"I have that within which passeth show."

After running up to The City to witness the huge and natural talent of a great actor in great company in a great play, A Free Man of Color, and have now returned to my normal somewhat sleepy haunts, the observation comes that if people, audience, say, or theater critics, were more Buddhist they would have more natural observation of class acts. They would, as they say, be more appreciative.

One detects in the acts which justify the role of discerning observer a certain vanity, a reaction of a narcissistic sort, as if to say, 'well, if you think that actor is important, let me tell you, I am more important, because I know and will say my opinions very cleverly; after all, it's my job, isn't it.' The greater the natural talent the critic observes, the more dire his situation is.

Taken to logical conclusion, one soon has a whole city full of individuals, each considering himself more important than the next. And soon talent in anything becomes a matter of who is loudest and more egotistically demanding and least observant.

Buddhism observes in its Sanskrit roots the inflated quality of emptiness. To quote Edward Conze from his fine book: "Thus our personality is swollen in so far as constituted by the five skandhas, but it is also hollow inside, because devoid of central self. Furthermore 'swollen' may mean 'filled with something foreign.'" Obviously we live in glass houses if we were to make an observation of what a critic might be full of, were it not for a certain sort of Mark Twain humor we might entertain our own hollowness for a brief moment before passing on.

And we might too praise Mr. Hamlet for saying he doesn't want to be part of that showiness the world seems to expect of us, as if it (the world) didn't place trust or have much faith in that inner selflessness.


If we ignore or downplay the humble, the natural, the organic, the inherent, the earthy, the ordinary we run the risk of ignoring the most valid of arts. If it does work, democracy works by allowing this element in play. Democracy agrees with the Buddhist's selflessness, the inherent quality of humanity. And of course it can also fall to selfishness and egotism and the loudest least-considered voice.

"A Free Man of Color" is redolent with the natural well-springs of a healthy democracy, in its very subject matter, in terribly fine performances of Jeffrey Wright and of Mos Def and of the entire ensemble this writer is too lazy to name at the moment. Its subject of freedom and slavery touch upon that most egotistical, arrogant and selfish act, to subdue another individual's right to freely be himself. Good to know the theater is alive and well these days.