Skeleton Crew: ‘People Don’t Know How to Merge’

Pamela Nomvete as Faye. Photo - Helen Murray

‘Skeleton Crew’ by Dominique Morisseau (directed by Matthew Xia, at the Donmar Warehouse, London until 24 August) considers the impact of industrial decline on communities and individuals.
 
Faye: I don’t abide by no rules but necessity. I do what I do till I figure out another thing and do that.

The play is set in 2008, in the breakroom of one of the last small car plants operating in Detroit. There’s a microwave and a refrigerator, a tatty couch and crates of kitchen supplies. The heating has packed up and the bulletin board screams instructions.

‘FRIDGE EMPTIED EVERY FRIDAY’
‘NO GAMBLING ON THE PREMISES. DEZ, THIS MEANS YOU.’
‘YOU SEE YOUR MAMA HERE? NO? THEN CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF!’

Between shifts, the workers change shoes at their lockers, prepare themselves some food and coffee, and talk around the table. Dez (Branden Cook), a smart young hustler, charms his colleagues and plans for the future. Shanita (Racheal Ofori), diligent and  thoughtful, does everything by the book. She loves her work.

Shanita: I feel like I’m building somethin’ important. Love the way the line needs me. Like if I step away for even a second and don’t ask somebody to mind my post, the whole operation has to stop. My touch…my special care…it matter. I’m building something that you can see come to life at the end. Got a motor in it and it’s gonna take somebody somewhere. Gonna maybe drive some important businessman to work. Gonna get some single mama to her son’s football practice. Gonna take a family on their first trip to Cedar Point. Gonna even maybe be somebody’s first time. Who knows? But I like knowing I had a hand in it.  

And then there’s Faye (Pamela Nomvete), the formidable veteran with ‘a lifetime of dirt between her nails.’ She ignores the strictures against on-site smoking and gambling, and dishes out sarcasm and worldly wisdom.

Faye: Ya’ll youngins don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout how to fix up no car. Treat ‘em ‘bout as dumb as you treat women. Put a bunch of pretty jewelry on her – gold rims – trick out her exterior, and on the inside, she ain’t got nothin’ to run on. No care. No substance. Just put all your attention on the shit that don’t matter. That ain’t how to make her purr like you really want.  

The autoworkers speculate about the reduced staffing on the lines and the recent spate of plant machinery thefts. They wonder whether the site is at risk of closure.

Dez: Rumors ‘bout shuttin’ down been circulating every year. Then it go away. That’s just how it is. Can’t worry ‘bout it. Cuz if it don’t happen you done worried for nothin’. And if it do happen, you done worried twice.

We learn how the threatened shutdown impacts each of the characters differently. Reggie (Tobi Bamtefa), the studious foreman with neat hair and a white buttoned-down shirt, has bought a house in a good area and settled his kids in a new school. Dez has been saving up to start his own repair shop, and desperately needs his wage and overtime. Faye is well aware that her retirement package will be significantly better if she can just make it to 30 years’ service.

Faye: Told you, don’t be listening to rumors. You inhale every rumor, you clog up your lungs. Die of asphyxiation of other people’s bullshit.

We also come to appreciate that the characters’ concerns are compounded by their own particular personal challenges. Faye has been sleeping overnight in the breakroom. Shanita is pregnant and periodically bursts in in tears. Dez keeps a gun in his locker.

Dez: Need me a good severance deal…if…shit goes down.
Faye: If ‘if’ was a spliff, we’d all be high.

Racheal Ofori as Shanita. Photo - Helen Murray

As the play proceeds, all these ingredients simmer and come to the boil. We are presented with a compelling case study in the dignity of labour; the social cohesion created by industrial jobs, and destroyed by wholesale layoffs; and the resourcefulness and grit of working people.

As a young Planner I was taught that one of the fundamental responsibilities of advertising was to keep the factories open; to keep the lines moving; to sustain jobs. It’s worth being reminded of that occasionally.

I was particularly taken with a speech made by Shanita after a tough commute to the factory.

