Speaker 1: 00:01 Michael Jean Sullivan is a writer, director, and actor, his latest play, the great con we'll close out San Diego rep's black voices, 2021 play reading series that launched last month, Sullivan's play. We'll have a live online reading and post show discussion on Monday KPBS arts reporter, Beth duck. Amando speaks with the playwright about challenging stereotypes in his work.
Speaker 2: 00:25 Michael, you are part of the San Diego reps, black voices project for 2021. Tell us a little bit about the great con
Speaker 1: 00:34 Con is really a play about let's start to it's two teenagers, two black teenagers, trying to figure out who they are, how do they fit in to a culture that in many ways would just prefer that they were dead. And how do you define yourself in a culture? That's always trying to define you as a potential perpetrator or as a runaway slave or just dangerous. Is it easier to struggle against those stereotypes to define yourself? Or is it easier to just get on the track with the grease derails and slide right into those stereotypes? And the two main characters, a aunt, a girl, and the, uh, and Jayden, a teenage boy are kind of, they meet in an unusual circumstance and that she is being assaulted. This happens before the play starts. She's being assaulted by some boys that are kind of her friends, but now they're all teenagers and they see her and only sexualized now.
Speaker 1: 01:24 And so they're attempting to actually rape her and he and Jayden, who is an utter nerd, saves her. And so now he's kind of like his mother has had to change schools for him and I had to move across town because she's very concerned that those boys will find him and hurt him. Uh, so he's trying to figure out, well, should I be tough since I'm now in danger? Should I, should I start acting tougher? Cause he's been such a nerd all this time. Meanwhile, aunt full name's Antoinette, she's like, well, I've always had to be tough to be a young black girl, and this is how the society sees me, but I don't want to be that. I just want to be a teenager. And so how they're defining themselves and redefining themselves kind of cross, and then Gangas conscious up
Speaker 2: 02:04 What made you want to kind of throw that twist in and bring in Gangas con
Speaker 1: 02:10 I was kind of doing a couple of things. I was writing some other shows and this idea of why is it that black teens are always seen as older than they actually are? You know, the police go this kid, he was so big and he's like, he's nine or a black girl being pre sexualized. This idea of how the society dictates who you are, how they write you in history, determines how you're treated in the present. And that will determine how you're treated than the past. And so, as I was writing it and I decided, well, Jayden, when he, I want him to go too far, I want him to go to, to worship somebody. Who's the biggest bad-ass in history. And I was like, Gangas Kahn. And so I kind of put that aside in my head. And at the same time my wife said, you know, there's a book on Gangas Kahn that just came out.
Speaker 1: 02:53 You should read this because I was a history major. And so I read this new book on Gangas Kahn and I read ones and I was like, this is about propaganda. This is about who writes your history. This is who decides what you were, and that determines kind of your future for you and your people and for the working class or for generations ahead or for your gender or whatever. I realized that the idea of what was something that the whole audience was going to think, they knew now most of the audience I was going to go, well, we think we understand black people. No. Um, but I was like, but that's too obvious. So I thought, what about Gangas Kahn? That's somebody that everybody in the audience has heard of. And so that idea of having this other very central thing to twist the audience, to make them go, I didn't know that makes them also have to go. I didn't know that about these teenagers, those kinds of breaking all of the stereotypes for the audience. So they leave really questioning. What do I know and who have I been listening to? Whose stories have I been listening to that have framed how I see the world? How do they see me? And
Speaker 3: 03:58 Michael, can you give us a little taste of the play by reading a selection?
Speaker 1: 04:01 This is a scene between Jayden teenage black boy and Temo gin more commonly known in history. His gang is con now, uh, Telegen and Jayden, uh, neat in his, um, in his bedroom one night and Jayden's been showing them around town. And then they come back right after Jayden's mother has left the room. So the sneaking back into Jayden's room, here it is. Jane pulls out a DVD box call of duty, modern warfare. So you were asking about modern Wars and I thought I'd show you some, see this game will teach you what you need to know that place. You took me Chinatown, China town. Pretty much. Every city has one. Why only place Chinese people were allowed to live back in the day. I guess, you know, Japan, town, Korea town, Mongolia town. Never heard of one. Okay. You can use the character. I already built.
Speaker 1: 04:55 He's a sniper and I'm dead. You'll respond. Uh, what? See there you are. Now. Now I want to, I want you to show me all your cool I'm dead again. And you're back. No, wait, what? You can't just rush into battle, but I am supposed to kill. That's what the guns are for. Look, hold this button to aim and push and see fire. Bam. See the guy's dead. He was so far away. That's what being a sniper means, but there was no danger. I can not see his fear. Where was the fun in that? Oh, you want fear? How about dark souls? Dark souls. Is it also modern, but it's got lots of close-up danger and fear. So I am Asian. Yeah. And you're black. Yes, but you're not actually the color black you're Brown people are various shades of Brown and pink. White. The pink ones are white.
Speaker 1: 05:48 So the Brown ones are black. The pink ones are white and everyone else is Asian, which isn't a color that will, except for the Indians from India. They're Brown, but they're Asian and the native Americans are also Brown, not black. And they used to be called Indians. What are they called now? Native Americans. What do they call themselves now? I don't know why don't, you know what people call themselves, man. I don't know. In my Carnegie, everyone was adopted as a Mongol. It didn't matter what religion or family or other tribe you'd been with. We were a tribe. You could join the people of the felt walls. We made our tents out of a material called Felton, Mongolian, barbecue. What? No, no, no Mo Mongo town, but we do have Mongolian barbecue. You know, it's this big round hot metal table. We didn't do that. But how would we carry a big metal table around on our horses?
Speaker 2: 06:42 That was great. And you mentioned you are a history major and you do bring history into this, uh, in interesting ways. Is that something you kind of knew beforehand that you wanted to do or did that kind of just happen as you were writing the story?
Speaker 1: 06:58 Well, it kind of developing most of the stuff. The place that I write have are, are very activist. I'm always trying to make the audience, uh, see and understand and injustice and challenge it in them and then go outside and challenge it in society. Like they always say, if you could only change one, person's mind, you failed miserably. You got to do more than that. So I need people to get out there and overthrow things. And I had just finished my, uh, I have an adaptation of, uh, George Orwell's, 1984. That's been playing around the country and the line in that show, he controls the present controls the past, meaning they get to write history and who controls the past, controls the future because you can determine how people are going to act very much is part of everything that I write of redefining things. And I just love history. Also. It's like I was either going to go into theater or become a history teacher and theater snatched me up.
Speaker 2: 07:55 I want to thank you very much for talking about your play, the great con thank you. Uh,
