‘A Call From the Resistance’ Reorients Us to True North (The NoPro Review)

I’ve been given a lot to hold. We all have. The laundry list of political, economic, social justice, and health roadblocks would be practically comical, if it weren’t so desperately serious. I’ve exhausted the metaphors and descriptors: it’s akin to an episode of Black Mirror; I’m inside a Cormac McCarthy novel; it’s like an endless Las Vegas buffet of disasters, constantly refilled and kept warm.

We are now just a few weeks away from a particularly fraught presidential election after a particularly fraught four years. And so, Capital W’s A Call From the Resistance steps in to offer an intimate, personal experience recalling our political remembrances and their links to activism. Perfectly timed, A Call From the Resistance arrives by way of, yes, a phone call to help me do something with what I’ve been forced to hold.

Writer, performer, and co-director Mason Flink rings me, asking if I’m in a safe space where I’m free to engage in a political discussion. We begin with a broader dialogue about living in present-day America. How do I feel about being a citizen of the United States? The first presidential debate was held the previous evening. How do I feel? Emotions puddle around me; I pull in air, release a hiccuping sigh, and start to talk.

Throughout the call, Mason holds space for my confidences. His demeanor and responses are kind, respectful, and affirming. Sometimes we unpack my observations and memories; sometimes he offers up details around his own lived experience. A Call From the Resistance merges talk therapy and the conversation you wish you shared with someone from a political phone bank.

But it’s also more than that.

Politically, our country is afflicted with a type of spatial disorientation (the inability to determine angle, altitude, or speed). For aircraft pilots, spatial disorientation becomes a threat once the horizon is no longer visible. We register motion through the movement of fluid encased in three semicircular canals of the inner ear, which are part of the “bony labyrinth,” an evocative term for mere millimeters of the body.

Although visual cognition is instantaneous, friction between the canals and this inner ear fluid results in a time delay between the fluid’s movement and the brain’s understanding of equilibrium. In spatial disorientation, sensory input between what is seen begins to conflict with sensory input from the inner ear. When the fluid becomes stationary, by a plane maintaining a steady turn (for example), the brain interprets that as equilibrium, even as the turn continues. This vestibular illusion is deadly: ninety percent of spatial disorientation accidents result in fatalities, according to the FAA.

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Relentless gaslighting by all past and current players and enablers of the Trump administration has forced us into a death spiral of near-constant velocity. As a country, we’ve lost the horizon of our values. We’re up in the clouds of corruption and obfuscation. We’ve been stuck in the spiral for so long, our cochlear fluid is static and we’re struggling to calibrate the direction of a moral, just reality versus the surreal path towards an autocracy led by a narcissistic, predatory dictator.

What does this perpetual state do to a person? We feel unmoored and untethered; we are the impaired pilots. We don’t believe the plane’s instruments. We read news headlines, the political equivalent of altitude dials, and think the information must be wrong. How can this be? How can this be our country and not an absurdist plotline of a Hollywood summer blockbuster or satire by The Onion?

The key recommendation for overcoming spatial disorientation is to trust the aircraft’s instruments. All citizens aboard the aircraft that is the United States need to respond to the machinery’s piercing alarms. We are indeed in a catastrophic spiral. We must break free from this nightmare and that means taking action — in all forms.

A Call From the Resistance promotes an inclusive definition of action, which encompasses “voting, encouraging others to vote, sharing fact-based articles on social media, going to protests, and having difficult discussions about politics with people who might disagree with you.” Surprisingly, and in spite of countless political conversations I’ve had since 2016, my dialogue with Mason feels unique. Within one comprehensive interaction, it explores my perspective from the past four years, intertwining pivotal historical moments with my emotional vagrancy and various forms of action.

Well into our exchange, Mason asks, “What does the word ‘resistance’ mean to you?” I take a moment to absorb the question. “Opposing my own inertia is resistance. Everything else stems from that. If I’m primed for action, that’s resistance at its core,” I say.

Throughout our call, Mason affords me the opportunity to view the past four years through a bifurcated lens: my personal memories alongside an ethnographic probe into our collective choices. This duality celebrates individual perspectives while recognizing the universality of the present moment and the power of communal action.

At the end of our time together, Mason tells me a story. It is a gorgeous meditation, both in its construction and its vision. Through it, I find a new equilibrium: a restorative reset and a lighted runway, a profound sense of camaraderie and a refueling of my emotional reserves. That is the gift of A Call From the Resistance.

A Call From The Resistance continues through November 2. Tickets are free.

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