Hate! An American Love Story

Christina Alexander’s one-woman show, “Hate! An American Love Story”, is having its world premiere in the month of cupids, chocolates and couples. However, her self-written, self-produced and self-acted production transcends the sugar-coated version of affection. “Hate!” is an edgy show that inspires audiences to question the way America looks at different forms of love.

Alexander’s show was inspired by a box of rejection letters. When an interracial couple requested to be married in a church in the 1960s, church officials from all around the country replied that they didn’t want to marry two people of different races. The hateful perspective through which interracial loved was viewed in mid-century America got Alexander thinking, and she eventually created a show that she said “shines a mirror on different types of relationships.”

“Hate! An American Love” story explores many different types of relationships in American, including some of the most controversial: homosexual, transgender and biracial.

“The show is about us. The show is about love,” Alexander said. “This is about doing what I can do to launch us into dialogue about relationships and what voice we should have and should not have, without making anybody feel bad.”

Although Alexander said the show can cause audience members to think outside of their normal comfort zones, she hopes it will facilitate dialogue.

“I am not trying to answer any questions,” she said, explaining that she wants the audience to think about what she has to say through the perspective of others. “I want to open love up, because I want people to realize that just because we look different, it doesn’t mean that we are saying different things.”

Alexander designed the show to ignite questions. She added an intermission, so that the audience would have an opportunity for discussion, and made the production extremely intimate. With a maximum audience of 50, she can connect with each person in the theater.  A lot of her acting involves interacting with the audience, including speaking directly with them.

“The larger the theater, the harder it is to bring the audience into a new world,” Alexander said.

Although the show deals with difficult topics, Alexander said that there are also moments of fall-out-of-your-seat comedy.

“There are definitely moments when you will be laughing, but you can also be moved to tears,” she said.

Alexander crafted the show as a reflection of modern America. “When I wrote the show, I realized that a lot of what I had to say was so relevant,” she said. “We talk about gay marriage. We talk about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, both before the repeal and after it. We talk about the inauguration speech that president Obama just did. So as time evolves, the show evolves with it.”

This is the first production that Alexander wrote and directed.  Since she created it for a theater competition, she made the show entirely hers.

“The way that I created [my] characters was by a conversation. I polled hundreds of people and asked a lot of questions, and got inspired from things people were saying. Each of these characters is addressing some aspect of controversy, but not because they want to be controversial,” she said.

Alexander’s characters come from a variety of backgrounds.

“I have characters who are unhappy with the fact that their relatives are marrying someone of a different race, and how that can be magnified into almost unimaginable proportions. I have characters who are very homophobic and end up becoming gay themselves. And I also deal with family response to that,” she said. “The show addresses some things that are hard for us to talk about as people. Different is not necessarily always wrong. Just because we don’t agree, someone has to be incorrect? That’s wrong.”

In the effort to juxtapose hate and love, Alexander has created a highly unique show, which looks at love through a hateful perspective. Alexander says that there is no moral to be learned at the end of the story, nor are there any motives to convince people. The show is solely meant to be food for thought.

Alexander said, “I don’t know that there is a moral to the story. Truly what I set out to do is just get people to talk. Everybody can be an agent for change in the world. I really want to be an agent of dialogue. I want us to be honest that our differences just show that we are different, but that we are not inferior.”

“Hate! An American Love Story” will run through Feb. 23, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. All performances are at Miami Theater Center’s SandBox, located at 9816 NE 2nd Ave, Miami Shores, FL  33138. Tickets are $20 and group rates are available. Call 305-751-9550 or visit www.mtcmiami.org

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