Recent Stories with tag boards

Mikeah Ernest Jennings, left, and Douglas Scott Streater, right, in Young Jean Lee's "The Shipment"

"This other company that I had worked with—you know that German cannibal story?" asked Mikeah Ernest Jennings. It was Tuesday afternoon, and we were sitting in Caffe Ladro in Lower Queen Anne, a stone's throw from On the Boards, where Jennings will be performing in Young Jean Lee's The Shipment starting tonight (through Sunday, tickets $24). His fellow cast-member, Prentice Onayemi, who I gathered had never heard this story, was sitting next to him, listening intently. Jennings was referring to the case of Armin Meiwes, who in 2001 solicited a man named Bernd Jurgen Brandes over the Internet to be a willing victim of cannibalism.

"It became the third act to one of their shows," he continued, "this big multimedia installation thing. So I became one of these characters, and we were performing the show at this theatre in Berlin. And after rehearsal of the show one night, we're out having drinks, and the director pulls me aside and is like, 'You know, the artistic director said the weirdest thing to me after watching the run.' And I was like, 'Well, what is that?' And he said, 'It all of a sudden clicked in to him that you were the one being eaten.'" Jennings paused. "And the artistic director had pulled our director aside, and said that the audience might not be able to understand what's going on..."

Jennings trailed off into a pregnant silence, so I finished for him: "Because you're black."

Jennings, who was recounting the story with a quizzical look somewhere between amusement and disgust, sort of half shrugged and nodded. "Because I should be the larger, aggressive one, consuming." Onayemi just shook his head and muttered a flabbergasted "Damn."... (more)