Shanita: This whole city is under construction. That’s what I discovered on my way into work today. Traffic on the 75 was crazy. They done took everything down to one lane. And people don’t know how to merge. Cars backed up for miles cuz people don’t know how to merge. Don’t matter what freeway you take, it be the same selfish behaviour on all of ‘em. Everybody got somewhere to be and don’t wanna let you in. Even when you honk at ‘em. Even when you try to smile pretty and be polite with it. That shit used to work at one point. I could always squeeze into a lane with a smile. But not no more. Nobody wants to merge no more. We just gettin’ squished into smaller lanes while they make these promises to fix the freeways and don’t seem like they ever really get fixed. And at the end of the day, we just hate drivin’ with each other cuz ain’t enough space and assholes don’t wanna let you in. All I can think anymore is if we just merged, shit would flow so much better.

The world is more fragmented, individualistic and isolating than at any time in human history. And yet we are stronger together - in life generally, and in work specifically.  

We need to remember how to merge.

'Gotta find me an angel
To fly away with me.
Gotta find me an angel
And set me free.
My heart is without a home,
I don't want to be alone.
I gotta find me an angel
In my life, in my life.
Too long have I loved,
So unattached within.
So much that I know
That I need somebody so.
So I'll just go on
Hoping that I find me someone.
Gotta find me an angel
In my life, in my life.
I know there must be someone
Somewhere for me.
Oh, I've lived too long
Without the love of someone.
And there's no misery
Like the misery
I feel in me.
Gotta find me an angel
In my life.’
Aretha Franklin, ‘Angel’ (C A Franklin / William N Sanders)

No. 479

The Story Juke Box: Recognising the Positive Power of Humour in the Workplace

Wurlitzer Phonograph Jukebox Advertisement – 1951

'Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.'
W H Auden

A few times a year I have lunch with five former colleagues. Old friends, we discuss developments in our home lives and careers; recent holidays and overseas adventures; contemporary politics, sport and culture.

We also spend a good deal of the afternoon reminiscing about work. We remember much-loved characters, amusing meetings and pivotal parties. We exchange anecdotes about heroic pitch failures, disastrous presentations and awkward interviews. We interrupt and undermine the narrators, pursue wild digressions and make approximate impersonations. We dispute the creative merits of the Surf Bubble Man.

'A day without laughter is a day wasted.'
Charlie Chaplin

Over the years our yarns have been embellished and exaggerated. The identities and roles of the protagonists have sometimes changed around. Occasionally I wonder whether we’re recollecting an actual event, or simply recalling the telling and retelling of the story.

And yet, with every recounting of a tale we laugh like drains.

Odd perhaps. We’ve heard all these stories before. Their twists and turns are well rehearsed. Their punchlines are entirely familiar.

We sometimes refer to this phase of the lunch as the Story Juke Box. Press the right buttons and out pops the anecdote. C37 The Big Table in the Big Restaurant. A11 The Graduate Trainee Pitch Presentation. E15 Pep’s Conversation with the Ambulance Man.

What’s going on? Why are we doing this? Why are we playing the same old tunes, over and over again?

'I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.'
Maya Angelou

The recently published book ‘Supercommunicators' by Charles Duhigg considers how NASA recruits astronauts for the International Space Station. Mindful that they need people who can get along with others for six months - in low gravity, high proximity and high stress – NASA’s psychiatrists pay particular attention to how the candidates laugh in interview.

They have established that less than 20 per cent of conversational laughter is elicited by humour; and that most laughs are prompted by social factors. They believe that this social laughter is a reliable indicator of how much prospective recruits are predisposed to emotional connection.

Some may regard humour in the workplace as unnecessary, unprofessional and distracting. But I always found it useful for dealing with setbacks and anxiety; for establishing shared values; for undermining pomposity and speaking truth to power.

'Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.'
Bob Newhart

I suspect that when we veterans recount our yarns we’re really just signalling our ongoing emotional commitment to each other; reinforcing the ties that bind us together.

'There is little success where there is little laughter.'
Andrew Carnegie

Of course, there’s a concern that the Story Juke Box is pickling our relationships in the past. Restless Ben is always advocating new stories, proposing that we look to the future, focus on tomorrow.

I confess I tend to be the voice for nostalgia. I take a particular pleasure from ancient myths and golden memories. You can’t beat the old tunes.

