Card III from the Rorschach test

• Play Title: Downstate 
  Author: Bruce Norris 
  First performed:  2018 
  Page count: 164 

Summary 

In Downstate, four convicted sex offenders, who had nowhere else to go, end up in a house provided by the Lutheran Social Service of Illinois. It is a last resort. The men have little in common, besides a predilection for young flesh. The formal terms are pederasty, ephebophilia and paedophilia. Fred, a former music teacher, is in his seventies and wheelchair bound. Dee is a Black ex-actor who is pushing 60 years old. The only parent among the men is Felix, a Latino man in his forties. Rounding off the group is Gio, a muscular, Black man in his 30s and a hopeful future businessperson. Their lives are eagerly monitored by their probation officer, a no-nonsense character named Ivy. The play depicts many of the day-to-day realities for sex offenders such as electronic ankle monitors, restrictive perimeter zones, and bans on everything from the internet to alcohol. One day, a former victim comes to the house to confront his abuser.

Bruce Norris is an American playwright and actor. He is most famous for Clybourne Park, which won him the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In Downstate, Norris provides a sympathetic view of sex offenders. By going against the tide of public opinion, the playwright impels an audience to consider unsavoury topics: can sex offenders ever really change; what punishment is ever enough punishment; are the victims of childhood sexual abuse permanently damaged? Such questions prompt unending, contentious debate. Norris’s play demands empathy and critical thinking from his audience.

Ways to access the text: reading 

Due to its recent publication date, it is not easy to source the play for free. However, Everand does carry this title and offers a free trial period. Alternatively, you may support the author by purchasing this play, which is reasonably priced.

The work is not particularly reader-friendly because of the many short exchanges between multiple characters. The first act establishes the direction of the story while the main action is in the second act. That said, I found the work highly engaging and provocative overall.

Why read Downstate? 

Can sex offenders ever draw a line under their former transgressions, and should they be allowed to? As the saying goes – ‘do the crime, do the time.’ However, what if a person’s punishment is forever linked to the subjective feelings of the victim, even after their release from prison? Furthermore, what if someone’s core identity makes it far more likely that they will reoffend? Worse still, what does one do with an offender who is not even mildly repentant? These are the kind of hand grenade topics that Norris tosses into the audience’s lap.  

It is worth reading Downstate because the play forces one to move beyond easy, soundbite reactions and ponder instead the messiness of sex crimes, the appropriate punishments for such crimes, and life for all parties involved afterwards.  

Post-reading discussion/interpretation 

_{Downstate’s Down-Low Message} 

Downstate is a tragicomedy. At a superficial glance, the premise of 4 acquaintances living together in a bungalow may remind one of the classic TV show The Golden Girls. However, since all four residents are male and convicted sex offenders too, the situation may more appropriately remind one of the tragic case of Megan Kanka. This seven-year-old was raped and then strangled to death by a man who lived just across the street from her family. The killer, Jesse Timmendequas, was sharing the house with other sex offenders at the time. He also had previous convictions for sexually assaulting children. As a result of this high-profile case, Megan’s Law was introduced in 1994 so that the public would be fully informed of the location of registered sex offenders.

Norris’s play delves into very contentious territory because it quickly flips our expectations: placing the offender in a victim role. Cue Fred, a doddery, soft-spoken, old man in a wheelchair whose tragic life, on account of his conviction, seems utterly unfair. Suddenly, an offender claims the status of a bona fide victim. Yet Norris strategically presents a counterargument. For instance, Ivy the probation officer says to Felix, “Every one of you’s a victim. Everybody’s misunderstood, been done wrong, system’s broke, system ain’t fair blah blah” (Norris 69). She is overworked, cynical and unsympathetic. Her rhetoric is vaguely familiar since it is the stuff of tabloid newspaper articles, but now these words are being held up to unexpected scrutiny. Fred has had his back broken, so he is a victim. An audience is being prompted to reconsider their natural prejudices against sex offenders. Norris has green-lit that awkward, re-evaluation mode that many audience members will resent. Next, one is faced with Andy, an innocent victim, but he unexpectedly becomes a source of humour in the play. His determined attachment to his victim status and the associated vocabulary, learned chiefly from support groups, meet derision and disbelief from the house residents. Thus, the play evolves into a provocative discussion piece. Norris provides an unusual perspective on an already incendiary social problem. The topic itself is gigantic since it addresses the interlinking and usually clashing narratives of perpetrators and victims. Although Norris is calling on his audience’s sense of compassion, his characters simultaneously undercut his message. The play exhibits that the plight of sex offenders should certainly be reconsidered, but no one receives vindication as may be expected.  

Why write a play about child molesters? Norris may be an old-fashioned contrarian or simply a man taking up the banner for a marginalized group to exercise his polemical skills. When speaking with Patrick Zakem, Norris explained that any group of people who are classed as disposable deserve someone who will speak up on their behalf.  

