美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'American Son,' Kerry Washington Wants You To 'Let Yourself Be In This Nightmare'

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

"American Son" opens in a Miami police station in the middle of the night or a worried mother frets¹ about her missing son and is frustrated² at the lack of information she gets from a police officer who tells her he understands. He's got kids, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN SON")

JEREMY JORDAN: (As Paul Larkin) I am doing the best that I can to help figure out where your...

KERRY WASHINGTON: (As Kendra Ellis-Connor) Do you have a black son?

JORDAN: (As Paul Larkin) Wow. We are really going to go there.

WASHINGTON: (As Kendra Ellis-Connor) Oh, we've been there for a while.

JORDAN: (As Paul Larkin) No, ma'am.

WASHINGTON: (As Kendra Ellis-Connor) Then let's skip the empathy tactic³, OK? Because, believe me, you got no idea.

SIMON: That's Jeremy Jordan and Kerry Washington. "American Son," now on Netflix, is adapted from the Broadway play by Christopher Demos-Brown. Kerry Washington, the star of "Scandal" is the film star and executive producer. And she joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

WASHINGTON: Thank you for having me.

SIMON: You played this role on stage in Broadway. Why did you want to play it again?

WASHINGTON: I guess from the moment I first read the play "American Son" I really was drawn⁴ to it because I think the material is so moving and provocative⁵. I felt that it was important to do the work and to expose it to audiences. But I also was aware of the barrier to entry that is inevitable⁶ in theater, you know, whether it's the price point of tickets on the Broadway stage, which, of course, we tried to adjust for. We had student tickets and discount prices, but it's still a lot of money. And also just the barrier of geography, you know, not everybody can get to New York to see a play. So the opportunity to tell the story on screen and basically democratize theater in this way was really exciting for me.

SIMON: Let's try and set the scene a little more yet. It's a dark and stormy night.

WASHINGTON: (Laughter) It is.

SIMON: And Kendra, the the mother of Jamal, knows that, knows only that she can't reach her son and his car was involved in some kind of incident. What irritates her about some of the questions the police officer, who, by the way, I note, is always eating a doughnut?

WASHINGTON: (Laughter) Often. Not always. But often.

SIMON: All right, frequently. I wonder if...

WASHINGTON: Sometimes, he's drinking coffee instead (laughter).

SIMON: I wondered if Jeremy Jordan put on a lot of weight during the Broadway run, but...

WASHINGTON: No, he was very tactical on the economy of his bites.

SIMON: But what irritates the mother Kendra about some of the questions that he asks?

WASHINGTON: I think Kendra is really disturbed because she is aware of Officer Larkin's unconscious bias⁷. He's asking her questions about her missing son that imply that her son is a thug, a street kid. He asks if he has tattoos⁸, if he has gold teeth, if he goes by a street name. And I think it really bugs⁹ Kendra that he's already decided¹⁰ the kind of kid that her son is just based on the fact that he has a black mom who's looking for him.

SIMON: Yeah, and Jamal, the son, says that he feels like the face of the race. Have you ever felt that way?

WASHINGTON: You know, I was obviously drawn to the narrative¹¹ because of Kendra and who she is. I myself am a black woman. I have black children, but I realize that a big part of what drew me to the material was also my deep understanding of Jamal, that I am a kid from a working middle class family who went to a very prestigious¹² private school and had to navigate¹³ some of those treacherous¹⁴, cultural investigations¹⁵ or discovery process of who am I and how do I fit in and all the different worlds that I belong to. And I think feeling like the face of the race is not an unknown feeling for me.

You know, there was a lot of talk when "Scandal" first aired that it was the first show in 38 years to have a black woman as the lead of a network drama. And with that came a lot of pressure. I mean, there was nothing I could do to guarantee eyeballs. Unfortunately, my business is not often meritocracy. But I knew that I had to reach toward excellence¹⁶ in every area because even though I couldn't control the result if "Scandal" was a failure, it might be another 40 years before a black woman was allowed to be the lead of a network drama. Instead, in the success of "Scandal," we had "Empire" and "How to Get Away" and "Quantico" and "Station 19." We had all of these shows with the black women at the helm because what was considered a, quote, unquote, "risk" before we aired suddenly became commonplace. So I do - I do understand from various perspectives and at different times in my life a little bit about what Jamal is going through.

