Societal Issues In Avery's Pulp Fiction

Society today is extremely proficient at discussing societal issues. Every day it seems we can add another term to describe the interactive experiences of persons within society. Every day we have conversations about these issues. Every day, it seems, we are willing to sit and theorize about how we can remedy these issues but ,very rarely, are we given an embodied lecture on how and when we perpetuate these thoroughly discussed and theorized societal issues. This is what I believe the theatre brings to table. Stories and individual experiences are brought to life in front of us, and we are then able to follow along this embodied journey. Society does not actively highlight complicity but rather obscene bigotry. Yet, arguably, complicity needs to be seen as the true enemy of progress. This ubiquitous hindrance to our societal evolution thrives especially in our implicit biases.

I found myself not believing the passion for film behind the character Avery in this scene. There was an intense moment in the play where, after Sam’s continual request for him to do his Samuel L. Jackson impression from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the characters were at a point where they felt helpless. Avery then recited the monologue, a passage from Ezekiel 25:17, in an attempt to prove his point. There was no passion driving the execution of this imitation, and as such, the meaning behind why he chose that moment to say those words were lost. Avery’s character would have seen that film a decent amount of times to know the entire monologue. The feeling the actor gave me was that he had never even seen the film himself. The piece was muffled and rushed. In contrast, this was a moment that should have been controlled, decisive, and the elements of silence, tempo, and tone needed to have been explored in order to have given more nuance to