featured

TICKET ALERT: BAM FALL 2021 SEASON

The sandy Sun & Sea brings the beach to Fort Greene (photo by Andrej Vasilenko)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
September 15 – November 6, $25-$35
www.bam.org

One of the places I’ve missed the most since the pandemic lockdown began in March 2020 is BAM, my performance-venue home-away-from-home. Over the decades, the Fort Greene institution’s exciting cutting-edge programming of innovative works from around the world has been a kind of lifeline for me. I remember in October 2012, after Hurricane Sandy paralyzed the state, I took an extremely slow bus through a dark, bleak city, on my way to BAM to see a show as if that would signal we would all get past this disaster. I made it just in time, breathing heavily, soon immersed in the wonders of how dance, music, art, and theater can lift you up. And so I relished the news when BAM announced its reopening for the fall 2021 season, featuring four works at the intimate BAM Fisher. “The hunger for artistic adventures has never been greater as our world continues to change around us,” BAM artistic director David Binder said in a statement. “Our 2021-22 season kicks off with works from a cohort of remarkable international artists, all of whom are making their BAM debuts. New forms and new ideas will abound in the Fisher, as they create singular experiences that can only happen at BAM.”

ASUNA’s 100 Keyboards will be performed in the round at the BAM Fisher (photo by Ritsuko Sakata)

The season kicks off September 15-26 with Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s Sun & Sea, which turns the Fisher into a beach. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, the work, commissioned for the Lithuanian Pavilion at the fifty-eighth International Art Exhibition, takes place on twenty-five tons of sand on which thirteen vocalists sing a wide array of stories, with a libretto by Vaiva Grainytė and music and musical direction by Lina Lapelytė. Sun & Sea is followed September 30 to October 2 by 100 Keyboards, in which Japanese sound artist ASUNA performs a unique concert in the round on one hundred battery-operated mini keyboards of multiple colors, creating a mysterious sound moire as the audience walks around him, picking up different reverberations.

Cia Suave makes its US debut at BAM with Cria (photo © Renato Mangolin)

In By Heart, running October 5-17, ten audience members join Portuguese artist and Avignon Festival director Tiago Rodrigues onstage, memorizing lines from such writers as William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, George Steiner, and Joseph Brodsky to create a new narrative consisting of forbidden texts while the rest of the audience watches (and sometimes participates as well); the set and costume design is by Magda Bizarro, with English translations by Rodrigues, revised by Joana Frazão. And in Cria (November 2-6), Brazilian troupe Cia Suave celebrates the passion of adolescence in a piece choreographed by Alice Ripoll and performed by ten members of the all-Black company of cis and trans dancers who proclaim, “We are CRIA, not created. Little breeds. Loneliness. To smear yourself. The act, the creation and its moment. Sprout. The heart saying, ‘hit me’ with every punch of suffering. In scene birth and death. Each time. Even in childbirth there is a force that wants to give up. A life that begins touches the sublime.” Tickets go on sale today at noon; the way New Yorkers have been snatching up tickets for live, in-person events, you better hurry if you want to catch any of these promising shows in the small, intimate BAM Fisher.

BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY: JUDGMENT DAY

Jason Alexander and Patti LuPone are outrageously funny in virtual production of Judgment Day

JUDGMENT DAY
Barrington Stage Company
July 26 – August 1, $8.99 through July 26, $11.99 after
jd.stellartickets.com
barringtonstageco.org

Jason Alexander is at his hysterical best as a selfish, greedy lawyer who survives a near-death experience in Pittsfield-based Barrington Stage Company’s hilarious online reading of Rob Ulin’s Judgment Day. The Zoom play premiered last August but is back for a well-deserved encore presentation July 26 through August 1 via the Stellar platform.

Alexander, a Tony and Emmy winner who stole the show as Mervyn Kant in a virtual production of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig in May, stars as Sammy Campo, a ruthless lawyer with no moral compass, willing to do anything to get what he wants. In the opening scene, after he closes another shady deal, we learn all we need to know about him during this delicious exchange with his secretary, Della (Loretta Devine), who reads from a letter he just received.

