By Danny Resner
For the Salisbury Post
J.E. Franklin boldly titled her breakthrough 1971 play “Black Girl” with good reason.
Her script explores the forging of the lower-class African-American female identity. And though it is set nearly four decades ago, the questions it poses still ring relevant today. What is the role of a “black girl” in her family? In society? Should she simply snap under the heavy burden of familial, economic, social, sexual and racial prejudices or exist courageously in spite of them? For the next two weekends, Livingstone College’s Theatre Arts program will be posing those questions as they perform “Black Girl” at the Tubman Little Theatre on Livingstone’s campus.
Their production, directed by program coordinator and theater veteran Michael Connor, demonstrates the living theater’s power to forge cultural identity. “Theater … teaches culture. It changes the way people see other people,” Connor said. “Black Girl” presents a cultural identity in which a person is inseparable from the family. The play’s protagonist, Billie Jean, played by Deanna Davis, has dropped out of high school and is pursuing a career as a dancer. She lives with her two bickering half-sisters who cannot understand her desire to get an education or, in fact, do anything besides find a man, get pregnant young and live in bare poverty because it is how their family has always lived.
There is great tension between these women and their rich prodigal father Earl, played by Joe Elliot, and their mother’s college-attending ward, Netta, played by Shadese Griffith. It seems to exist simply because these two characters represent unattainable wealth and education, towards which they harbor such hostility that they suggest burning the book that Netta brings to Billie Jean as a gift.
Adding to the pressure on Billie Jean, the family matriarch, Mama Rosie, played by Keona Simon, constantly fears she’ll see her daughter end up the way she herself has, but paradoxically she refuses to show the support or affection towards her which might lead her in a different direction.
Billie Jean is shown by her family that, as a “black girl,” she should live in poverty and strife as they do. But her idea of what she should be looks to Netta: a successful life, an education. The play seems to suggest that both of these paths are components of the identity of the “black girl,” but the cast of this production resists the temptation to moralize and present the educated life as a paradisical promised land. Franklin’s script, likewise, gazes upon both lifestyles cooly and objectively.
As Connor said, “Theater is an emotive art form,” and his stated goal with this production is to “hit” the emotions of the audience head-on from the start, leaving no question as to how strongly the characters feel their frustration.
Franklin’s script, with its explosion of arguments in its first scenes, equips him well to do this. However, the heavy-handed approach the actors take to the anger and frustration of their characters misses some of the subtlety which must be drawn out from the dialogue in order to connect the audience to the characters emotionally. We feel their anger, no question. We are soaked in it from the play’s first lines. But we do not always feel the familial bonds between the characters that make this indignation matter to them on a personal level, or the inner conflicts each of them has in their lives that fuel their fights. As a result, the blood-boiling that takes place on stage, at its poorer moments, fails to illicit any emotional response from us, only inspiring in us a faint desire to cover our ears until it looks like no one’s shouting on stage.
This exaggerated focus on the angrier parts of the play may also detract from its calm and genial notes. Sometimes the blocking at these moments feels self-consciously executed, as if the actors are unsure of how to transition so quickly from clawing at each other’s throats to sitting around the living room and having a conversation.
This is not to say that the strong negative emotions stirred up by Connor’s cast serve no purpose. As Keona Simon, whose Mama Rosie is easily the most audible character in the play, said, this is a loud family. They vent their emotions freely. They could not exist in any other way. But after yelling her way through the entire script, the tears Simon sheds as the play closes feel like an authentic release, and a significant turn from the constant hardheartedness of her character to that point. Perhaps, as a result, this last exchange between Simon and Davis, Mama Rosie and Billie Jean feels like the most authentic moment in Livingstone’s execution of the play.
The overall appearance of the play suffers from a lack of overhead lighting. The characters appear as if constantly caught in the flash of a camera, their shadows behind. The settings, designed by Connor, while cheap, are effectively built to work on two levels. Through the wall of the living room, Billie Jean’s bedroom can be seen. Things can be going on in both rooms at once, and conversations can be staged publicly, in the living room, or privately, in the bedroom. The costumes and props feel authentic. When, during dress rehearsal, a curler flew from the hair of Norma Faye, as played by Jessica Reece, during a nearly-violent scene, it did not feel like a wardrobe malfunction. It was exactly as a curler from Norma Faye’s hair would act.
“Black Girl” will be performed on Saturday at 6 p.m.; Sunday at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tubman Little Theater. Admission is free. Donations are accepted. Performing are Latoya Tomeka Rone, Keona Michelle Simon, Micah Contee, Shadese Griffith, Jessica Reece, Terrance Johnson, Joe Elliot, Deanna Simone Davis, Tequoia Robinson, and Jernee Edgerton.