From February 17th-March 6th, 2022, Bishop Arts staged: The How to be Project: Ten Plays for Racial Justice. The folks at Bishop Arts were gracious enough to let me attend on closing weekend, so I was able to catch this vibrant, articulate collection of absorbing one-acts, inspired by How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. There is much versatility and fresh content, in this impressive festival of short pieces, written by preeminent playwrights. They varied in tone, mood, angle and worldview. Some were skeptical or cynical, some resigned and some optimistic.
Certain motifs emerged throughout:
- The cost of activism and fighting the good fight.
- Systemic bias and lifelong sacrifice. Racial wounds that go deeper than simple resolutions.
- The hubris of education that demands its own terms. Rather than finding inclusion of role models from the black community, students must make do with icons of the patriarchy. Impressive figures that nonetheless, fail to resonate.
- The chasm that often divides African Americans and Caucasians. While genuine desire to care for one another is crucial, finding common context can be difficult.
- The ridiculous paradigm of upscale bourgeois success.
What Would Have Been? (Kristen Adele Calhoun) concerns the struggles of a young woman who is living in Greenwich Village (back in the day) who finds her more rebellious soul stirring, and must choose between soulmate and destiny. It’s an epistolary script, the woman and her man reading their letters aloud. The woman’s voice is bright with idealism. The warmth of the young man is unmistakable.
Government Cheese (Eugene Lee) is a tough, powerful monologue by a woman who solemnly instructs her son to respect and do right by the country that supports and protects him. Her sense of ethical behavior is highly evolved, and its clear she wants to meet her Maker with no deficits. She imbues her son with impeccable values, and he listens. The bitter irony that informs Government Cheese is the price a caring soul pays for trusting, and respecting the home of one’s birth; only to discover how precious little that country cares for them. How their joy is robbed.
The Ghost of History (Michael Harrison) considers a young couple, Kayla and Malik, who are very much in love. There is no question of their devotion. Kayla believes in the strength of their connection, but Malik seems resigned to its somber future. Kayla is white and Malik is black, but it’s not that. It’s the loaded past and their place in society. Pain and degradation suffered by one, the other cannot begin to grasp. Each wants to empathize with the other’s situation. But the animosity between their ancestors can’t be ignored.
A Good Neighborhood (Allie Mims) tracks the dynamics between a guy and his precious fiancee’. He wants to remain in the neighborhood that nurtured him, that shaped his values as a man. But his betrothed has other ideas. She doesn’t see warmth and character in his old neighborhood, only decrepitude and deprivation. She’s worse than being upscale, she’s embraced the insipid values of bourgeois white people.
Gray (Erin Malone Turner) depicts a group of four people, sequestered for sociological study and investigation. Their meticulously controlled environment, and documentation of feelings, cannot compensate for the unresolved anger and misery at the core of their interactions. Self Education (Bwalya Chisanga) illustrates the predicament of conscientious, dedicated African American high school students, grasping for substance in the midst of white dominant content. The teachers and faculty aren’t hostile or condescending (exactly) but they seem more concerned with control than enriching the lives of their students.
The How to Be Project reminds us how slowly, how painfully the answers and progress come. It isn’t necessarily discouraging, but its frankness, frustration and anger is sobering.
I wish I’d attended The How to Be Project before closing weekend. I was heartened to see the bustling crowd that last Sunday. The playwrights, along with the versatile performers, capable crew, and resourceful director, Morgana Wilbourn, joined forces to assemble a stunning, intelligent, subtle, entertaining event. The audience was so enormous, I was packed into an otherwise empty room with other excited theatregoers. We were all (if I may be so bold) so delighted to be there.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center presented: The How to be Project: Ten Plays for Racial Justice. It played February 17-March 6th, 2022. 215 S Tyler St, Dallas, TX, United States, Texas 75208. (214) 948-0716.