Reviewed
by Jerry Kraft
The
world of American race relations in the first half of the Twentieth Century
sometimes seems comfortingly remote. At times, trying to explain to my
daughters the history of segregation, discrimination and racial inequality
prior to the Civil Rights movement, they look at me as if I was describing some
alien planet, one ruled by the logic of the Mad Hatter, so blatantly
preposterous and unjustifiable they simply want to laugh at the silliness.
Making
them appreciate the brutal cruelty of that injustice, the depth of the misery
caused by the reality of that "system" requires humanizing the issues
with some personal story, an individual shaped and twisted and destroyed by it.
The story of Bigger Thomas, indelibly told in Richard Wright's great novel, Native Son, does just that. Sadly, it also
makes it clear that all of the dynamics of racism, intolerance, rage and moral
frailty are vividly contemporary, and the story is sadly relevant for yet
another generation.
This
dramatization, adapted by Kent Gash, is expertly constructed and strikingly faithful in tone
to Wright's novel. Because Mr. Gash also directs this production there is a
seamless integration of the theatrical methods of the storytelling with the
dramatic flow of the narrative. We move in and out of the immediacy of scenes
wherein we feel the flesh and blood of these lives and the omnipotent voice of
the storyteller, the novelist who informs us of the greater world in which this
all takes place, the broader historical and social setting for the very personal
tale of one man's ruin.
A
first-rate cast, led by a superior performance from Ato Essandoh as Bigger Thomas, gives a
palpable reality to the harsh and inequitable life of African Americans in the
Chicago of the 1930's, and the philosophically challenged politics of the
privileged classes.
With
the accidental death, inadvertent murder, of the young socialite Mary Dalton,
played with charm and naive conviction by Carol Roscoe, Bigger finds himself on the
run, and running headlong into catastrophe. He will kill again, his friend
Bessie (the very appealing Felicia V. Loud), this time far more intentionally, and with his
capture be thrust headlong into the unfeeling maw of the judicial system. His
trial will explicate many of the issues of poverty and violence, opportunity
and inequality, hope and despair that make Bigger's story representative of
much more than one man's regrettable crime and punishment.
The
magnificent set by Edward E. Haynes Jr. creates an overwhelming environment of dark and
degraded corners, with wealth and privilege brightly lit when it is front and
center, and the homes of the poor sparse and rather pushed to the side. The
cold iron bars of Bigger's final prison are terrible in their literal
containment, even more fearsome in their emotional imprisonment. William H.
Grant III
provides evocative lighting and Frances Kenney creates costumes that are either
elegant with wealth or threadbare with deprivation. The onstage musician and
composer Chic Street Man accents and underscores the drama with brief sound gestures, moments
of melody and strains of the companion music which must always accompany the
African-American story.
In
addition to Mr. Essandoh, fine performances are given by others in this
passionate and committed company. Richard Kline is wonderful as the attorney
Max, a character modeled on Clarence Darrow, with his moral probity and social
conscience, and also brings his thoroughly professional delivery to the
Newsreel Narrator. I was deeply impressed by Bigger's mother, played with utter
simplicity and a deeply touching authenticity by Myra Lucretia Taylor. Similarly, Lukas Shadair makes Bigger's younger brother
Buddy distinct and sympathetic.
Perhaps
it was in that relationship, between a young man who looks to his brother for
an image of what manhood means, and who finds only anger and despair and
violent defeat, where I most strongly felt the connection between this earlier
period and our own. When I saw Bigger's swaggering arrogance, his clutching at
a gun as if it were the only tangible means to personal power, his
disillusionment with the possibility of honest advancement, his terrible fear
and inadequacy disguised as brash confidence, his humiliation by a system that
is "just the way things are" it all felt very familiar. I saw young
men with hoodies pulled over their heads, flashing gang-signals and blaring
"gangsta" rap as they pursue various street crimes to acquire flashy
jewelry or pimped-out cars. I don't think that's a racist stereotype, but it
certainly is about race, and about race in America, both then and now.
The
opening image of this production is Bigger, standing naked upstage with only a
few shafts of light modeling his body. It's an almost classical image, like Da
Vinci's Vitruvian Man, and it says, with elegant concision, that this will be
the story of a man, just a man, one man naked in the universe and measured by
life and the world and his own conscience. In the final image of the play,
after he has been condemned for his crimes, we see him again naked, in that
same posture, as he turns and walks forward into the flames of Hell. It is a
powerful and deeply moving bookend to this stunning and profoundly important
story, and this impressively successful production.