Sunday afternoon, the curtain closed on one of Gitana Productions’ most ambitious effort in the organization’s nearly 20-year history.
Organized to use the arts and creativity to promote cross-cultural engagement, Gitana’s subject matter hit especially close to home in “Black and Blue,” which wrapped at St. Louis Community College- Florissant Valley’s Terry M. Fischer Theatre.
Actors stood on a stage in the heart of Ferguson, merging fact and fiction in writer/director Lee Patton Chiles’ dramatic response to the Michael Brown Jr. tragedy and subsequent unrest.
Staging Ferguson before a local audience so close to real time, with fresh wounds and raw memories, was a delicate undertaking with little margin for error. Chiles tells the story through moments ripped from the headlines, personal narratives drawn from interviews, fictionalized experiences and a few spoken word pieces in between. We hear all sides of the story – cops, blacks and others caught in the crossfire between the two.
True to its title, much of the play focuses on conflicts between elements of the African-American community and law enforcement. The play opens with a black teen in an unfamiliar neighborhood being nurtured by a police officer who knows the boy and his family well.
Following a helpful – even somewhat heartfelt – exchange between the officer and the young man, reality hits in the next scene. A woman speaks of the precautions she and her husband will take as they prepare for vacation – including a visit to the police station for preventative measures in case her two teen sons, who may be seen as physically intimidating, have an encounter with law enforcement while they are away.
Legitimate fear and concern are translated as the woman runs down her explanation to officers. She tells them her two teen sons, who usually catch rides from their parents, will be walking for the next week, in case anyone reports the presence of unfamiliar, presumably dangerous black males.
In another scene, a young college grad is given the drill of what to do if pulled over by police – though it does little good when he is pulled over.
An element of the police perspective is given as a young officer voices his frustration with meeting ticket quotas instead of fulfilling his childhood dream of using his badge to serve the community.
Then hell breaks loose with the death of Michael Brown Jr.
The attempt to stage the unraveling of Ferguson after Brown’s death was the weakest link of “Black and Blue.” The several months of direct action, political protest and civil unrest were just too to intense and multifaceted for Chiles to condense, and added embellishments for dramatic effect did more harm than good.
A major strength was the ensemble’s performances. For an organization that proudly owns its status as community theater, some of the portrayals could hold their own against the more consciously professional theatre troupes in the region.
But “Black and Blue,” as presented by Gitana, was more than just theater. Through the play, accompanying panel discussions and related programming over its four-week run, Gitana achieved its mission of creating a safe and vibrant space for multicultural conversation and healing through the arts.