Della: You’ve been called before the Bar Association again. They’re citing “abuse of process, suborning perjury, and obstruction of justice.”
Sammy: The deal is fully funded. This one’s gonna put me over the top!
Della: “Grand larceny, money laundering, forgery, witnesses tampering, witness intimidation.”
Sammy: Yeah, I was expecting that; they’ve got nothing. Did you hear me? The deal is done.
Della: “Consorting with known felons, drug and alcohol abuse, solicitation of prostitution, public nakedness, public urination, foul and unsavory language in the presence of children and the elderly.”
Sammy: Shush with that! Don’t wreck this moment. Do you know why this deal means so much to me?
Della: Because of the money.
Sammy: Wrong! It is not because of the money. It’s because the money will now belong to me. Money that used to be other people’s will now become mine. I came into this world a little speck of nothing. Unloved, unlaid. The world tried to beat me into a passive little milquetoast who would settle for a crumb, but do you know what I said to that offer?
Della: You said no.
Sammy: I said no! I demanded more, From the time I was a little kid, I defied the law of the playground, I defied the law of the pecking order.
Della: You defied the law.

But just as Sammy is bragging about how he played the game his way and won, he suffers a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital, where, as the doctors crack open his chest trying to save him, an angel arrives in the form of his dreaded Catholic school teacher. Sister Margaret (Tony and Grammy winner Patti LuPone) appears to have been waiting a long time for the day she can send Sammy to hell.

“I have come to deliver justice,” she announces. “Wow. So this means God is real,” Sammy suddenly understands. “Shit.” But when he realizes that the angel has snatched him too soon from the jaws of death — the doctors are still working on him — he negotiates his return to the living. “I may be a scumbag. But this isn’t about me. This is about the Law,” he explains. “Your legal sophistry will not work on me,” she says. “It might work on some archangel up the ladder who’s a hardass for the Immutable Laws of God,” Sammy answers. “Some seraphim might think an angel who bends the rules needs a job with less responsibility, like moving clouds around or wiping some cherub’s ass. Looks to me like you blew it, Sister.”

Proudly displaying his lack of a conscience, Sammy is soon making a deal with Father Michael (Tony winner Santino Fontana) to take a case in which elderly widow Edna Fillmore (Carol Mansell) has been denied her late husband’s insurance because she missed one payment. The Monsignor (Grammy winner Michael McKean) tells Father Michael not to work with Sammy, but Father Michael considers bending the rules in order to help Edna. “God cares what’s in your heart,” Father Michael says gently to Sammy, who responds, “Wrong. Angel Sister Margaret said, ‘We do not care how you feel or why you made your choices. Human beings are judged solely by their deeds.’ So I wanna figure out the rock-bottom least amount of good I need to do to get into Heaven.”

Meanwhile, Sammy goes back to the wife he walked out on ten years ago, Tracy (Justina Machado), only to find a surprise: her troubled nine-year-old son, Casper (Julian Emile Lerner). Sammy might have a new lease on life, but that hasn’t changed him one bit. “Acting kind and generous is harder for folks like us who don’t mean it,” he teaches the boy. “There’s no trick to being compassionate if you’re born with compassion. It’s a much greater accomplishment to help your fellow man if you don’t give a shit about him.” Soon he’s negotiating with Casper’s principal (Bianca LaVerne Jones) and Edna’s insurance agent, Jackson (Michael Mastro), incorporating the help of the sexy Chandra (Elizabeth Stanley) when necessary. It appears that there’s no situation he doesn’t believe he can’t haggle his way out of, no matter how high the authority of the person — or angel — he is bargaining with, and he always believes he is in the right. “Without laws, we’d just be animals,” he tells Casper. “The big guy would always defeat the little guy. But in a world of laws, there’s a role for the wily guy. The big guy will always get to make the laws. But a wily lawyer can find ways around the laws so the little guy has a chance.”

