Informed Consent
Deborah Zoe Laufer’s INFORMED CONSENT [****]
DNA Be Damned! We Want Our Blood-Samples Back!
Our Grand-Canyon Creation-Myth Has Been Attacked!
We Are Not All Cousins & Mankind Did Not Originate in Primordial-Africa…
Multiple-Voices speak out in Protest, in Outrage, in Disbelief, in Fear…
But they are articulated only by a Cast of Five-Multitasking-Performers in Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Informed Consent.
Initially, as an Upstage-Scrim of Bankers-Boxes teemed with what seemed DNA & Double-Helix Codes, Optics, & Signifiers, I thought this Thought-Exercise was going to be about How-We-Are-All-Cousins, because Human-Life began Millennia-Ago in Africa.
DNA-Researcher Jillian [Tina Benko] seems certain that the Current-Worries about Race-&-Ethnicity are essentially pointless as we are all Out-of-Africa.
But the Dramatic-Center of Informed Consent is focused on an Obscure-Indian-Tribe, dwelling in the deepest depths of the Grand-Canyon.
Charged with conducting Studies about Diabetes, Jillian has, instead, obtained Blood-Samples from Individual-Indians for making Larger-Discoveries.
Just as some 19th-Century Religious-Leaders were Outraged to hear that Humans had all descended from Apes, so are the Grand-Canyon-Dwellers appalled to have their cherished Creation-Myth dismissed by this White-Smocked-Bio-Geneticist, who had Gained-Their-Confidence through Informed-Consent.
They did not Originate in Africa & they want their Blood-Samples back…
This proves a Big-Problem for "a Large University in Arizona.”
Jillian loses her Faculty-Post, among Other-Things.
Had she been a Socio-Geneticist, Jillian surely would have been More-Sensitive to the Belief-Needs of Isolated & Essentially-Ignorant-Native-Americans.
Currently, it is more important to be Politically-Correct rather than Truth-Seeking & Trail-Blazing…
Laufer was commissioned to write Informed Consent as part of the Ensemble-Studio-Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science-&-Technology-Project.
Having developed Informed Consent at Rochester’s Geva-Theatre-Center & The-Cleveland-Playhouse, the EST has now passed the Production-Baton on to Primary-Stages, at the Duke-Theatre.
If you have ever been to the Edge of the Grand-Canyon, where that Narrow-Stone-Stairway leads down, down, down, into the Green-Valley—bisected by the Colorado-River—you will understand how Out-of-It Native-Americans can be.
No Point in giving them a Casino. Not easy to Reach, even by Helicopter…
Liesl Tommy directed, skillfully orchestrating the Intercutting of Characters-&-Dialogue.
Had General George Custer ever been able to get down into the Grand-Canyon’s Bottom-Land, you can be sure the Blood-Samples would have been Rather-Different.
Copyright 2015 Glenn M. Loney
Glenn Loney