Monkey Business

A 10-year-old boy brings a gun to class in Richard Martin Hirsch’s world premiere drama The Monkey Jar, currently at Theatre 40 in Los Angeles. However, the playwright insists that the work is “less about a shooting and more about the public education system and charter schools. I wanted to create some discussion about not just the incident, but the way in which we teach, and the whole emphasis on test scores, prestige, and standards.”

The gun in question is an antique, and the Asian American child — the adopted son of Jewish parents — may simply have brought it to try to impress his Japanese-American teacher. “Right and wrong is intentionally clouded,” says Hirsch. “All of the characters have good aspects and bad aspects.” Further complicating matters are issues of race and sexuality, with a first-year African-American principal who must decide upon the truth of the matter, and a privately gay teacher whose sexuality also comes into play during the course of the discussion.

Hirsch takes his title from a method of trapping monkeys in the jungle. A piece of fruit is placed in a jar, and “when the monkey sticks his hand in to get the food, it makes a fist and then can’t get it out. The monkey gets caught before it will actually let go. The nature of the trap is a great metaphor for the educational system, and the play is about advancing one’s self by letting go rather than holding on.”