Judgment Day is a nonstop eighty-two-minute treat as Ulin, a former Harvard Lampoon editor who has been a co-executive producer on such television series as Malcolm in the Middle, Rosanne, and Ramy, takes on such lofty issues as faith and belief and the rules of society, pitting religion and the law against each other with a wicked sense of humor. Sammy is a fantastic character, a smart-mouthed “scumbag” who actually has an intelligent outlook on the world, finding the cracks and exploiting them to his advantage without a second thought. When Father Michael tells him, “I am a priest. I don’t do blackmail,” Sammy quickly retorts, “Doing blackmail is your whole job! Every Sunday you guys stand in your pulpit and tell a billion Catholics, do what we say or burn forever.”

He doesn’t hide who he is or what he is after, and Alexander is brilliant in the role, smirking away with glee. Director Matthew Penn (Mother of the Maid, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You) wisely lets Alexander and LuPone chew up the scenery — well, actually, there is no scenery, just plain Zoom backgrounds, save for simple line drawings by Melanie Cummings that announce the locations. Alexander and LuPone’s over-the-top energy is offset by the calm demeanor of Fontana, Devine, and McKean, with Machado playing it straight right down the middle. Be sure to stick around through the credits for some fun clips from the Zoom rehearsals.

ENDURE: RUN WOMAN SHOW

Casey Howes performs in immersive Endure in Central Park (photo by Richard Termine)

ENDURE
Southern end of Central Park
Through August 8, $59.99
runwomanshow.com

In his 2008 memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, award-winning Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami writes, “This is a book in which I’ve gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person. Just a book in which I ponder various things and think out loud. . . . One thing I noticed was that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”

Canadian marathoner, Ironman finisher, and mother Melanie Jones takes a similar approach in Endure: Run Woman Show, an outdoor, on-the-move immersive event continuing in Central Park through August 8. A limited audience of no more than fifteen follows Mary Cavett or Casey Howes through the park while listening on earbuds to Jones talk about running her first marathon, sharing thoughts about the race and life. “You keep going, keep living, keep searching, keep risking, keep pressing out at the edges of yourself because, sure, you could stop or walk or stand on the sidelines, but there’s something beautiful in passing the end of who you think you are. See, there’s so much more beyond,” she narrates. She discusses what it feels like at the starting line, dealing with skeptics at a cocktail party, how math and endorphins can be overwhelming, and striving for her top-secret goal time.

Created and written by Jones (Joyride, In You. [And You?]) and directed by Suchan Vodoor, Endure: Run Woman Show is based on real-life stories from Jones and other runners, delving into what they think about and what they personally experience as they make their way through parks, streets, and tracks, running for both their mental and physical health. Covering approximately three miles in about seventy-five minutes — the audience is not expected to run alongside the performer, who will always remain in view, making stops on bridges and lawns, trees and lampposts — the piece, featuring a musical soundtrack by Swedish composer Christine Owman, is particularly relevant during the “2020” Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where participants are facing Covid-19 in addition to the regular tests of their abilities against the finest athletes in the world, and doing so without crowds cheering them on this time.

“When I discovered running, I realized that the stronger I got on the outside, the stronger I felt on the inside,” Jones said in a statement. “Long-distance running, at its best, is a spiritual experience: uplifting, clarifying, transformative. A runner feels connected to their environment, their best self, even humanity. My hope is that Endure gives audiences a sense of that tranquillity and peace.” And that’s something we all could use a whole lot of right about now.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK BERGEN COUNTY

Who: Black Box PAC
What: Free Shakespeare in Bergen County
Where: Overpeck Park Amphitheater
When: Weekends July 23 – August 29, free, 8:00
Why: New York City has Shakespeare in the Parking Lot’s Two Noble Kinsmen, NY Classical’s King Lear with a happy ending, the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Seize the King, and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park presentation of Merry Wives of Windsor. But you can also catch free Bard in New Jersey, where the Black Box Performing Arts Center’s summer season begins this weekend with modern productions of Hamlet and As You Like It, continuing Thursday to Sunday through August 29 at the Overpeck Park Amphitheater in Bergen County. In addition, Black Box PAC will be hosting free “Play On!” concerts Sundays in August at the amphitheater at 4:00, including performances by Divinity & the FAM Band, Melissa Cherie, Esti Mellul, Ginny Lackey & the Hi-Fi Band, Dan Sheehan’s Rising Seas, and Andy Krikun & Jeff Doctorow. There will also be script-in-hand readings of Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew at the Englewood Public Library on Wednesdays at 8:00 from July 28 to September 1. Admission to all events is free, with no advance RSVP necessary. As Duke Orsino declares in Twelfth Night, “If music be the food of love, play on!”

