When the mystery is too great....

Robert Jeffery as Luc

In a period when a man's gayness was always shadowed by society's discomfort or hatred it can be difficult to unearth a true picture of historically what male lovers were like. (Equally true for lesbians too, of course.)  In this case discovering who Jimmy's lover was, what he might have been like and how they related was very difficult.  But in some ways that freed me, as a writer, to use more imagination to shape his character as it is embodied in this production by Robert Jeffery.

Robert has an all-American look (whatever the hell that is!) which he's able to adeptly transform so we feel the essence of the young, French painter I created to be Jimmy's lover and champion.  Robert attractively balances Luc's youth and French sophistication which makes Luc a worthy partner for Jimmy.  Luc has a great fondness for Le Petit Prince which, for him, embodies the depth as well as the ephemeral nature of love. "When the mystery is too great, one dare not disobey," he says when first meeting Jimmy.  Over the course of the play Luc learns what Jimmy must contend with in order to obey his heart and his conscience.

LUC

The United States is such a foolish place sometimes! We must stay away from there! 

Away from the anger and the fear.  So you can rest and not think of

these things.

                                         JIMMY

                              I can’t not think of these things, my dear Luc.

                                           LUC

Then the thinking goes much better here in a small village where they

speak French and make good cheese.

JIMMY

People back there should learn to speak French and make good cheese.

And drink it with good wine!  That might make freedom move along

much faster.

                                             LUC

They will move along whether you are there or here. And maybe here

you will not be so afraid.

JIMMY

                                   Afraid?

                                             LUC

Oui, mon cher.  You listen to too many voices.

                                           JIMMY

          One needs guides in the publishing jungle.

                                                       LUC

          Oui, like Lorraine, but not executioners.

                                                     JIMMY

          They worry, that’s all.  What this new novel will mean to the movement…

LUC

          Non.  They worry what will the book mean to them and their little lives.

                                                    JIMMY

But is this book a good idea?  Now? In the middle of all of these horrible attacks?

                                            LUC

The book is not good…it is brilliant like the star you are.

***

The Flea Theatre      theflea.org/        July 12-August 4 

See you there!

It's About Joy!

Joy Sudduth rehearsing her character "Lorraine"

When my friend, Harry Waters Jr. asked me to write something about James Baldwin I thought he meant a monologue for him.  He's a great actor (in the original "Angels in America") so I put together a monologue which he liked.  Then he said: "Where's the rest of it. I'm looking for a 3 act play."  I don't think anyone (other than Tony Kushner) could get away with a 3 act play but I went back to the computer and started to think about it.  As fate would have it the monologue--a letter about Emmett Till--ended up really belonging to Lorraine, Jimmy's friend and advocate.  Funny how that happens.  Joy, rightfully named, brings the urgency of the times and the faith needed to make Lorraine, even in her anguish, seem unstoppable!

LORRAINE

(Singing low as she enters carrying napkins and flatware) ‘Deep in my heart, I do 

believe, we shall overcome some day.’ 

The song seems somewhat incongruous with the act of setting a table

but believe me, to a woman, nothing is incongruous.  You and I sang

that song quite a bit, Jimmy.  We all used to sing then. As if the singing

might wipe the fear and bitterness off of people’s faces.  But, there you are. Three centuries of hatred need a little more than a four minute melody. 

You are on the road so much! I missed singing with you at the memorial…the anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder. 

Most of the Negroes…the Black people…in the little storefront were so choked with sorrow, Jimmy, they couldn’t get the words out.  I was choked with irony.  How closely tied are sex and blackness in this country?  A boy, no more than 15 years old, beaten mercilessly and killed---by grown white men---because he’s perceived to be a threat to white womanhood. 

It is 1956, for Gawd sake! How can I…or you…or Richard write a word

and hope it to have a single shred of meaning? It’s as if our dark skin is a

symbol of rampaging desire roaring in their ears! 

Whatever words Emmett Till may or may not have said to that white girl—that 

store clerk in Money, Mississippi—are irrelevant.  Emmett Till had no voice at all.  

His skin did all the talking. 

 Lights down on Lorraine

See you TheFlea Theater/NYC  www.theflea.org   W4G July 12-Aug 4 

produced by  www.tososnyc.org

The Original Baldwin Brothers

Jonathan Dewberry (Jimmy) & Jordan J. Adams (David)

When I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1980s I was quite near the club where David Baldwin worked.  Being a James Baldwin fan I, of course, had to frequent the bar to catch a glimpse of the brother of my iconic hero.  And I thought if I were lucky maybe even JB himself would stop in. (Never happened for me!)  But David was always charming even though he probably recognize me of one of the JB groupies.  It was gratifying to think of him and JB growing up together.

