The power of the arts

From The Associated Press:

An empty intersection. A tree surrounded by hurricane debris. Ruined houses still untouched since they were flooded by roof-deep water. Now they've been joined by an outdoor stage, with actors and an audience.

The city's darkest corner, the flood-flattened Lower 9th Ward where few people have rebuilt their homes 26 months after Hurricane Katrina, has been turned into a theater presenting a series of symbolic and poignant free performances of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."

The performances are capturing the zeitgeist of a city waiting impatiently for Katrina's aftershocks to subside. So many people showed up for Friday's opening night performance, even those who'd never heard of Beckett before, that hundreds were turned away because seating was limited to 500. Some arrived with babies in their arms, others still in their blue work coveralls, others from the wealthiest parts of town.

Like the two tramps looking for Godot in Beckett's 1949 masterpiece, New Orleanians know about waiting.

"We waited for Red Cross. We waited for George Bush. We waited for rescue. We waited for housing. We waited in line for FEMA vouchers," 53-year-old Tyrone Graves said as he swatted mosquitoes in the warm twilight before the start of Friday's performance.

Katrina destroyed his home and drove him to Houston; he returned only recently, but still relies on friends and family to house him while he works with demolition crews.

"Waiting. I can tell you about waiting," he said.

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So then, "Waiting for Godot" and its stark flirtation with insanity and bouts of existential doubt speaks the language of the people here.

But the play is not purely gloomy. It is a vaudevillian tragicomedy, and this production seeks to point out the awfulness of Katrina while illuminating a place lacking in light.

"It's a form of resistance to a landscape that does not seem to be fertile to develop any sort of art," said Paul Chan, an activist artist who came up with the idea of doing the play in scarred New Orleans.