0:00:08.889,0:00:19.784
[energetic electronic music]

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[overlapping chatter]

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— Ok.

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— All right.

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Edgar Arceneaux: Today we're going to [br]focus on the end of Scene 3,

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when he's on the floor, the green present[br]shows up.

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So we'll just start off with the green light.

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"Until, Until, Until" is a performance, which[br]I'm calling a play,

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that is based on an actual performance[br]that Ben Vereen did in 1981

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where he decided to do a tribute to vaudevillian performer[br]Bert Williams

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at the 1981 Republican gala, which was a celebration of[br]Ronald Reagan's election.

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Man as Vereen: See them shuffle along

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Watch them shuffle along and take your...

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[Edgar Arceneaux] The first act was[br]like a straight-up minstrel show

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so when he came out on stage,[br]he was dressed in blackface,

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which is surreal in and of itself,[br]and did this really moving tribute.

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And then the second part is[br]where the critique was...

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— He's trying to assert his manhood [br]— OK.

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[Edgar Arceneaux] But ABC edited out that second part

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and only showed him doing a[br]minstrel show for Ronald Reagan

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and, like, you know, 25,000 white Republicans.

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[Man as Vereen] Well, these here, these, my[br]friends...

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Line?

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[Edgar Arceneaux] And two days later,[br]Ben was surprised to learn

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that all the people who were[br]part of his circle

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of friends and supporters,[br]they all abandoned him.

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[Man as Vereen] That's quite all right.

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I, uh...I just forgets my place… sometimes.

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[Edgar Arceneaux] Now this is the thing.

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Even if America had seen it, I am not convinced

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that most people would have[br]thought that it was a good idea.

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Heh! That's the reason why I wanted to do[br]it,

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because of that uncertainty...

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[Man as Vereen] You're marvelous!

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[Edgar Arceneaux] And the power of what art is,

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which is distinctive from other fields,[br]is its unruliness,

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which ultimately means that...[br]art is not inherently good.

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It's not inherently bad,[br]but it is inherently

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contradictory.

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[Man as Vereen] All right, I'll sing it...

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[Edgar Arceneaux] Its nature is to ask new questions.

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[Man as Vereen hums a show tune]

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Arceneaux: You know, L.A. is a complicated[br]place,

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and it's so big.

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There are still parts of it I've never seen.

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But this route will give you a sense of the[br]different L.A.s,

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and...how it's broken up

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into these invisible barriers[br]of class and race, you know?

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It's a very different[br]experience when you get to see

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the other part of L.A. Where, you know,[br]where regular people live,

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working-class folks live,

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you know, so where I came from.

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It's just always been... home to me, um, [br]but, you know, all of my family's here,

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and I'm a third-generation Angeleno.

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My mother's, like, a really[br]good storyteller, so, you know,

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she would really bring the past to life.

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On Sundays, like, after[br]church, she would be in her room,

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you know, like, lying on the[br]bed, and one of us would go

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in there and lie down and then the other one.

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The next thing you know, like,[br]all 6 of us would be in there

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on the bed like, "Mom, tell us[br]some stories about Grandpa,"

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like, "tell us some stories[br]about your childhood," so...

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I'm named after my grandfather.[br]Yeah, he was a painter and an inventor,

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and part of the story of my name is that,

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you know, I look like him, I[br]walk like him, I talk like him,

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but he died a couple months before I was born.

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So I could accredit, probably,[br]my interest into philosophy

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and religion and science to that anomaly[br]because I started asking myself early on,

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like, "How could I be him and be myself[br]at the same time," you know?

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Drawing, for me,[br]is both a technique, but it's

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also a methodology.

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It's a way of thinking about how[br]we make connections between things.

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This is a...a big-rig truck[br]that's crashed into the side of a church.

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This is like a collision of belief systems,[br]right?

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And when I was in my undergraduate studies[br]at Art Center, I remember, you know, encountering,

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like, all these car accidents, and it seemed[br]to bethere

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there was some kind of pattern that existed[br]to it.

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And then I started to think about it more[br]philosophically,

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which was, like, you know, "Why is it that[br]we

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consider car accidents and car crashes to[br]be random?"

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because randomness is defined by a sense that[br]we live

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within the logical, reasoned universe.

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I'm constantly trying to figure out how you[br]could talk about

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big ideas, but through images that are somewhat[br]familiar.

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So, within the space of making aa body of[br]work,

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the thing that I'm trying to talk about is[br]not necessarily in the picture.

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[electric saw whirs]

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— You know, this is just like[br]making a drawing, you know?

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— Yep.

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— It's all little, tiny detail stuff.

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— No comment.

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[laughs]

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— Maybe we should just make a drawing instead.[br]— I know. I know, I know.

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[laugs]

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[drilling]

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[Edgar Arceneaux] So "The Library of Black Lies"[br]is both a library and a labyrinth.

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'cause, you know, like, the difference between[br]a labyrinth and a maze is that in a maze,

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you're supposed to get lost,

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but in a labyrinth, you find yourself [br]in the middle.

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And I still don't know what's in the center[br]of this one.

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This is one of my early experiments,[br]thinking about the limitations of what we

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can know,

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that even though the book has[br]been destroyed in some way,

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like, you can't open it and read it any longer,[br]it's taken on a new form.

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So I don't know if this is[br]going to make it in the library or not,

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this particular one, but I am[br]going to be crystallizing some books,

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and this may be what's in the middle.