“I instinctively dislike consensus. Consensus makes me uncomfortable because it feels like a civilized form of bullying, since it’s never perfect and always manages to marginalize some dissenting voice.” (Zakem) 

Norris identifies several convincing reasons to question our visceral hatred of sex offenders. First, he muses about “how having a common enemy—a universally despised class of criminal (namely the pedophile)—helps the rest of us feel more virtuous about ourselves” (Zakem). This reflexive stance of moral superiority is the foundation stone for the popularity of tabloid articles about paedophiles. Online discussion boards and vigilante groups are also fuelled by the same unimpeachable self-righteousness. The ordinary man will always shine when compared to some despicable, sexual predator and such a feeling of superiority is quite intoxicating, even if it is hollow. The most salient point made by Norris is that “Sex crimes are the only ones that are subject to the need for perpetual punishment” (Observer). Other types of criminals receive a second chance upon release from prison, but not sex offenders. Like a denizen of Dante’s Inferno, the grotesque figure of the child molester must be made to experience eternal penitence. Having outlined the core reasons to reassess our collective attitude toward paedophiles, Norris states the didactic aim of his play. 

“how do we tamp down our retaliatory, visceral responses to these people we so easily despise? After all, pedophiles have to go on with their lives somehow, somewhere, right? And, I thought, to simply observe them going about their lives, living with the consequences of what they’ve done…that would require a pretty radical amount of compassion on the part of an audience.” (Zakem) 

The major obstacle blocking post-incarceration, sexual offenders from returning to a normal life is hate. It comes from unexpected people too, like when Ivy tells Dee – “y’all are fucked for life, and you’re never gonna change and that’s a cross y’all gotta bear” (80). The men’s taboo sexual urges are seen as ingrained and incurable even by those invested in their rehabilitation. The local community also abhors the men’s presence. A petition signed by locals further restricts the men’s perimeter zone of movement. The house is subject to assorted vigilante attacks ranging from gunshots through a window to graffiti and abusive phone calls (88-89). Fred is emblematic of how a hated criminal’s life may be shockingly curtailed. In prison, a fellow detainee learned of Fred’s paedophilic offences from newspaper reports and enacted retribution, as he saw fit. The old man is now in a wheelchair and incontinent too. Serving a prison sentence has made none of these men free. Gio denounces the sex offender registry as a way of “keep[ing] ya on a public database in legal purgatory rest of yer fuckin’ life” (43). Tony Delamothe describes the scenario as follows – “In ‘the community’ we’re in the grip of the modern equivalent of a medieval witch hunt, with suspected transgressors being smoked out and hunted down” (879). As a result, the men’s protestations of unfair treatment go unheard or unheeded. Andy’s wife, upon hearing of Felix’s suicide, expresses her hope that there is an afterlife so that sex offenders can finally receive an appropriate punishment. As underlined by Norris, the hatred reaches levels that fall outside the logic of normal punishments. Hate is a force that ensures an irrational reaction.  

In a strange twist, Andy’s story is structured by the playwright in a manner that highlights inconsistencies. Despite the recent Me Too movement, one is presented with an old-fashioned attack on victim credibility. The covert suggestion made in the play is that Fred cannot have ruined Andy’s life when the latter has a successful career, a wife and a child. Doubt creeps in further when one sees Andy reading from a pre-prepared script as he is being nudged and prompted by his more assertive wife. Their ultimate goal is that Fred will sign a “reconciliation contract” (Norris 134), which sets out sexual crimes he did not confess to in court. This plan is abandoned when Andy cannot answer an emotive question posed by Dee. The alleged victim of child sexual abuse cannot describe a distinguishing feature of his rapist. Andy ends up appearing flaky and disingenuous because he just cannot answer. The ultimate achievement of the play is that we attach equal doubt to the victim as the perpetrator. Andy’s line that “victims don’t lie, okay? Victims tell the truth” (Norris 150) crumbles into meaningless rhetoric.  

However, Norris simultaneously reveals gross inconsistencies in the narratives of the four convicted sex offenders. While Andy displays all the ineptitude of someone doing something for the first time, the narratives of the four men are calm and practised. These men do not require a prompt sheet because their words have a rehearsed fluidity. Felix’s crime was that of sexually abusing his daughter. Consequently, he was jailed and then put on a medication called MPA (for chemical castration). He has been off his medication for some six months and has told his therapist that there are no problems. However, Ivy soon reveals that he has indeed had a problem since he has attempted to contact his daughter again. Ivy slowly entraps Felix, but he still spins a web of lies rather than admit his lapse. It is slightly different with Fred; his apathetic responses to Andy’s awkward but sincere confrontation render the scene a comedy. There is a dubious tiredness, even indifference, to Fred’s monosyllabic responses and trite observations. Fred eventually says the right things, for example, that he has a sickness and that he is ashamed of himself, but it rings false, somehow. Andy initially accuses Fred of being “a fundamentally evil person” (Norris 11). In fact, Andy continues to cast serious doubt over Fred’s declarations of remorse and sympathy (128). The truth is elusive.  

