Family Pot

Genet in Prisoner of Love, "If you put back the fourth wall, all characters in the play become real people." Theater puts back the fourth wall beyond the foot lights and behind the audience. In poker, all is flux. Hand to hand, moment to moment, it is not only hard to tell the playwright from the director from the actor, but the audience are players as well. All are still learning the game, but theater is the card shark. When it looks like it smiles just like the others in this friendly game, theater is showing its teeth.

The biggest casino in the world is run by the Pequot tribe in Ledyard, Connecticut. Most days you can find Gabriele or me at one of the high-stake poker tables there. We've met the chief. He's got red hair and an Irish surname. There are 300 members of the Pequot tribe, and their casino grosses 500 million a year. The tribe itself looks more like some kind of multi-culti commune attempt than an Indian nation. The Hill at one point in its history looked about the same. Chinese, Arab, black, white, Puerto Rican all in one shantytown village.