SIMON: And there's a heartbreaking - well, I will simply stipulate¹⁷ there are about 50 heartbreaking moments...

(LAUGHTER)

SIMON: ...But one in particular where Kendra says that she would sometimes put their son to sleep and just walk into his bedroom because she'd wake up in the middle of the night worried about him. She'd have nightmares about what might await him in life.

WASHINGTON: What's your question?

SIMON: Well, does that happen to you?

WASHINGTON: You know, parenting is always an act of vulnerability. The moment that you have that little person outside of your body - if that's your path into parenting and there are a lot of ways to get there. But once that little person is here in the world, every day is a practice in letting go. And you do everything you can to protect them and to try to create a safe world for them. But we're not in control as parents.

It's funny. When I was approaching the character, I feel like I was approaching her in parallel paths. One from a kind of intimate psychological perspective where I was minding my own fear and anxiety as a black woman and as a mom. But at the same time that I was working very personally, I was also working in this kind of much more historical, sociological, anthropological¹⁸ tract¹⁹ because there has always been in this country a history of state violence against black children. If you begin with slavery to Emmett Till to Philando Castile, it is a history of the vulnerability of being the parent of a black person.

And I think it's one of the things that's really powerful about the peace is that if you walk with us for these 90 minutes, if you let yourself be in this nightmare, you cannot say that communities that are disenfranchised and that are in hostile relationship with police that we are overreacting. You must understand what the experience is when you allow yourself to spend this evening with us.

SIMON: Kerry Washington, star and executive producer of "American Son" streaming on Netflix, thank you very much for being with us.

WASHINGTON: Thank you so much.

1 frets   

基质间片； 品丝（吉他等指板上定音的）( fret的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The river frets away the rocks along its banks. 河水侵蚀了两岸的岩石。
• She frets at even the slightest delays. 稍有延误她就不满。

2 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 tactic   

n.战略，策略；adj.战术的，有策略的

参考例句：

• Reducing prices is a common sales tactic.降价是常用的销售策略。
• She had often used the tactic of threatening to resign.她惯用以辞职相威胁的手法。

4 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

5 provocative   

adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的

参考例句：

• She wore a very provocative dress.她穿了一件非常性感的裙子。
• His provocative words only fueled the argument further.他的挑衅性讲话只能使争论进一步激化。

6 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

7 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

8 tattoos   

n.文身( tattoo的名词复数 )；归营鼓；军队夜间表演操；连续有节奏的敲击声v.刺青，文身( tattoo的第三人称单数 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的胳膊上刺满了花纹。
• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的双臂刺满了纹身。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

11 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

12 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

13 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

14 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

15 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

16 excellence   

n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德

参考例句：

• His art has reached a high degree of excellence.他的艺术已达到炉火纯青的地步。
• My performance is far below excellence.我的表演离优秀还差得远呢。

17 stipulate   

vt.规定，（作为条件）讲定，保证

参考例句：

• International rules stipulate the number of foreign entrants.国际规则规定了外国参赛者的人数。
• Some manufacturers stipulate the price at which their goods are to be sold.有些制造商规定出售他们生产的商品的价格。

18 anthropological   

adj.人类学的

参考例句：

• These facts of responsibility are an anthropological datums- varied and multiform. 这些道德事实是一种人类学资料——性质不同，形式各异。 来自哲学部分
• It is the most difficult of all anthropological data on which to "draw" the old Negro. 在所有的人类学资料中，最困难的事莫过于“刻划”古代的黑人。 来自辞典例句

19 tract   

n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林)

参考例句：

• He owns a large tract of forest.他拥有一大片森林。
• He wrote a tract on this subject.他曾对此写了一篇短文。