AILEY

The life and career of Alvin Ailey is explored in new documentary opening in theaters July 23

AILEY (Jamila Wignot, 2021)
Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St.
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Opens July 23
neonrated.com/films/ailey

“We’re gonna do something, we’re gonna create . . . whatever it is, it gotta be good,” choreographer Rennie Harris says at the beginning of Ailey. The American Masters documentary, which opens July 23 at the Angelika and Lincoln Center, is good but sometimes overshadowed by how it could have been better.

Directed by Jamila Wignot’s (Town Hall, Walt Whitman) and edited by Annukka Lilja, the film cuts back and forth between rare archival footage of Alvin Ailey, who was born in Texas in 1931 and died from AIDS in 1989 at the age of fifty-eight; new interviews with former members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; and Harris and the company rehearsing Lazarus, the Philadelphia-born choreographer’s specially commissioned 2018 ballet celebrating the life and legacy of Ailey. “Mr. Ailey talked about blood memories — what his parents went through, what his parents’ parents went through, what his folk went through. And that was a major key for me — memory. That was the anchor,” Harris, the troupe’s inaugural artist-in-residence, explains about his motivation in creating the company’s first two-act ballet.

The film focuses on how Kennedy Center Honoree Ailey’s personal experiences directly impacted his work, from being raised by a single mother in difficult circumstances, to his homosexuality, to fighting racial injustice and being an important influence on the Black community, incorporating traditional African movement and American jazz to construct pieces unlike any ever seen before. “Alvin entertained my thoughts and dreams that a Black boy could actually dance,” former AAADT company member George Faison remembers. “It was a universe that I could go into, I could escape to, that would allow me to do anything that I wanted to.”

In a 1988 interview, Ailey says, “You have to be possessed to do dance,” and he was from an early age. The documentary includes clips from such works as 1958’s Blues Suite, a party set to traditional songs performed by Brother John Sellers; 1969’s Masekela Langage, which takes on racial violence and the prison system; 1971’s Cry, a solo for Judith Jamison that was a birthday present for Ailey’s mother; 1971’s Flowers, inspired by the life of Janis Joplin; 1979’s Memoria, a tribute to his late friend and colleague Joyce Trisler; and 1983’s Fever Swamp, Bill T. Jones’s athletic piece for six male dancers. The film also digs deep into Ailey’s most famous ballet, Revelations, the 1960 masterpiece that explores the richness of Black cultural heritage. “We didn’t have to go out on the street and protest; our protest was on the stage,” Faison says. “This was our march to freedom.”

In addition to Jones, Jamison, and Faison, also sharing stories about Ailey are current AAADT artistic director Robert Battle, original company member Carmen de Lavallade, former rehearsal directors and associate artistic directors Mary Barnett and Masazumi Chaya, stage manager and executive director Bill Hammond, and former company dancers Don Martin, Linda Kent, Sylvia Waters, Hope Clark, and Sarita Allen. Barnett calls Ailey’s dances “a reenactment of life,” while de Lavallade, who is shown dancing with Ailey back in the 1950s, notes, “Sometimes your name becomes bigger than yourself. Alvin Ailey — do you really know who that is, or what it is?”

The film would have benefited by Wignot (Town Hall, Walt Whitman) spending more time with Harris and the current Ailey dancers preparing Lazarus, which premiered in 2018 as part of the “Ailey Ascending” sixtieth anniversary season. The scenes were shot at the company’s home studio on West Fifty-Fifth St., a sharply white, brightly lit space with windows on two sides, in contrast to the grainy black-and-white videos and personal photographs tracing Ailey’s life and career that are spread throughout the film.

