The tender line - Page 2

Cutting Ball's docudrama Tenderloin explores its own backyard

05.09.12 - 8:01 am | Robert Avila |

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The world's a stage: Cutting Ball Theater presents the premiere of Tenderloin.

PHOTO BY ROB MELROSE

But the narrative that emerges, which lays a heavy emphasis on "stripping back the layers" and revealing the truth of the much-maligned district, suffers from the accumulation of a familiar liberal slant toward tolerance and understanding. To the extent it undercuts outrage at a larger system of extreme and degrading inequality, such a slant obscures as much as it reveals. *

TENDERLOIN

Through May 27

Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm, $10-$50

Exit on Taylor

277 Taylor, SF

(415) 525-1205

www.cuttingball.com

Comments

Tenderloin needs less drugs

Tenderloin needs less drugs and more of a clean working class environment. This glorifying picture of human misery is not helping. It feels like people coming from the outside looking into this suffering and trying to make something "artistic" out of it and then go home to a clean suburb life. Try to live here and you will get a more real view of the reality down here.

Posted by Guest on May. 09, 2012 @ 2:27 pm

See the show before you judge it...

You should see the piece before you judge it.

It, in no way, glorifies the human misery that is so present in the neighborhood.

The show, speaking through the verbatim words of people who have lived and worked in the Tenderloin for decades, addresses the issues of creating a clean working-class environment for residents and the horrible drug problem head-on and with a candor you might find surprising - if you are open and willing to be surprised.

Though it may seem, from the review, that play is full of facile bromides about how wonderful the neighborhood is. I don't think Rob is saying that, and I know the play doesn't.

What it does say is that there are many real, fundamental aspects to the neighborhood that are far less visible than the bad smells, the drug dealing and the homeless. Those are the parts of the place that everyone sees. Those are the parts of the place that make it an "area to avoid" in city guides. It should be seen as a positive thing to promote parts of the neighborhood that are positive. And if you do, in fact, live there, you know that.

Posted by Guest on May. 10, 2012 @ 9:40 am