The Other Weapon 1994

The Other Weapon was a mixed-media performance theater work created by African-American artist Robbie McCauley in collaboration with 11 Los Angeles actors, storytellers and performance artists. Developed from first-person accounts and images collected throughout the city by McCauley and the eventual cast members, The Other Weapon focused on stories of the Black Panthers and issues of community empowerment, race relations and law enforcement in Los Angeles over the previous several decades. The Arts Company presented the work nine times (eight regular performances and one open dress rehearsal for inner city teenagers) at four diverse locations in greater Los Angeles during March 1994: The Vision Complex in the Leimert Park section of Los Angeles, UCLA in Westwood, Southland Cultural Center in Inglewood and Hollywood Moguls in Hollywood.

The Other Weapon was the last in a series of three mixed media performance works based on race relations in this country in the 1960s and 1970s done in collaboration with local artist/activists in different parts of the US and produced by The Arts Company; the first was done in Mississippi in 1992 and the second was done in Boston in 1993). As was the case with the two earlier works, an essential part of each Los Angeles presentation was the post-performance discussion: each lasted 60 to 90 minutes, with most audience members participating. In this way, members of various age, race and class "communities" in Los Angeles were able to respond to the content of the piece with their own stories, memories and comments and to discuss, argue about and present activist strategies around vital issues in their lives. For McCauley and The Arts Company, this was one of the primary reasons for creating these works in communities; as McCauley said: "The art that I and my collaborators create draws on our ability to pass on songs, stories and even humor to keep talking about what often seems unspeakable. Lessons from the tragedies and triumphs of civil rights struggles in the 1960s and 1970s may indeed be the other weapon."

McCauley's primary artistic collaborators, ranging in age from 26 to 58 and coming from a variety of racial/ethnic and class backgrounds and different parts of the community were Gregory Binion, Dolores Chavez, Amentha Dymally, Charley Hayward, Lyvingston Holmes, Wheaton James, Sister Somayah Moore-Kambui, Jeris Lee Poindexter, Raquel Salinas, Denise Uyehara and Jane Zingale. Over a nine-month period, McCauley and these artists interviewed dozens of people in the community to collect stories about what individuals remembered, experienced, or how they were affected by the presence and activities of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Interviewees were specifically asked to talk about three events that formed the major content lines of The Other Weapon: the 1969 shoot-out at UCLA between the Black Panther Party and the black nationalist US Organization; the early morning FBI raid on the Party headquarters in 1969; and the 1970 arrest and subsequent trial of Geronimo Pratt, the Party's former Minister of Defense. 

Using this testimony as their starting point, McCauley and the actors during the rehearsal period engaged in intense open dialogue that carried the storylines into the past and extended them into the present. Parts of this dialogue were carried into the performances of The Other Weapon and were mixed with many of the original stories themselves and with songs, slides and video projections in an overall style that's similar to jazz or, as McCauley refers to it, "conversational music that reflects the language of ordinary people."

According to the largest black newspaper in the city, the Los Angeles Sentinel, "McCauley proves herself a master craftsperson in the weaving of an engrossing dramatic tapestry .... Onlookers tend to forget they're watching a staged re-enactment. McCauley's masterfully subtle direction allows the actors to deliver sublime performances that frequently transport the audience directly into the depicted experiences." From The Wave newspaper chain: "McCauley and her collaborators make an enormous and well-needed contribution. 'Weapon' reminds us that some African-American men and women served as a vanguard to widen the constricted parameters of political debate in this country." And from the Los Angeles Reader: "The ensuing dialogue [with the audience] invites a self-actualizing introspection on the part of the participants; this dialogue may very well be McCauley's underlying purpose." 

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