Last week, Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz’s Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters opened at Film Forum, a thrilling look at the 1989 dance by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company that dealt with the AIDS crisis; the documentary details the original conception of D-Man in the Waters while also following Loyola Marymount dancers as they get ready to perform the piece in 2016, as the directors zero in on humanity’s evolving relationship with tragedy and art across generations. In Ailey, that connection is much less clear, and the contemporary rehearsal scenes feel out of place, especially without the grand finale of a fully staged production of Harris’s homage. (You can watch a brief excerpt of Lazarus made during the pandemic here. AAADT will also be performing August 17-21 at the BAAND Together Dance Festival on Lincoln Center’s Restart Stage at Damrosch Park, featuring Lazarus and Revelations, and the company just announced that its annual New York City season will take place December 1-19 at City Center.)

Even so, Ailey offers a compelling portrait of one of the most important choreographers of the twentieth century, an extraordinary man who changed the way we look at dance and Black culture. Wignot will be at the Angelika for Q&As at the 7:30 screening on July 23 and the 12:45 show on July 24; she will also be at the Howard Gilman Theater at Lincoln Center for a Q&A with Battle, moderated by National Black Justice Coalition executive director David Johns, on July 23 at 6:15 and with Waters, moderated by author, professor, and Shubert board member Pamela Newkirk, on July 24 at 6:15.

THE WAKE OF DORCAS KELLY

Myra Caellaigh (Florence Scagliarini), Kate O’Sullivan (Phoebe Mar Halkowich), and Siobhan Murchadha (Irina Kaplan) tend to the deceased in The Wake of Dorcas Kelly (photo by Nick Thomas)

THE WAKE OF DORCAS KELLY
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St.
Thursday-Sunday through July 25, $42
www.spitnvigor.com

New York–based nonprofit theater company spit&vigor continues its exploration of the past in The Wake of Dorcas Kelly, which opened July 16 at the Players Theatre and continues through July 25.

Inspired by a true story that has expanded its legend with apocryphal elements over time, the ninety-minute show takes place in the Maiden Tower brothel in Dublin in January 1761, where the hanged and charred body of former madam Dorcas Kelly lies covered on a table. Ladies of the evening Siobhan Murchadha (Irina Kaplan), Kate O’Sullivan (Phoebe Mar Halkowich), and Myra Caellaigh (set and sound designer Florence Scagliarini) are watching over their dear departed friend and former boss, who was brutally executed for the murder of a shoemaker in the street. “She didn’t shoot just any man,” pub owner and regular Maiden customer Tom Doherty (Nicholas Thomas) explains. “It was the scoundrel John Dowling, who left our poor Kate with child and no support. Which is a thing I’d never do, for all my vices.”

As they share memories of Dorcas, a riot is under way right outside, the noise spilling into the room. Former sailor William O’Brien (Eamon Murphy) has been hired by Kate to protect the brothel during the public melee, but he keeps coming in for more drink while insisting he will remain true to his wife, Grace (Duoer Jia). “I suppose he’s burning through some of his debts with hard labor,” Siobhan says. “That boy wouldn’t know hard labor if it spanked him in the arse,” Myra replies. “Well, this hard labor has spanked him in the arse once or twice,” Siobhan jokes.

Soon Tom and William are dragging doped-up Father Jack Dancy (troupe executive producer Adam Belvo) in through the back window. The visiting Belfast priest is completely out of it; the men tie him up so he won’t be able escape before praying for Dorcas. Meanwhile, former prostitute Fannie Prufrock (Kyra Jackson) has gone legit but can’t seem to stay away from the brothel. “Went and run off with some shipmate and now she thinks she’s the queen of England,” Myra says. “Have some tenderness, Myra. She only comes back round here because she’s tired of married life. Imagine getting stuck with the same prick night after night,” Siobhan adds. “You want to be married, then, Myra? I’ll make an honest woman of you,” Tom offers, but Myra is having none of that. When a surprise guest (Peter Oliver) is discovered, the plot takes a dark turn without losing its macabre, ribald sense of humor.