Years later, working on "Waiting for Giovanni" I really enjoyed writing about a relationship I imagined between the brothers (based somewhat on research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg).  It was satisfying to write about two African American men, raised in tight economic circumstances in 1930s Harlem, and living under the erratic reign of a difficult father making a haven within each other.  The smile that David had for his friends and customers was inside my head as I wrote every line.  

In this production Jonathan Dewberry as Jimmy is joined by Jordan J. Adams as his brother, David.  Jordan is nimble with a solid resonance on stage.  And he's able to deliver that million dollar smile just as I remember David's from back in the day!  In this scene Jimmy, as a child preacher, prepares a sermon under the shadow of his father's disapproval.  His younger brother, David, is his reality check here and just as he is later in life when they are adults.

ACT I  Scene 1

Jimmy (as a boy) is seated at the typewriter then on the stoop; it is 1938. Using a pencil he pulls from behind his ear Jimmy works on his sermon. Rehearsing it in his head before reading/preaching out loud, he begins at a hesitant, halting pace making notes, disturbed by the shadow of the Father; then he builds to fullness and confidence. When David enters he wears a big apple/newsboy cap and knickers.

JIMMY

In the beginning was the word. It says right there, brothers and sisters:  

             in the beginning was the word.  The word was with God.  And how do we

make a word? 

                                           FATHER’S VOICE

      (in shadow, Bible in hand)

You have to be accountable for your words and your deeds!

                                                         JIMMY

And how do we make a word?  We take in a breath and as we

speak the breath shapes a sound. What then is the word, my brothers

and sisters, but the breath of life? 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   FATHER’S VOICE

We can’t make a life here!

                                                           JIMMY
                                             (trying to ignore the voice)

A breath of life so deep and so…so……something… (makes note

w/pencil and moves away from the typewriter)…it sweeps us up.

It sweeps us up into the air toward the righteousness that is God.

It is with our very breath that we speak God’s word. Think! 
Think about that breath of God that keeps us all alive. 

FATHER’S VOICE

              Anger and fear choke out our breath every day!                                                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                         JIMMY

Can we imagine God’s merciful word without that breath?  I say ‘no!’ We

cannot.  Ummmm…(picking up pace getting the spirit)....the word made holy...

                                                   FATHER'S VOICE

You are an unholy thing! Black noise of Lucifer!

                                                        JIMMY

...the word that must be spoken as long as we draw

breath, brothers and sisters.

DAVID

(interrupts laughing)

It’s a heap more than just one word with you, Jimmy.

 JIMMY

Come on David, I need to get this right for Sunday.

DAVID

You already know what you doin'.  Come on go down the corner

with me and the fellas.  I got a cigarette.

JIMMY

             You know Daddy don’t want us hanging out on Lenox Avenue.

DAVID

He don’t want you going downtown to them plays and all that theatre

damnation either.

JIMMY

That’s not the same thing.

DAVID

Jimmy, I keep tellin’ you: don’t pay no attention to him.

JIMMY                         

I just want to get this right, David.

DAVID

You got to cut our daddy loose.  What goes on his head…

JIMMY

There’s nothing wrong with his head!

DAVID

I’m only saying his head and your head is two different things.(silence)

You can’t do nothing to suit him so why don’t you just drop this…

Look around you, Jimmy, look at the stoops.

JIMMY

I see them. 

DAVID

You know your stuff, Jimmy.  But Daddy…he don’t see nothin’…not God,

not the folks sitting out fanning they selves, not you either.

                                                     JIMMY

David…

DAVID

Ain’t you never gonna see past his shadow.  Daddy jus’ a man!

JIMMY

You’re the one with too many words. 

                                                      DAVID

If you can’t take people into account, them words are all crazy.

                                                       JIMMY

Why is madness all of a sudden the main attraction on this stoop?

                                                       DAVID

Shit!

JIMMY

That type of language is unattractive in a young man

                                                      DAVID

You got to let go of this thing with Daddy, sometime, you know?

 

                                                      JIMMY

David, weren’t you on your way somewhere?

                                                       DAVID

That’s what I’m saying: where you going with all these words?

                                                       JIMMY

My realm is the spiritual world.

                                                       DAVID

We black, Jimmy.  It is all the spiritual world. 

                                                              ***




See you July 12-August 4     http://www.tososnyc.org/            http://theflea.org/