When the truth surfaces, it is unsettling. The purveyors of this truth are men like Gio and Dee. For instance, Gio, who is soon to be removed from the offender registry, shows no remorse for his crime of statutory rape. Contrary to what one would expect from a man in his situation, Gio asserts that a heterosexual man’s attraction to an adolescent girl is natural (48). Dee had a long-term sexual relationship with a teenage boy, and he also shows no regret or remorse. He is the most assertive member of the group and defends his actions. Dee’s stance is disarmingly honest but also disturbing, especially when he lectures Ivy on the initiation ceremony that teenage boys are subjected to in a New Guinea tribe. Norris purposefully undercuts the headline narrative about standing up for paedophiles when he exposes the underbelly of such characters too. It is a delicate balance essential to the play’s overall credibility.  

Friendship ties and the lack thereof also shed light on the subtext of the play. Neither Gio nor Felix are friends with Dee. In fact, Gio thinks that Dee’s kind should be castrated (12), while Felix utterly rejects everything about Dee (74). Only Fred is friends with Dee and what does this say? Fred’s friendship with Dee is the signal of a split dialogue: an internal dialogue with himself and then a more appropriate, victim-facing style of dialogue. It is noteworthy that Dee consistently challenges each part of Andy’s story and denigrates the notion that trauma is lasting. Fred’s sincerity, which Andy already doubts, is put under greater scrutiny due to his alliance with Dee – an unapologetic child molester.  

All four of the characters in the play have broken the taboo of sex with minors. The easiest angle to approach this topic is from the legalistic one.  

“At its most straightforward, age of consent laws are to protect children from harm and exploitation. The harm of under-age sex is based on the negative psychological and physiological outcomes that can occur as a result of sexual conduct prior to sexual readiness, which generally aligns with the capacities of social and emotional maturity required for meaningful consent, as opposed to simple ‘‘willingess.’’ (Carpenter 42) 

Dee and Gio use the argument that their partners, while legally recognized as children, were willing participants in the sexual acts. As outlined by Carpenter, one cannot view the sexual act between an adult and minor as simply a question of willingness, but rather a question of an ability to give informed consent. Offenders and precocious adolescents alike would argue that maturity develops at different ages for different people, but the law is still there as a paternalistic protection. Igor Primoratz outlines that the main argument against paedophilia on moral grounds is that no consent is present – “children are incapable of valid consent to sex with adults, and such sex is therefore impermissible” (105). Of course, the issue is not only a legal one but one regarding harm too. Norris skirts around the issue of permanent damage to victims and it is, therefore, a topic that necessitates explanation.  

Harm to children as a result of sexual abuse can be seen in terms of immediate, medical issues and then also from the perspective of longer-term problems. For instance, a child may be given an STD and girls who have started menstruation may become pregnant. A child’s distress may materialize in myriad ways in the aftermath of abuse. Lasting psychological harm may be seen in a child’s reduced self-esteem, PTSD, a predisposition to self-harm, and the beginning of substance abuse (Carpenter 42). The triggers for distress are just as varied; maybe force was used; the relationship itself may be upsetting in hindsight; appearing in court is often retraumatizing; and even a parent’s reactions to sexual abuse revelations can be damaging (Primoratz 103-104). Crucially, relations between a child and a sexually abusive adult are lopsided because there is an “asymmetry of knowledge and comprehension, compounded by the difference of meaning the interaction has for the adult and the child” (Primoratz 107). Pertinent to Andy’s story is the fact that children sometimes engage in, or acquiesce to, sexual acts, but they are typically looking for sympathy and affection, rather than sexual gratification (Primoratz 107). Andy has an incredible sense of betrayal because Fred told him that he was special and this turned out to be a lie, told only to attain sexual liberties. Andy’s awkward attempt to find a resolution with Fred seems to falter on this specific point because any admission by Fred will not heal the wound. Children are often left with a sense of responsibility for what happened, which is later expressed as anger.  

Paedophilia can be seen as a predilection, a fully-fledged sexual orientation from birth, or a consequence of being sexually abused. Tony Delamothe explains the last case as follows.  

