COMMERCIAL

This is the true story: “In my hometown, Sacramento (CA), two policemen fatally shot an unarmed Black man, Stephon Clark, in his grandparents backyard. When the news broke, I was confident that I was somehow linked to Stephon. Instead, I learned that my childhood friend was one of the cops who shot him.” – Dahlak Brathwaite

This is COMMERCIAL. Based on a true story and yet, not committed to it, COMMERCIAL is an imaginative blend of autobiography, metadrama, and alternative history. Marquise Johnson is an avatar for the playwright whose artistic principles are confronted upon learning that his childhood friend was one of the officers involved in the shooting of Stephon Clark. A play within a play unfolds as Marquise attempts to process the news through his art, beginning as an earnest, poetic meditation on his complicated connection to this hometown shooting. As media coverage wanes and the movement for Black lives becomes dormant once again, Marquise plots to capture the attention of a national audience, manifesting a real-life sensational drama – interrupted progressively by intrusive commercial segments. The piece captures what happens to a story like this when it goes from a grant proposal to network pitch; what happens to a storyteller when they go from artist to content creator; what happens to an activist when a movement becomes a business.

In COMMERCIAL, the influence of commercial media and the rise of artificial intelligence intersect in their shared potential for manipulation. Set in the living room of Marquise’s apartment, the play will be performed by one actor in “virtual” communication with a host of characters constructed with generative AI audio-video technology. In an alternative present, this slightly sci-fi piece reflects the mediated, artificial communication modes that define our post-COVID, post-GPT world, giving a face to the algorithmic bubbles that crop up around us and project our digital shadows based on our impulses.