'Don't play that song for me,
Because it brings back memories.
The days that I once knew,
The days that I spent with you.
Oh no, don't let them play it.
It fills my heart with pain.
Please, stop it right away,
Because I remember just what he said.
He said ‘darling’,
And I know that he lied.
You know that you lied.
You know that you lied, lied, you lied.’

Aretha Franklin, ‘Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)’ (A Ertegun / B Nelson)

No. 467

The Definition of Empathy: Aretha, The Queen of My Soul

'The moment I wake up,
Before I put on my makeup,
I say a little pray for you.
While combing my hair now,
And wondering what dress to wear now,
I say a little prayer for you.'

 Aretha Franklin, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ (Burt Bacharach / Hal David)

Once when I was at school I read an interview in the NME with Kevin Rowland (of Dexy’s Midnight Runners) in which he declared that he couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without listening to Aretha Franklin singing ‘I Say a Little Prayer.’

I knew what he meant. The gently swaying piano intro, Aretha’s confident gospel tones, the tight backing vocals punctuating her thoughts, the mounting intensity at the chorus - and then that point of clarity:

'My darling, believe me.
For me there is no one but you.
Please love me too.'

Aretha seemed to reach out to me across an ocean, across a great divide of experience, ethnicity, gender and age. The soaring vocals, the spirituality cut right through me. Her voice demolished the distance between us. It was immediate, urgent, gentle and kind.

'Sometimes, what you’re looking for is already there.’

Aretha Franklin

Born in Memphis in 1942, raised in Detroit, the daughter of a famous preacher, Aretha learned to sing and play the piano in church. But her recording career was initially only moderately successful. Then she teamed up with producer Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, and in 1967 they went down to record at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. There followed a cascade of luminous soul classics: ‘I Never Loved a Man,’ ‘Respect’, ‘Natural Woman’, ‘Chain of Fools,’ ‘Think’ – variously expressing ardent affection, enduring love, self-righteous anger and bitter regret. She was hugely successful, universally acclaimed, justly lauded as ‘The Queen of Soul’.

Yet things were never easy for Aretha. She had a tough childhood and a challenging youth. She was unlucky in love and struggled with health issues. In her rare interviews she seemed shy, wary and a little awkward. She wasn’t a natural celebrity and, as she had a fear of flying, she seldom traveled abroad in later life.

Aretha’s warm mezzo-soprano articulated the breadth of these experiences, embracing all the joy, heartache and pain. She could be weak sometimes, and at other times compellingly strong. She always communicated an intense humanity.

'All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit).'

Aretha Franklin, ‘Respect’ (Otis Redding)

Of course, for the most part Aretha didn’t sing her own words. She was channelling the thoughts of the lyricist, inhabiting the character of the song. But she had a special talent for expressing real feeling, true emotion. When I listen to ‘Don’t Play That Song’, ’Aint No Way’,’ Until You Come Back To Me’, I feel what Aretha feels. I second that emotion.

We talk a good deal about empathy in business nowadays. We define it as the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. But what does this really mean?

Aretha teaches that empathy is not a rational condition. It’s not a cold calculation of other people’s circumstances. It is a profoundly emotional state. It’s the ability to identify shared human truths; to really feel for someone; to share their sentiments; to inhabit their triumphs, challenges and disappointments - despite differences of background and experience, regardless of race, colour or creed.

'Baby, will you call me the moment you get there?
Baby, will you do that, will you do that for me now?
Oh, call me, call me the hour, call me the minute, the second that you get there.
Oh, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, baby.'

Aretha Franklin, 'Call Me'

One of my favourite Aretha performances was on her own composition, ‘Call Me’. In the song she pleads with her departing partner to phone her the moment he arrives at his destination. (It was inspired by an overheard conversation on Park Avenue, New York.) She also seems to me to be expressing a lover’s patience: the willingness to wait until the object of her affection reaches the same level of understanding – until he finally gets there. I have always found this deeply moving.

I was never quite sure Aretha understood how much she meant to others - to people with very different personal narratives. If she were here now, I’d want to replay to her the words she sang so tenderly on ‘Call Me’:

'My dearest, my dearest of all darlings,
I know we've got to part.
It really doesn't hurt me that bad,
Because you are taking me with you,
And I'm keeping you right here in my arms.'

 Aretha Franklin, 'Call Me'
 

(Aretha Louise Franklin, 1942 - 2018, RIP)

No. 195