Founded in 2015, spit&vigor excels at mining the history of drama, literature, and art for raw material: Among its previous productions, NEC SPE / NEC METU tells the story of Baroque painters Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary’s Little Monster imagines how Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein came to be, The Brutes goes behind the scenes of an 1864 benefit performance of Julius Caesar by the Booth brothers (staged by spit&vigor at the Players club, which was started by Edwin Booth), and the livestreamed Luna Eclipse traveled back to the fourteenth century as the cast proceeded throughout the West Park Presbyterian Church on Eighty-Sixth St.

The Wake of Dorcas Kelly offers plenty of booze, blasphemy, and butchery (photo by Nick Thomas)

Written and directed by company artistic director Sara Fellini (In Vestments, Hazard a Little Death) with plenty of spit and vigor, The Wake of Dorcas Kelly opens with all nine actors onstage, singing a rousing version of “The Tempest” by the Real MacKenzies: “We are all born free but forever live in chains / And we battle through existence on and on / We’ll take whatever comes to be while keeping hopeful melody / And we’ll cruise through the darkness until the warmth of dawn.” The drinking song gets the audience ready for a rollicking evening on Scagliarini’s cramped, dusty, but homey set with unmatched chairs, Baroque wallpaper, a back staircase, and candles, cups, glasses, and bottles everywhere. (The often eerie lighting is by Chelsie McPhilimy, with period costumes and props by Claire Daly.)

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, along with booze, blasphemy, and butchery — what’s not to love? Deserving of a longer engagement, The Wake of Dorcas Kelly is a spirited night out at the theater — live and in person — performed by a strong cast that will only get better as the show continues. It’s so much fun spending time with these well-drawn, engaging characters and talented actors that it’s sad when the play is over and the lights go down; it’s easy to see why everyone likes stopping by and staying for a drink or two, and maybe a little more, even with dead bodies lying around.

LINES IN THE DUST

Melissa Joyner stars as a mother willing to do just about anything to get her daughter a better education in Lines in the Dust

LINES IN THE DUST
New Normal Rep
Available on demand through August 8, $25
www.newnormalrep.org

In his 1963 inaugural address upon being sworn in as governor of Alabama, Democrat George Wallace declared, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw a line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

Actress and playwright Nikkole Salter uses part of that quote for the title of her potent three-character work about racism, residential districting, and school residency fraud, Lines in the Dust, streaming through August 8 in a potent virtual version from New Normal Rep. The 110-minute play feels like it was written yesterday, but it actually debuted at Luna Stage in New Jersey in 2014. In a short video about the world premiere, Salter explained, “I think we’re at a critical moment of national reflection,” referring specifically to the sixtieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that declared school segregation unconstitutional. She continues, “This play becomes poignant now because we find ourselves as segregated, if not more segregated in certain places, than we were in 1954 when we look at our education system.” Among the many difficult lessons we’ve learned since March 2020 is that America still has a major segregation problem in education, among other institutions, amid another critical moment of national reflection.

The play begins in the spring of 2009 at an open house in Millburn, New Jersey, where Dr. Beverly Long (Lisa Rosetta Strum), the married mother of a teenage son, and Denitra Morgan (Melissa Joyner), the single mother of a teenage daughter, are talking about the local district. “If you want a good school, you have to pay property taxes or private school tuition, pick your poison. I say, at least with the former, you get some equity,” Beverly explains. “Gotta pay if you wanna play,” Denitra replies. Beverly: “At least we can. Imagine if we were stuck in other, worser — if we couldn’t afford to pay —” Denitra: “Yeah.” Beverly: “I don’t know what those parents do. ‘Hope’ it works out? Pray?” Denitra: “Beg, borrow, lie; they’ll cheat their way into . . .” Beverly: “Of course they do. Wouldn’t you?” Denitra: “Yeah, I guess I would.” Beverly: “I definitely would. What parent wouldn’t?”

