Wednesday, February 27, 2013

History On Stage and Off

 

                 The 3R's---Race, Radicalism and Romance.  It's all there in Dr. DuBois and Miss Ovington. 
I watched this two character drama at the Castillo Theatre in Manhattan on Sunday on the cusp of Black History and Women's History Months.  A black man, educator, human rights activist. And a white woman, Unitarian, granddaughter of abolitionists.  The setting is the office of The Crisis magazine, publication of the NAACP which DuBois and Ovington helped found. The year is 1915.
            Like two boxers, using words not fists, they jab and counter-punch, engage in two fights in one arena.  They are political radicals, partners fighting for equal rights for all. It is the second more complex fight that puts them at odds. DuBois created The Crisis and insists that he alone should run it, or he will resign.  Ovington, ardent admirer of DuBois, understands his resistance---a black man unwilling to answer to white superiors---yet she argues for compromise.  Heat smolders between the two firebrands, but never goes beyond mild flirting. DuBois remains at The Crisis, for now.
           Director, Gabrielle L. Kurlander and veteran Broadway actors, Peter jay Fernandez and Kathleen Chalfant make the most of playwright Clare Coss's innovative work.

      Laura Blackburne, former NYS Supreme Court judge and The Crisis current publisher joined Woodie King, Jr, Black History Month Play Festival producer in a post-performance discussion.


  Agnes Green, of WCBS Newradio 88, back in the day, and in the audience on Sunday, reminded me of some work we did together.  Serving on the New York Association of Black Journalists (NYABJ) Media Watch Committee, with ABC News' Eric Tait, we created a local media bias survey that saw some light at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.  Maybe 1993? or '94?  There must be a report buried in a file somewhere.