Review: THE EXALTED Reflects at BAM

The Exalted, written by the celebrated poet and performer Carl Hancock Rux is told in the spirit of German expressionism, centering on the anarchist German-Jewish writer Carl Einstein, today considered a founding voice in the evolution of seminal Modernist art movements.

The writings of Einstein impacted and influenced Cubism and the European avant-garde artists such as Pablo Picasso, as well as the Berlin caricaturist George Grosz and the French painter Georges Braque.

The Exalted dramatizes the significance of Einstein's work on African art. In his literary expressionism, for which he was most proud, he critiqued the conceptual bases for Western culture. Similarly, contemporary dramaturgy has evolved under the pen of Rux, whose post-modern interpretation of German expressionism befits the historical basis for the narrative.

Composer and performer Theo Bleckmann is a kindred spirit. Drawing from his German heritage, he performed Einstein in The Exalted with a moving impeccability, elevating the poetic language of Rux with an anarchic sensibility.

Together, Rux and Bleckmann are strengthening the marginal zone where new aesthetic movements take hold. Rux is firmly rooted in the African-American literary tradition that began with Phyllis Wheatley and continued into the 20th century with Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka. The role he performs in The Exalted, and his script, gives voice to the African perspective, further glorifying Einstein as a man who enriched both Western and African culture through his arts' criticism.

Einstein, familiar with the cultures of the Herero and Nama people who endured the first genocide of the 20th century in German-occupied Africa, lived one of those typical 20th century lives. The year he published Negerplastik, a book that would change the way Western culture appreciated art, he volunteered to serve in WWI. In the following years, he joined a militant anarchist trade union defending the Republican front in Spain.

Einstein's example, intellectually and socially, has inspired contemporary neo-expressionism in Rux, whose forthcoming second novel is based on The Exalted. In certain ways, the play is both biographical about Einstein and autobiographical, for without the avant-garde, and without an appreciation for African aesthetics, Carl Hancock Rux and Theo Bleckmann would not be as appreciated for who they are today.

Interestingly, Rux writes of the double-edged power of art to stimulate militarism, and encourage peace equally. The creation of art is a boon and conundrum to the Western intellectual. In his criticism, especially when drawing from his studies of African sculpture, Einstein asked important questions about aesthetic utilitarianism. His inquiries fortified the avant-garde, Dada, surrealist, and expressionist artists of Europe.

Photo Courtesy of TDF.org (Theater Development Fund)

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