By Shanice Punnett
The Queens Museum is hosting two plays performed by homeless people from Los Angeles about the California prison system and cocaine trafficking.
This is the first museum survey of the Los Angeles-based performance group Los Angeles Poverty Department. The event is called “Do you want the cosmetic version or do you want the real deal?”
The group was founded in 1985 on Los Angeles’s Skid Row by performance artist, director and activist John Malpede. It primarily consists of homeless or formerly homeless people and has been an uncompromising force in performance and urban advocacy for almost 30 years.
The exhibition at the Queens Museum will include documentation of their work since 1986, and live performances of two critically acclaimed works, “State of Incarceration” in its East Coast premiere and “Agentes & Activos,” the North American premiere of the Spanish language version of “Agents and Assets.”
During a five-week residency starting in January, LAPD will engage Drogadictos Anonimos, a Corona-based recovery group, in a unique partnership in which DA will perform in “Agentes & Activos,” and LAPD will serve as artistic mentors for the group’s street theater initiatives.
The first play, “State of Incarceration,” is based on the California prison system. Prison beds are crammed wall-to-wall in a gallery, and the audience sits amid the performers, who deliver monologues in the narrow aisles, sweep or scrub the bed frames or sleep or ruminate on their backs, individually or as a chorus in choreographed sequences.
The performance culminates in the making and eating of “The Spread,” a meal made up of ramen noodles, cans of tuna, and anything else that could be collectively gathered together in a garbage bag with hot water.
Performances are set for Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2. at 3pm.
The second play, “Agentes and Activos,” a decade-long project that has toured internationally, is based on an actual 1998 House of Representatives hearing on alleged CIA involvement in crack cocaine trafficking into the Los Angeles area. It uses changing casts of players and locations all affected by the global drug trade, from Detroit, to Cochabamba, Bolivia.
With LAPD cast members and local partners repeating the words of political figures such as Nancy Pelosi and the CIA director, ‘Agents and Assets’ is an wonderful example of creating an emotional atmosphere and bringing a theatrical aspect of politics to life.
Performances will take place at the Queens Museum on Feb. 28, March 1 and March 2. Dates and times for other venues in New York City will be announced.
Additionally, the Queens Museum invites educators of all kinds to join them for an educator workshop with the LAPD on Feb. 7 from 4:30-7pm. In this hands-on workshop with LAPD members and leaders, educators will learn about LAPD’s history in Skid Row, their strategies for using theater and art to build community and how to use personal narratives and theater to highlight and advocate against broader social and political injustices. They will also learn how theater and art can promote collaboration and partnership between teachers and students. To register, send an email to jyoon@queensmuseum.org
The museum is also offering an artists and advocated workshop on Feb. 23 from 2-6pm with the LAPD. This is for artists, cultural and community organizers, and educators who are developing work alongside communities around narratives. In this workshop, participants will learn about LAPD’s history in Skid Row as well as their strategies for using theater and art to build community, just to name a few. In addition they will explore how theater and art promote collaboration and partnership within communities and share the challenges they have faced in developing their own projects and receive feedback and advice. To register, send an email to sjmo@queensmuseum.org
