In the Blood
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Touted as an innovator for her semipoetic, semiepic work–apparently everyone’s forgotten Brecht–Parks simply does what the majority of successful American playwrights do: keeps things TV simple while creating a patina of complexity with a flurry of attention-grabbing theatrical devices. The opening moments of In the Blood set the tone for the ensuing two and a half hours: five actors in trench coats bark choral insults against the as-yet-unseen Hester. She’s uneducated, they snarl, she sleeps around, she has no skills, she lives off our tax dollars. They even spit in unison. Demonstrating only how intolerant and ignorant these mouthpieces are, especially under Lisa Portes’s ham-handed direction, the prologue is a simplistic harangue that makes it easy for an audience to congratulate themselves on their perceived liberal-mindedness.
Then Hester appears, holding a newborn, beaming with pride as she elevates the bundle toward the sky and says, “My treasure.” One wonders why designer Kristine Knanishu left the halo off her costume.
At least Parks’s critique of the medical establishment has a whiff of truth. Doctor is exhausted, perfunctory in his examinations of Hester and willing to dispense only the most basic care. (He also confesses in a monologue that he had sex with Hester once: the medical profession fucked her over–get it?) By contrast Parks’s portrayal of the child-welfare bureaucracy might as well have been created on another planet. Visiting Hester under the bridge, Welfare is decked out in high heels, pearls, white gloves, and diamond earrings. She expects Hester to give her a shoulder massage while reminiscing about the time she tried to teach Hester how to drink properly from a teacup. Attempting to hammer home the point that the child-welfare system has no conception of the experience of the families under its care, Parks shows instead that she has no conception of welfare field-workers, a notoriously underpaid, overburdened lot. The problem is not too much money in the system but too little.
