Blind Witness
Charles Bernstein
The republication launch and showing of Charles Bernstein’s Blind Witness took place on Monday, May 5th at The Factory School, a little anarchist collective school, community service center, “knowledge launderer,” and publisher. The front room quickly filled up with wine and chatting people, where copies of Blind Witness and other Factory School books could be purchased. In the next room was the stage, completely black and bare aside from a piano in the corner, a table and two chairs in the middle. A Spartan stage usually bodes well. Without a spectacular set, dazzling costumes, and bright lights, the only thing left is the thing itself with no where to hide. I was not let down; the cast of Blind Witness had no need for such fancy distractions.
Blind Witness is called an opera, but that will give the wrong impression. It is a stage performance with music and singing, and feels more like a cabaret show than an opera. The show includes three libretti, Blind Witness News, The Subject, and The Lenny Paschen Show. The performance highlighted sections from all three libretti, the first being the most effective commentary on how language in the media manipulates the audience.
The first libretto, Blind Witness News, starred two smiling, hair-doed news anchors, Jack James and Jill Jones. They began their news report by politely introducing themselves repeatedly to the viewers at home. This slew of “I’m Jack James/ I’m Jill Johns/ I’m Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack James/ I’m Jill Jill Jill Jill Jill Jill Jill Johns” inched its way to the night’s headline story, something about the war. That something stated that it is a holy war and that victory will be ours, then moved on to announce the weather and sports. The repeated jabbering and carefully tuned language, though grossly exaggerated, gives a good impersonation of today’s nightly news. We see attractive smiling people in brightly colored blazers who are supposed to be announcing the day’s tragedies. They have to tell us who died, who should die, who might die, and what might kill you next, so to distract us from what they’re (not) saying they fill up time with light mindless banter and sexy cheerful weather reporters. It all amounts to a heaving pile of nothing, these words spoken only to fill time and tip-toe around our world’s daily decay. This is what Bernstein captures so well, and the absurdity of it makes it something we can laugh about though we know that, as the saying goes, it’s only funny because it’s true.
-Claire S
