather than just one. The audience is left to wonder, “Which version of the shooting is illusion and which is reality?” And perhaps even the more powerful question: Which reality will we choose to accept, the one that makes us feel better or the really real? After the play was over, cast members came to sit on the stage and dialogue with the audience about the journey of the last hour and a half. Questions abounded from audience members.

I left the play asking a lot of questions myself. High modernists created art for arts’ sake. Some of the mid-century poets and others seemed to use art as a way to express themselves and release tension. This play used art as a forum for creating questions and dialogue—amongst the cast, the audience, the larger society in general. Is this a new movement in discovering the many purposes of art? A departure from art that seeks to showcase technical brilliancy, or art that attempts to reproduce beauty? Perhaps this new art, whether visual or kinesthetic or spoken, seeks to create a climate for asking questions that need to be addressed. An art of questions as of yet without answers.