by Jacqui Parker
directed by Darius Omar Williams
featuring Jacqui Parker, Keedar Whittle, Valerie Lee & David Curtis
with Taylor Parker, Derek Jackson & Jeff Gill
African-American Theatre Festival in Roberts Studio
BCA Calderwood, 527 Tremont/ (617) 933 - 8600
through Jan. 21
Quite a few plays set in the deep South have been adapted from novels. Thus it's not surprising that much honored Jacqui Parker's full-length drama "Dark as a Thousand Midnights" has a narrative that could easily be used for a prose treatment of her subject. The play is also dramaturgically reminiscent of the period in which it is set, the post-WWII 1950's when the murder and mutilation of Emmett Till galvanized an already surging Civil Rights movement. "Dark as..." also shares some of the storytelling approach and extended family focus pioneered by August Wilson and practiced equally well by the late John Henry Redwood. However, this production, done on a representational set by James P. Bryne, depicting the porch and front yard of the Riley family's home on their eleven acres of woodland outside of town, also used projected video segments organized by Nicole Parker, some documentary, some staged, to bring home the reality of the times. The script seems to have been tailored for the actors performing it, adding another layer of meaning to the show. Director Darius Omar Williams allowed his cast to show their best abilities to realize Parker's vision, which is dedicated to Till's mother, civil rights activist, Mamie Till.
As the author, Parker gave herself a pivotal role in the action, as mother of the family Bella Mae, while leaving plenty of dramatic situations to her companions. As her husband, IRNE winner Keedar Whittle's Jesse Riley was a strong and believable working man, strongly committed to his family, including his wife's bed-bound father living with them and his simple brother, "Big Boy," a part he also plays. Big Boy is his daughter's best friend and lives in the former Riley shack elsewhere on their eleven acres. "Tweet" Riley was played by 9th grader Taylor Parker, a Wheelock Family Theatre veteran, as a very real kid. It's her kidnapping that galvanizes the action and brings the play to life during it's last third. Her younger brother, Jesse Jr., done by Derek Jackson, seen last year as the younger Leonard Harper in the last AATF in Ed Bullins; "Black Caesar," had to grow up fast as the play progressed.
The final family member is Bella Mae's sister, Ella Jenkins, played by Our Place Theatre regular, Valerie Lee. She's home on an extended visit, ostensibly to see her ailing father, but actually because she's become pregnant by a disappointing beau up in Harlem. Since "Dark as a Thousand Midnights" is at heart a rather conventional melodrama, this slick fellow shows up as one of the NAACP lawyers come down South to participate in the trial of Till's murderers. This breezy part was done by David Curtis seen in AATF's "Ascension." last year. The white population of this small town, next door to the county seat where Till was murdered, was represented by Jeff Gill, also as seen in "Ascension, " playing Sheriff Winslow who turns out to be Tweet's real father. He doubled as Johnny Milam, the brother of one of the accused, who was holding Tweet for the Klan. The former part was complex and believable, since Jesse, whose known Winslow since they were boys, married Bella Mae knowing the situation--and we find out that Tweet figured it out long ago. Johnny is perhaps too simplified a character, and his fate is one of the script's loose ends, not a big failing but an opportunity for further development.
The only major criticism of Parker's structure is that the play has been forced into the current trend of using only two acts. Simply dividing the long first part into two acts, probably after the documentary footage of Till's funeral, would allow the audience a chance to consider what they've seen. and to weigh the various themes of the piece. The opening, which has Bella Mae up before the sun having a vision which turns out to be Till's abduction, sets the tone of the play. Her character's incidentally wielding a samurai sword her father brought back from WWII, one of the play's potent symbols figuring in Johnny's fate at the end as well. "Dark as a Thousand Midnights" limited run during this year's AATF should not be its last showing. The other performance in this year's festival, "Rhythm of the People" was something of a dry run for the sort of programs which will be featured this spring, when Our Place Theatre, of which Parker is the Artistic Director, inaugurates a new permanent theatre in Roxbury's Dudley Square in the former Hibernian Hall. Parker will also be appearing along with Merle Perkins in Speakeasy's New England premiere of Kushner and Tesori's music drama "Caroline, or Change" in May. Both were just seen in Lyric's "holiday show", "Crowns."