« Roads | Main | Taking the Minutes »

Community Performance Inc.

May 07, 2008

When we worked with a project on the West Side of Chicago, the play had one role for one white woman, and we would find someone and she would drop out. And we'd find another, same thing. Again and again. Both Jules and our white stage manager eventually played the role, we couldn't keep it filled. In most of our projects, the situation is reversed and the project needs black cast members. That's the situation here.

We've been talking for more than a year about bringing black leadership into the project here in Franklin County. We've succeeded in gathering strong black stories. Barbara Clark's story ends the play and Barbara is in the cast. Her story is of a civil rights march that she took part in--a night march, in the rain, wonderful material for dramatization.

I've come to think that black and white in America is like a mended table. It's whole until you stress it, then it breaks at the mend. We began to stress the table last week when we started rehearsal. The black cast members came Monday night to the readthrough and sat together. One group is comprised of the youth and one parent from Linda Barnes' church. Linda is the minister. Barbara Clark sat nearby.

Today we lost Sonja, her son Darien and daughter Audresha. We lost them only two hours before their first rehearsal for the climax of the play, "March in the Rain." I had the wind knocked out of me to hear we lost our great singer, and her brilliant son and daughter. Two hours later we were at rehearsal, a scene about the black community and the only people there were the white folks who have small roles in the scene.

Jules asked me if I wanted to explain the scene. I was so down I said, no. We talked instead about what we could do. We finally read the scene out loud with two older white women reading the black roles. At least we could hear the words. This was table work and a chance to fit the words to the mouth. Though we hadn't the right mouths.

We read the scene. Even without the right people it was powerful. It is a march, in the rain, at night to protest violence and displacement. When we got done reading the white people said, "We've got to make this work. We've got to get them into the play." They began brainstorming to make that happen. There were a couple of men in the room, but the strong voices were older white women.

It wasn't many years ago in these projects that I'd more often hear whites wanting to take over the black roles, or wanting to cut the piece that demanded black participation. In that situation I need to remind people that before the play was written the leadership had decided that the play would have important black roles. Our job, now, I would tell them, was to recruit blacks for the roles and make them feel welcome. Often, and unhappily, I find myself cast in the role of the advocate for black participation. The project decided that they wanted to co-produce the project with black and white participants. Then the stories were gathered and the play written. Then comes time to perform the roles created. At that point blacks feel uninterested, unwilling, or unsafe to be in the play. I find myself defending the project's policy of inclusion to a cast of unhappy white people who want to get on with rehearsal. Not long after that, as I work to recruit and keep black cast members, whites begin to see me as caring more about the black cast members than them. Next I am accused of stirring the race pot, keeping race issues always in front of the cast.

There's some truth in that. But its a theatrical, not a racial truth. For most roles if the actor drops out, I've got others ready to take his/her place. But with black performers, losing one may mean that there is no one left to do the role? This can happen just as easily for other minorities. We're very short on teenage white boys, for instance. Can't afford to lose either of the two we have, Stephen or Josh.

Why is this is a perennial problem? First, because race is THE perennial challenge in our society. Race is rarely a matter of race alone; it mixes with everything else--class, locale, education, age, economic level, religion, culture--and still manages to look like race. Because it is so visible, so pronounced a division in our society, when we depict stories in which race is an element, we end up making silly but necessary choices. My friend Volinda, back in Colorado, is a fourth generation member of the aristocracy. Her daddy was so powerful that it took only one phone call to get his son excused from duty in Vietnam. When Volinda and I talk about the ways of power, I feel a bumpkin. She knows who to call and when to make the call. Now let's say I'm casting a character, a woman wise in the ways of folk medicine, possessed of second sight, missing both her arms, and black. The actors trying out for the role are a white root doctor, a white spiritual channel, a white woman double amputee, and Volinda. I'd have to cast Volinda, wouldn't I, though she is completely unfitted to the role in every way but skin color. Let's giggle. Race is sometimes laughable.

Almost fifty minutes after we started, Bobby and Lynetta appeared Bobby was early to his upcoming rehearsal, and Lynetta was either confused about times or just late. These two teens, maybe each seventeen years old, were two of our black cast members. So both immediately sat down. We cast Bobby in the role of Jimmy on the spot. And Lynetta took her role as Jane, and we began to read again.

Two older ladies came into the room to listen to us as we read, the first time I'd seen either at rehearsal. Lynetta's character told how the then mayor, Herman P. Ayers had made several substantive changes in light of the march, including representation for black residents and restoration of the damage done to the black areas. It was a coincidence I guess that the lady listening was Margaret Ayers, widow of the old mayor.

When we got done, we talked to Lynetta and Bobby about recruiting other people for the play. Both had some ideas. Lynetta said that the Christian Academy she attends in Athens has a fabulous girl who is a great performer. Lynetta promised to try and recruit the girl, but there is the long drive and the fact that the girl doesn't live here. Mary Ann leaned over to Lynetta and said, I've got room, she can live with me. By the end of the day we had about eight separate plans for recruiting people. Stay tuned.

   

« Roads | Main | Taking the Minutes »