summer

Performers in Theater for the New City’s “Emergency or the World Takes a Selfie” pose in character

“I loved giving birth,” fourteen-year-old Lily Fremaux says. Lily is a performer in “Emergency or the World Takes a Selfie,” a performance by Theater for the New City (TNC). Her main role is playing a pregnant woman.

Each summer, TNC performs a different play, each with a focus on current events. Although TNC is based in the East Village, the performances are conducted in thirteen locations across all five boroughs of New York City. The locations include parks, playgrounds, and closed-off streets.

The performances are written and directed for the stage by Crystal Field, who also performs in them, with music by Joseph-Vernon Banks. It features a cast of fifty performers of all ages. All performances are free.

The cast of performers are largely dedicated to their art. Many have been with the company for over four years and are very close and supportive of each other. “All the people are very funny and spontaneous and really add something to the show,” performer Holly Phillips says.

The cast is also very welcoming. After the final act, performers run to the audience and pull them out of their seats and onto the stage to dance. A cast member shouts, “We’re hosting a block party afterwards so whoever stays gets food!”

This year’s performance centers around an EMT who is suspended after he ignores protocol. While off the job, he meets an investigative reporter and they both land in the hospital after being shot at by members of the National Rifle Association. In recovery, they dream they have encountered many “emergencies” all over the world, including the power crisis in Ukraine and the unequal distribution of wealth in Brazil.

TNC’s performances address a wide range of issues with humor. For example, to draw attention to congress’s ineffectiveness, congressmen and women are portrayed as zombies which gained enthusiastic applause from the crowd. One audience member says, “I loved that part. It was really clever and it cracked me up.”

Even though the performance addresses many issues, it also provides solutions and advocates people to take action. The EMT worker shouts, “When the protocol is corrupt, break it!” And at the end of the performance all the actors gather together to sing a song with the lyrics, “You are the source. Spread the information. Post it. Tweet it. Even take a selfie.”

So it is no surprise that the theater’s Facebook page contains many posts about current issues with a left-wing bent. Their most recent posts include an excerpt from Hillary Clinton’s book, Hard Choices, about global women’s rights, and a quote, “I wish more people cared about Earth as much as they cared about who they believe created it.”

John Buckley, a TNC performer and manager of the theater’s Facebook page, writes, “TNC aims to raise social awareness in the communities it performs in, creating civic dialogue that inspires a better understanding of the world beyond the communities’ geographic boundaries.” TNC has gained national recognition as it has won the Pulitzer Prize for theater and 42 Off-Broadway Theater Awards, also known as Obie Awards.

“Street theater is very much about what is going on in the world and how we can change it,” Lily says. “I feel like not a lot of other plays accomplish that.”

When one is informed of tragic events that happen on a world scale one may ask himself thought-provoking questions about how this could happen. Some may say that evil is the creation of God. Another would disagree, likening it to the actuality of dark and cold. But consider this. Acts of violence cannot only be attributed to the absence of God but also to inclinations within the human condition. In other words, the human race has the inclination to do something wrong whether it be to cheat on a test or to go so far as to commit an act of violence. The presence of God is what prevents one from committing a wrong thing.

When arguing the validity of God and Christianity some would say that God created everything. In addition to that, some may even imply that, if God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists. Therefore according to the principal that our actions define who we are then, God is evil.

Coming to this conclusion is logical but the flaws in this logic must be exposed. Liken this to the existence of cold. One may say that cold indeed exists simply based on the reason that they have felt cold. In fact cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in actually the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to examination when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes incapable of reaction at that temperature. In actuality heat, on Earth, can never be absent. Rather it can vary in its intensity.

One may also believe darkness exists based on what they have experienced. Once again this empirical evidence is baseless and invalid. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. We can study light , but not darkness. We can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color.

You cannot measure darkness. How can one know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.

Now ask yourself does evil exist? Evil in fact does not exist, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of Jah. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith or love that exist just as light and heat do. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no warmth or the darkness that comes when there is no illumination.

The actions of men are those that come from overwhelming inclinations that stem from the human condition. When one does things that seem to defy our nurtured reasoning, that is evidence of the natural inclination of man. Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Kongfuzi believed that humans all have a sense of evil within them that must be contained in one way or another. Kongfuzi believed that men should understand the order of respect and mutual respect. He felt that if all men understood those levels of subjugation, evil would have no place and if those who have liberating powers, like fathers and leaders of countries, practiced ultimate benevolence evil would have nowhere to take root.

Thomas Hobbes on the other hand expressed his radical conservativism towards the autocratic subjugation of peoples whether it be brutish or benevolent. To Hobbes all humans were evil and needed to be subject to a higher power. He once said, “The condition of man…is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.” Hobbes implies that men do what they want within the confines of their own material gain. He felt men create a “social contract” between one another so that they may be able to coexist without mutilating one another because that is their natural tendency.

To both of these philosophers of old evil is the constant and goodness is simply a catalyst. However, evil is not the constant. Goodness, kindness and benevolence are the constant but, like heat, vary in intensity. One may ask oneself that if we have this “social contract” why do men kill other men? Well to simply answer, it is the absence of God.

In 2010, America suffered a homicide total of 12,966, 67.5 percent of those homicides were firearm related. This is an ever-so-often occurring issue in America. We hear about these events and then wonder how does God allow these things. Why are they happening? The fear of God is not in the hearts of the men who commit them. They kill for pleasure and even as a quick fix to their own problems. They have disregarded Hobbes’ “social contract” and Kongfuzi’s hierarchy of respects. Evil has outshined the light of goodness.

How can politics solve a problem that is simply more than just crime? This issue is not about how many guns are in the nation. This issue is not about how many bullets are in a clip. This issue is not about some conspiracy to disarm the nation. This issue is an issue within the fabric of humanity and has been and will always be. A man will kill when he feels he wants to. The only way to control this is by regaining the goodness we were born with. We regain it through God.