“Part of the horror of sexual abuse of children is that its effects don’t automatically die with the perpetrator but, like some Old Testament punishment, reverberate down the generations. If sexually abused, a boy is about 10 times more likely to become a perpetrator himself. Up to half of child sex offenders have themselves been abused.” (Delamothe 879)  

This makes child sexual abuse a quite distinctive crime. For comparison, people who are mugged are not likely to become muggers as a consequence. Another irony of these types of sexual crimes is that recidivism rates are relatively low. Gerard K McGuicken quotes Grubin’s research as follows – “13 per cent of child molesters and 17 per cent rapists re-offend, compared with a rate of 60 per cent for criminals other than sex offenders” (McGuicken 51). Even though many sex offenders never re-offend, the damage is already done because those offended against often turn into future offenders. Andy informs Dee that “seventy-six percent of predators were victimized themselves in childhood” (102). Dee cruelly turns this back on Andy, telling him that his child should lock his door at night (102). Andy confesses that he has had difficulties communicating with his child and this may be seen as a repercussion of his own abuse. Having experienced a betrayal of trust, Andy may be overly cautious around his child.  

Two stories run parallel in the play. There is the confrontation between Fred and Andy, but there’s Felix’s tale as well. This downcast, middle-aged Latino man does not even have a proper bedroom in the house, but rather an alcove with an accordion door. When Ivy interrogates Felix about his recent movements, it is all too easy to characterize her as being unnecessarily heavy-handed and unsympathetic. It is textbook entrapment in action; she tests his story, even pushing him to take a polygraph test, but she knew the truth of his recent transgressions before the interview ever commenced. Ivy’s approach is indicative of the public at large that sees paedophiles as untrustworthy and dangerous. Of course, Ivy is used to tracking sex offenders so her cynicism may be borne of bitter experience. Felix has a history of telling lies (66), and his elaborate story about needing to visit his sister in Texas on account of her colon cancer, well, that appears to be a lie too. Norris depicts a man in the most gut-wrenching scene only to show that it is a high-stakes game of bluffing. What should one think when a man convicted of sexually abusing his daughter begins to say the Our Father in Spanish due to his victimization by a callous parole officer! Felix’s anguish about going back to prison is, however, genuine. He emphatically tells Ivy “I’m not going back” (71). The playwright weaves this intricate discussion, brimming with truth and lies, between two combating characters. Felix’s death by suicide overshadows the revelation that he remained an imminent threat to his child. 

Norris is intent on portraying a complex scene involving various characters vying for moral superiority. Perpetrators appear as victims and victims appear opportunistic and insincere. The stench lingering in the house full of sex offenders is not just to foreshadow a tragedy, it is also symbolic of a nasty, lingering question. How does one deal with sex offenders? They are demonized and castigated and their lives will forever be under scrutiny. Norris makes a valid case, but he also shows that sex offenders are indeed often hopelessly unreliable, unrepentant, and unsympathetic. The answer appears to be the hardest one to contemplate; successful treatment of sex offenders requires empathy and ongoing cooperation. For instance, only Felix knows if his old desires have returned since he stopped taking MPA, yet he will not share this when the system remains so adversarial and eternally punitive. Presumed guilt, forever, is a burden that makes previous offenders unlikely to share information. In Downstate, one sees the results in various forms of barriers: Fred’s apathy, Gio’s excuses, Dee’s antagonism, and Felix’s lies. Keeping things on the down low becomes a way of life for these men and such underground, underhand tactics are impossible to police. Lose-lose situations entice no one to cooperate. Norris wrongfoots his audience with the result that a greater insight into a horrible social problem is achieved. One thinks the author is wholly sympathetic to paedophiles but it is just a ruse to engage his audience sufficiently to reconsider a horrible topic. 

Works Cited 

Carpenter, Belinda, et al. “Harm, Responsibility, Age, and Consent.” New Criminal Law Review: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 2014, pp. 23–54. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2014.17.1.23. Accessed 3 June 2024.  

Delamothe, Tony. “ON THE CONTRARY: What Should We Do with Child Sex Offenders?” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 343, no. 7829, 2011, pp. 879–879. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23052213. Accessed 3 June 2024.  

Haun, Harry. “Bruce Norris on the Moral Complexities of ‘Downstate.’” Observer, 22 Nov. 2022, observer.com/2022/11/bruce-norris-on-the-moral-complexities-of-downstate. Accessed 12 June 2024.  

McGuickin, Gerard K., and Jennifer Brown. “Managing Risk from Sex Offenders Living in Communities: Comparing Police, Press and Public Perceptions.” Risk Management, vol. 3, no. 1, 2001, pp. 47–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3867744. Accessed 3 June 2024.  

Norris, Bruce. Downstate, Nick Hern Books, 2019.   

Primoratz, Igor. “Pedophilia.” Public Affairs Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 1, 1999, pp. 99–110. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40441217. Accessed 3 June 2024.  

Zakem, Patrick. “Bruce Norris on Downstate.” Steppenwolf, www.steppenwolf.org/articles/norris-on-downstate. Accessed 10 June 2024.