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[electric saw whirring]

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But, you know, the other thing[br]about uncertainty is that it's

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something that you can't ever get rid of.

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Um, as a matter of fact, it's a necessary[br]product of exploration.

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[saw whirring]

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Ideally, that's where innovation comes from.

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That's where something new comes into the[br]equation,

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is when you allow for that that uncomfortableness,

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that sense that you don't know.

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[Indistinct chatter]

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In a lot of ways, you know,the "Black Lies"[br]project is a way

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of examining the library as a means by which[br]to transform oneself...

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'cause we live in an information age,[br]so, like, there's information everywhere.

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I mean, that doesn't hasn't radically transformed[br]society

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in any greater way.

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[Distant, overlapping chatter]

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I wanted to produce some troublesome[br]juxtapositions

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between knowledge of something that has power

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in itself and knowledge as something[br]that can be harnessed for political purposes,

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either to suppress or to[br]transform one's position.

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[Overlapping chatter]

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This idea of the American dream is

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the thing that we're all working towards...

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but at the same time, a lot of people are[br]recognizing

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that they haven't gone anywhere.

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[Chatter continues]

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[Distant traffic noise]

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The reason why I use mirror is[br]because I try to use materials

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that have certain properties[br]that trouble things and...

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this one, it troubles the gaze, you know,[br]like, you

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there's no neutral place to stand.

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It forces you to contend with the fact[br]that you are reflected in it somewhere.

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This is a project that's[br]called "A Book and a Medal."

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By coincidence, I come across these two letters.

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The first one, um, what's known now as the[br]suicide letter,

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was sent to Martin Luther King in [br]December of 1964.

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And essentially, the letter said, [br]"We know your secrets,

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and if you don't stop, we're [br]going to expose you."

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And then, at the end, it said, "You know,[br]and you should just kill yourself."

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It turns out that the letter was sent to him[br]by

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J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.

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[Martin Luther King Jr.] A time comes [br]when silence is betrayal.

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[Edgar Arceneaux] In the show, what I [br]was trying to do was

0:10:53.579,0:10:57.279
to explore the vulnerabilities

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of a person who's in a position of leadership.

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[Martin Luther King Jr.] ...beyond doubt, but the mission to[br]which they call us...

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[Edgar Arceneaux] Martin Luther King [br]as a historical subject

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has been monumentalized.

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He's been turned into a kind of a superhero.

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[Martin Luther King Jr.] I cannot be silent in the face of such[br]cruel manipulation of the poor.

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My third reason moves to an even deeper level[br]of awareness, for it grows...

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[Edgar Arceneaux] In a lot of ways, I mean, the project[br]of democracy

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as a true possibility is really predicated[br]on how the United States deals

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with its legacy of genocide and slavery.

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So I didn't want to produce a situation in[br]the show where

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you felt like this was done…

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because this[br]is still ongoing.

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Um, as a matter of fact, it could be unresolvable,

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and I think, to some degree, some people may[br]be thinking

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that this might be as good as it gets,

0:11:59.504,0:12:01.790
so, like, the "I Have a Dream" speech, [br]where "I may not get to

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the mountaintop with you" is a metaphor,

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I wanted to put that on a table[br]and say, "Let's let's analyze this."

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Will we get any better than this?

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And for me, I'm not sure.

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30 years ago, a man did a performance[br]that was meant to challenge the status quo,

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and it irreparably damaged his life in the[br]process.

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He was willing to go on this journey with[br]us to bring this piece back into the public

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in the way it was meant to be seen.

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Let's make a great show.

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[clapping]

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[Patriotic music playing]

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Arceneaux: I have to be quite honest.

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I never imagined that I would ever do anything[br]with blackface.

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[Chuckles]

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It's not a subject I have any interest in,

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but yet here I am.

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[Vaudeville music playing]

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[Recorded applause and[br]cheering]

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If you've seen the video of Ben Vereen[br]at Ronald Reagan's presidential gala,

0:13:16.500,0:13:20.220
it's one of the most surreal things that I've[br]seen,

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and it's haunted me for 20 years.

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[Vaudeville music playing]

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We were on the phone yesterday.

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And it was actually it was really, really moving.

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I was sort of brought to tears during the call.

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Ben said, "Listen, you know,[br]"you have to do this piece your way,

0:13:39.570,0:13:44.700
"and so take this material and run with it.[br]You know, it's yours now."

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[Actor as Ben Vereen] I just forgets my place… sometimes.

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[Edgar Arceneaux] So I'm even getting choked up[br]right now just thinking about it,

0:13:55.564,0:14:00.341
but, you know, it's...[br]if that happened to me,

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that kind of betrayal and humiliation,[br]you would hope

0:14:06.269,0:14:12.515
that there would be somebody out there[br]who would want to kind of pick up that mantle.

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[Singing indistinctly]

0:14:25.988,0:14:29.500
And I could sense from him that,[br]independent

0:14:29.500,0:14:33.220
of if the piece is great or not, he knows[br]that there's

0:14:33.220,0:14:38.130
people out there that care now, you know,[br]that what he tried

0:14:38.130,0:14:42.000
to do 30 years ago, this may be that time.

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Maybe now is that time.

0:14:46.854,0:14:49.260
[Applause]

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[Vaudeville music playing]

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[music fades out]

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[soft electronic music]