‘Trouble in mind’ makes Broadway premiere gorgeous, 64 years late

Before a word was uttered, the power of Trouble in mind (American Airlines Theatre, through January 9, 2022) is on Broadway. As Todd Haimes, artistic director and chief executive officer of the Roundabout Theater Company, writes in the show, this Broadway premiere should have taken place 64 years ago.

Trouble in mind, talk about racist in the theater — and their arguments and their painful words and bells are now severely degraded — were originally supposed to move from off-Broadway to, well, the real Great White Way. , in 1957, but the producers insisted that playwright Alice Childress made “significant changes. As Haimes writes: “She refused to soften her story about racism in the cinema, and the producers canceled the transfer.”

Childress started out in theater as an actress, he wrote, “but became increasingly dissatisfied with the roles given to Black women and decided to create their own, writing about those who were often marginalized. skip on stage; Wiletta’s character was born from this artistic breakthrough. ”

Again, in parallel, LaChanze, who plays Wiletta in this great premiere, is the founder of Black Theater United, the company that has been at the forefront of support change within the theater itself, when it comes to “awareness, accountability, advocacy and action”. Trouble in mind is a play made up of a flawless and clear set of cross-cultural exchanges, and its timeliness, while offensive, is also uncanny.

Everything that Wiletta ultimately identifies as racist — white people’s and white stereotypes about black characters and lives, lack of listening, table minutiae which no one should be satisfied — can and should say today. Time flies in the most damning way while watching Trouble in mind.

The play, directed with precision by Charles Randolph-Wright and choreographed by Emilio Sosa, begins with the cast gathering in a theater for C’s first rehearsalHaos in Belleville, a play about a black man, played by young black actor John Nevins (Brandon Michael Hall), trying to hide from a lynch mob. Wiletta plays his mother, and the script – by a white playwright – is filled with bombastic, stereotypical scenarios.

The play’s white director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen), is a vicious reptile, and Zegen plays him as written, which couldn’t have been easier. We see in #MeToo’s preconfiguration the first time he treats the young white actress Judy (Danielle Campbell) for whom Manners is ironically named – he not only has no manners. ; Turns out he was a poisonous, bubbling puddle of white water.

Bright-eyed Nevins represents a future. He’s taking classes – don’t tell his white bosses, Wiletta warns, they don’t like educated Blacks – and he’s flirting with Judy easily, which Wiletta warns he should stay away. Elderly Black actor Sheldon Forrester (Chuck Cooper) represents a past that acknowledges all the injustices Wiletta has caused, but he has learned to overcome the obstinacy of his profession, get on with the job, do the work. all possible to overcome anger and argument. He said we are all human. His character has to swing a stick wordlessly for what seems like hours on end, and you can sense that this isn’t the first time Sheldon has accidentally punched a hole on stage.

However, in a moment when the lights dimmed around him, he recalled that he had also witnessed a lynching, and Cooper evokes the waning emotional gravity of the moment perfectly.

Glamorous Millie (Jessica Frances Dukes) is cast to play the stereotype of her Black counterparts, but still has a great actress aura. But she sees everything clearly, experiences it too, like Wiletta — and is also fed up with the ungainly roles she gets. All Black actors learned not to say anything – because this could lead to job loss – and at first Wiletta even advised John to work around the ignorance of skin bosses. white and worse.

Childress shows just how much tongue-biting and oppression go on, as minorities come up with their own strategies for survival, and the play also shows the moment when Wiletta’s frustration explodes into a fit of anger. focused and sharp anger.

Childress identifies multiple layers of bias in the play. For example, white actor Bill O’Wray (Don Stephenson) thought nothing of it when he casually announced that he wouldn’t be dining with his Black co-star. Spoiled rich kid Judy worries about having to return to her parents’ home in Bridgeport if the play fails — with Millie noting that she wishes a return to such a comfortable, gilded place could What a failed experience for her.

In the end, Wiletta’s behavior infuriated Wiletta that he was doing his best to create social change with the play he was directing. He tells Wiletta to be grateful for the work he’s had with her, and to play the tragic black mother with as much excitement as possible to garner the audience’s sympathy. The purpose, he said, was to feel sorry for the Black characters. Pity is an emotion he wants to evoke, not a determination of strength and respect. He then laments his own hardships, and equates them with racial prejudice.

His speech came after LaChanze had brilliantly presented the product’s central powerful monologue, which scorned the mummy’s “character parts” and the rest of the body. roles that Black actors had to play, as well as the absurdity of what they were asked to play. As a mother, why would she ask her son to leave their home and face the lynch mob, she asked. what does it mean? Wiletta has enough white writers and directors getting the lives and voices of blacks very wrong.

Trouble in mind needed to be on Broadway in 1957, and it needed to be on Broadway now. It still feels extreme to hear what Wiletta clearly and passionately declares about how racism works, not only in the theater but as a cultural system. Trouble in mind Broadcasting on Broadway is now an indictment of the present as much as an indictment of the past – a statement about the persistence of racism and inequality.

Childress knew enough about the world in which she wrote that there is no such thing as a magical end to the triumph of progress and equality. But Trouble in mind ends with an emphatic, literally center stage, by Wiletta. In the rich purple light that bathes LaChanze, we can finally imagine the same for Alice Childress. Whether fundamental change is finally achieved – 64 years later and counting – remains to be seen.