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Regional Reviews: New Jersey Trouble in Mind Illuminates Chapter of Racial Disharmony Also see Bob's reviews of Lift, South Pacific, The Marriage of Figaro & The Barber of Seville
As the play begins. Wiletta Maye, a veteran black actress, arrives at the theatre for the first day of rehearsal. In short order, the five other cast members of Chaos arrive. The first is John Nevins. a young actor who is new to Broadway. The pleasantly professional Wiletta displays a cynical, accommodating attitude in advising John to laugh at all the white director's jokes ("Whites don't like unhappy Negroes."), to butter up the playwright, and falsely tell them that he was "in the last revival of Porgy and Bess. Next to arrive is Millie Davis, another black actress. She is a contemporary and, in her mind, a competitor of Wiletta. Millie bitchily notes that she was "too young" to try out for Wiletta's role. The final black Chaos cast member is the elderly Sheldon Forrester who has long since internalized the attitude and behavioral attitude of subservient accommodation. The only Chaos white cast member is Judy Sears. A graduate of Yale Drama School, she, too, is a Broadway neophyte. Judy has all the benefits that come with having wealthy Connecticut parents, and she is blissfully ignorant of the peculiar burdens that being black has placed on her fellow actors. Finally, Al Manners, the play's white producer-director arrives, accompanied by his set designer and stage manager (both white). Manners is a liberal who is producing a play which is a strong indictment against lynching, but he is also bossy, overbearing and paternalistic. Wiletta, who has had it up to here with portraying demeaning stereotypes, believes that her character's actions in the face of a lynch mob in pursuit of her son do not reflect the protection that a black mother, nay any mother, would provide for her child. Manners angrily defends the play, stating that it is necessary to show "the mother" as being weak and subservient in order to make the play palatable to white audiences. These and other scenes provide melodramatic conflict and humor, and the production fully delivers the theatrical life that Childress has not neglected to include in her play. The reliable Brenda Pressley, who moves seamlessly between plays and musicals, convincingly navigates the changes within Wiletta that occur over the length of the play. Roger Robinson vividly revived my memories of similar obsequious behavior that troubled me deeply when I encountered it during the era depicted in the play. McKinley Belcher III (John Nevins), Amirah Vann (Millie Davis), and Hayley Treider (Judy Sears) as the other Chaos actors bring individuality to their roles while providing a smoothly integrated ensemble. Robert Hogan as the elderly theatre doorman whose admiration for Wiletta dates back over decades brings a charming verisimilitude to his role. The problematic role is that of producer-director Al Manners. Saddled with family problems which do not generate our interest and given inconsistent, sometimes unconvincing reasons to express his motivations, Manners is neither convincing nor easy to get a fix on. At the opening, it felt as if Steven Skybell was stilling trying to find the key to unlock him. Childress certainly has not left one in plain sight. The history of Trouble in Mind is as interesting as the play itself. Alice Childress began her career in the arts as an actress, and performed throughout the 1940s with the American Negro Theatre in Harlem. She appeared in two Broadway productions. The first, which opened in 1944, was a most successful "black" version of the 1936 play Anna Lucasta which transferred from ANT to Broadway. A pioneer among female black playwrights, Childress wrote plays with both black and white characters. Her very moving Wedding Band, which was successfully produced at the NYSF Public Theatre in 1972, is a story of miscegenation set in south Carolina in 1918. Trouble in Mind was produced downtown at New York's Greenwich Mews Theatre in 1965 where it ran for 90 performances. There was talk of its moving to Broadway, and Childress worked on making revisions to the play, but the producer holding the option felt that they were not satisfactory. It has been written that the producers wanted a happier ending to assuage white audiences, and that when the option expired, Childress was relieved. By then, she had determined that her final version would not have such a happier ending. There are some problems with the construction of Trouble in Mind. The initial exposition is extensive and unwieldy (the exposition concerning the family problems of the producer-director is particularly irrelevant). Thus, the important conflict which ultimately gives weight to the play is not apparent in the first act. This is exacerbated by there being only one intermission, and that is placed between the first and second acts. The second and third acts are awkwardly stitched together. And yet, rather than having fallen into obscurity, almost sixty years after its little remembered Off-Broadway debut, Trouble in Mind is deservedly being revived by regional theatres from coast to coast. I think that it has to do with the fact that 145 years after the Civil War, race remains the major political and social issue in America. For in Trouble in Mind, Alice Childress has written a play from the heart that enables all of us to clearly see and understand the heavy burdens placed upon black Americans by having had to live in a society in which their humanity and worth have been discounted and their concerns rendered invisible. When Trouble in Mind turns on that light bulb inside your head, and it will, you will be happy and grateful. Trouble in Mind continues performances (Evenings: Wednesday 7 pm/ Thursday-Saturday 8 pm/ Matinees: Wednesday 1 pm/ Thursday 10 am/ Saturday - Sunday 3 pm) through April 27, 2014, at the Two River Theatre Company, Joan and Robert Rechnitz Theatre, 21 Bridge Ave., Red Bank 07701; Box Office: 732-345-1400 / online: www.trtc.org Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress; directed by Jade King Carroll Cast
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