..
.home | art & architecture | books & cds | dance
| destinations | film | opera | television | theater | archives
..
Washington,
Arena Stage |
|
|
Oh the ways we humans come up with to hate one
another! It has been predicted that, if the various races eventually homogenize into one,
people will pick on the color of someone’s eyes or the length of their hair. You
would think African Americans have it tough enough but, as eloquently illustrated in Dael
Orlandersmith’s Yellowman, there are color distinctions that turn black
people against other black people who are lighter or darker than themselves.
The situation has its roots in
history. Before Emancipation, slave women had no choice but to submit to their masters (or
any other white men) and the children born of these couplings tended to be lighter of skin
than their mothers. These children often were favored
by their father-masters and given easier duties, becoming house servants, rather than
field hands. Jealousies within the slave community arose from this favoritism and were
passed down through the generations, along with those lighter-skin genes. The very
dark-complexioned thought their “high yellow” or “red” brethren were
uppity and soft; the mixed blood people thought dark skin and kinky hair synonymous with
coarseness, poverty and lower social standing. Sociological studies like The
Color Complex indicate that the situation extended into the contemporary
workplace where lighter-skinned African-Americans usually got better jobs than those with
very dark skin. Black celebrities such as Halle Berry and Lena Horne are light
complexioned, although, when it comes to the movies, the distinctions are imposed more
heavily on women than on men. (Very dark actors are seen either as virile or villainous).
Sometimes people manage to jump
over the color barrier but, in a place like rural South Carolina, friends and family
don’t always make it easy. This is the premise of Yellowman, which deals
with the childhood friendship and adult romance of Alma (Deidrie N. Henry) and Eugene
(Clark Jackson). While not exactly Romeo and Juliet, their love is star-crossed by
rivalries as deep-seated as those of the Capulets and Montagues. Their parents have raised
them on too much liquor and too little love. They’ve been taught to hate, not just
people of a different hue, but themselves. Alma’s mother keeps telling her she is too
big, too black, too ugly. Nevertheless, Alma finds the gumption to pursue her dreams and
make a place for herself in a world outside the “Gullah” area of the South (a
stretch of island and coastal land from North Carolina to Florida). Eugene just takes it,
fulfilling his father’s harsh prophecy that he will never amount to anything because
of his light skin. When he finally does stand up for himself, it comes as a big surprise.
It’s just the two of them onstage, playing themselves, both as
children and adults, plus their parents and assorted friends. It is a theatrical device
reminiscent of A.R. Gurney’s Love
Letters, the recent The
Exonerated and, to some extent, The
Laramie Project. Just people sitting on chairs and batting the action back and
forth until the story is told. That this one is so compelling is to the credit of both the
actors and director Les Waters (Big Love)
who keeps things moving briskly and to maximum emotional effect.
The playwright also is an accomplished poet and many of the speeches in
Yellowman fairly sing, especially in the mouth of Ms. Henry. This accomplished
performer, a veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, also is a singer and it shows.
Alma’s speeches are riveting, her enthusiasm infectious, her indignation no less so.
Jackson, although competent, is not quite her match. He is so wimpy that you suspect his
father (a big, dark, hard-working, hard-drinking man’s man who just happened to fall
in love with a light-skinned woman) dislikes him for more than the color of his skin. The
characterization makes Eugene’s final action a little hard to believe. In all
fairness to the actor, however, this is the way the part was written.
Yellowman is more than a story about race and prejudice.
It’s a love story and a story about families and the damage they inflict upon their
members. Black or white, you will recognize the shades of gray.
Berkeley, CA, January 29, 2004 - Suzanne Weiss
