Lydia R. Diamond Refocuses US on Poverty & Racism by Patricia L. Morin & Barry David Horwitz In Lydia R. Diamond’s audio-drama of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), disembodied voices tell the tragic story of an outcast little Black girl. That girl, rejected and despised, lives in backwoods Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s…
Alice Childress Spotlights African American Stereotypes by Barry David Horwitz In Alice Childress’s 1957 play, “Trouble in Mind,” two titanic figures confront each other at a rehearsal of an “anti-lynching” script. The fictional script, titled “Chaos in Belleville,” takes place on a southern plantation during slavery, and it parades offensive racial stereotypes. Playing seasoned…
Lasiter & Barnaba Light the Ring of Fire by Robert M. Gardner The first words of Johnny Cash’s last recorded song, “I hurt myself today,” still haunt me. Like other songs in “My Name is … Johnny Cash,” it reveals new truths about the storied career of The Man in Black. The bio-musical demonstrates…
Jan Probst Reveals Marital Truths in Lock-Down by Patricia L. Morin Phoenix Theatre’s “Bird on a Tree Branch” magnifies the psychological fallout from holding long-hidden secrets in a patriarchal marriage. It’s 1964, and a white middle-class couple is driving home in a terrible storm. They stop to pick up Hannah Jackson (Desiree Rogers), a…