September 11 Blues

By Keith Boykin, in theater
Thursday, September 12 2002, 6:00AM

Los Angeles -- After a week in California, I'm heading back to New York this evening. I never thought I'd say this, but I don't want to leave LA just yet.

The first thing I noticed in Los Angeles was space. After a year and three months in New York, I've almost forgotten how much space there is in the rest of the country. Here, the air is not blocked by skyscrapers. The streets are not clogged with pedestrians. The stores, strip malls and parking lots are huge. The sense of space is everywhere, except in the congested freeways.

The second thing I noticed in Los Angeles was the sense of surprise with which old friends greeted me. "What are YOU doing in Los Angeles?" one friend said to me. "I can't believe you're here for so long," another said. Others echoed those sentiments. I guess over the years I had given everyone the impression that I don't like Los Angeles. After a difficult and painful 3-year work experience in this city, I had no desire ever to live here. I left that job four years ago but the memories of my dissatisfaction still live on in the minds of my friends.

This time was different. I came here to visit a friend, do some writing, and get away from New York during the week of the 9/11 anniversary. I'm glad I did. The pictures on television yesterday reminded me why I didn't want to be in Manhattan for September 11. But my experience in Los Angeles showed me why I picked the perfect place to get away.

I saw Los Angeles in a whole different light. I relaxed, read and wrote, but I also went to new restaurants, tried new bars and nightclubs, and ventured to new places that I had never thought about going to before. A highlight of the week was meeting a group of friends at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood Tuesday night. We sat outside by the rooftop pool and gazed past the palm trees overlooking the city as we talked and ate. Although the heat lamps had to generate the warmth that the natural climate does not in the evening, I felt like I was transported to the peaceful and glamorous California I had long imagined but never seen.

Blue: The Play

I also enjoyed spending time with my host. We went to see Blue (shown in the picture above) at the Pasadena Playhouse. I had seen the play at the New York debut last year, but the California cast, with Phylicia Rashad, Diahann Carroll and Clifton Davis, was too impressive to miss. In the end, I liked the New York production better, but it was good to see how the show had evolved.

The New York production at the Gramercy Theater featured my Harvard classmate Hill Harper, who has long been one of my favorite actors to watch. He played the role of the young man coming back from Seattle to see his family down south. Phylicia Rashad played the mother in that production as well.

In New York, the show was attacked by some critics because it failed to show what the reviewers perceived as the more authentic black experience of suffering and misery. Blue is not Good Times on stage. It's a story of a prominent upper middle class black family from the south. Not all blacks live the same.

So I leave Los Angeles with energy and vigor that I lacked when I arrived. I had pulled a muscle while running on Riis Beach 3 weeks ago and it never healed while I was constantly active in New York. After a week in California, my leg is back to normal. In New York, I had fallen into the monotony of diversion that is so easy to do in a city with so much to offer. In Los Angeles, I was free to relax.

Now I return to the city that never sleeps, knowing that I can sleep more soundly with my groove back.

© Copyright 2002 by Keith Boykin.