Lisa Rosetta Strum, Melissa Joyner, and Jeffrey Bean star in New Normal Rep’s potent virtual production of Nikkole Salter’s Lines in the Dust

A year and a half later, Beverly is the interim principal at a prestigious public high school in Essex County, where Denitra is illegally sending her daughter, Noelle, since they can’t afford to live in that district. In her office, Dr. Long meets with Michael DiMaggio (Jeffrey Bean), a private investigator hired by the board to weed out these illegal students, seeking to expel them and make their family pay restitution. A thirty-five-year veteran of the Millburn Police Department, DiMaggio doesn’t exactly hide his racism and anti-Semitism, determined to rid the school of these unwelcome elements, using dog-whistle phrases that he insists are not biased, claiming merely to be following the law. While Dr. Long is uncomfortable with his language, methods, and personal beliefs, she also wants to keep her job, so she attempts to find that line in the dust, especially when DiMaggio starts going after Denitra and Noelle.

Preparing a slide presentation for the board, DiMaggio gives Dr. Long an advance run-through. “Now, you’ve got a good thing goin’ here in Millburn,” he states. “And I tell ya, they’re gonna come and try and take it.
It’s easier to take than to build your own. I ask you, are you gonna take this opportunity to do everything you can to fight to keep Millburn? Or are you going to let it go to a bunch of people who don’t even live here? The choice is yours.” It is clear who that “bunch of people” are, but the interim principal is worried about criticizing the PI, concerned about her position at the school and conscious of her responsibility to the Black community.

She tells DiMaggio, “We all should be concerned about the future of our schools. But what I don’t think we should feel is afraid. And right now, those pictures, they make me feel like you want me to be afraid —” “No —,” DiMaggio begins, but Dr. Long cuts him off. “Afraid in a very specific way. The images are very —” DiMaggio: “I’m not trying to scare anybody.” Dr. Long: “They’re very biased.” DiMaggio: “You think I’m biased?” No, I didn’t say you — I think the pictures you chose, and how you present them, create a very biased look —” DiMaggio: “These are real pictures.” Dr. Long: “I’m sure, but the way you present them —” DiMaggio: “What way? In a slide show?” Dr. Long: “No. Back to back and in juxtaposition to — it makes it seem as if the thing they should be afraid of is the ghetto.” DiMaggio: “Yeah.” Dr. Long: “Yeah?” DiMaggio: “Aren’t you afraid of that?” Dr. Long: “Excuse me?” The battle comes to a head as DiMaggio starts following Noelle and the official presentation approaches.

Lines in the Dust was directed over Zoom by Awoye Timpo (The Loophole), with multimedia green-screen design by Afsoon Pajoufar, taking us from the open house to Dr. Long’s office to Denitra’s home, with costumes by Qween Jean, sound by Stan Mathabane, and original music by Alphonso Horne. The cast is outstanding, led by Joyner’s (Maids Door, Mrs. America) heart-wrenching turn as Denitra, a woman willing to go to extreme lengths to get her daughter a quality education that can make a difference in her future. You can feel her desperation even though watching her performance on a computer. Strum (Pipeline, the solo project She Gon’ Learn) portrays Beverly’s painful dilemma with poise and self-assurance, while Bean (The Thanksgiving Play, About Alice) brings an understated refinement to DiMaggio, a white man who represents so much of what is wrong with the current system.

Salter — an award-winning playwright and actress who wrote Here We Are and starred in Lydia R. Diamond’s Whitely Negotiations for the extraordinary two-way “Here We Are” solo theater project held online during the pandemic lockdown — was partly inspired by the career of onetime Newark resident, NAACP lawyer, and federal judge Robert L. Carter, which included work on such cases as Sweatt v. Painter, in which Heman Marion Sweatt sued the University of Texas Law School in 1950 because he was rejected for being Black, and Brown v. Board of Education. The play gets to the emotional core of such legal precedents, focusing on the human element. It all feels particularly pertinent in 2021 in regard to ongoing arguments across the US about teaching critical race theory in schools and the battle over voting rights. Somewhere up there, Wallace is smirking down on all of us.