Transcripts

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BRIAN GRANDISON: What Evelyn has done in Rondo and in Everlasting Arms is to recall a time in Saint Paul and in Minnesota when there was a very strong Black community made up of mostly Southerners who traveled up here for jobs and for other reasons and created this community. And I've only lived in the Twin Cities 10 years, but there isn't that sense of community that Evelyn talks about in her book. And even in my hometown where I grew up as a child, there isn't that sense of community.

So when I read the play and when I read Days of Rondo, I'm reminded of my grandmother and those people who are no longer with me, which is what attracted me to the story. It's about a time where people listen to each other, where the entertainment was telling stories. And sometimes the more far fetched the story, the more entertaining it was.

But the sense was people had time to visit all day, as Evelyn said. And this play is about that. It's kind of pushed around the idea of telling the Christmas story. But I think for me, it's much more than that. It's about family, it's about community, it's about people loving one another and having the time to raise their children and see that their children grow up to become the Evelyn Fairbanks.

SPEAKER 1: Well, it's not only their own children, but you get a sense from talking with Florence and her mother--

BRIAN GRANDISON: YES.

SPEAKER 1: --that which is one of the characters, one of the fun characters in the play, sister Wilson and her daughter Florence Wilson, who imagines herself to be quite the looker, let's say.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER 1: But that everyone cares about everybody else's children as well because Mama in the play will comment on Florence. Now, don't be getting any ideas.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Well, there's that sense of responsibility. And when I talk about community, that's inclusive in that the community is charged with raising these children.

As I was telling the actresses, Mama and sister Hampton tease Florence all the time about her inability to sew the choice of clothes, whether she can cook or not. But I think at some point, those same women would teach her how to make candied yams in a way that's going to please a man, how to sew in a way that's going to get her a husband, to do those things that at that time they felt women should know. You get that sense of the community responsibility, which isn't there.

SPEAKER 1: We come into a kitchen of one particular family, which is Evelyn's Home. And we find Mr. Edwards, the father, Mama, and the girl, the daughter. But in that smallness is this wall of solidity that you talked about that must be the community, because I felt like these people were rock solid. They had a place in the world, and they lived it.

I'm not being very good getting to it, but just reading it, I didn't need a lot to happen. They sit down and shared a bowl of peaches at one point in the play. And that was a solid to me as if troops were crossing the border into another country.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Well, it's in some ways, the play is a celebration of those little small victories, the things that bind, as my mother would say, the things that bind the family together. I felt when I read the script and when I listened to it that I knew all of these people and that they had all come through my grandmother's house at some time or another. The fact that there are peaches there and there's cake so then when people come to visit, they can have cake and peaches and sit and visit with one another. I don't know, I called it a black version of the Waltons because it's about a time that just isn't.

And I miss it. It's whimsical, and it's sentimental, but it's not sappy. It's very real.

SPEAKER 1: Many listeners know about Evelyn Fairbanks. They know that she is a Black playwright, and her greatest claim to fame might be Days of Rondo. That was a play that was produced a couple of years back. And she's been on many talk shows talking about this.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Yes.

SPEAKER 1: When you have your talks with Evelyn about this play, what does she tell you?

BRIAN GRANDISON: We talk about the things that really aren't said in the play, the world in which these characters inhabit. One of the her descriptions is that these are people who visit all day. And when I hear all day, I think three or four hours, you go home, and you--

SPEAKER 1: And she means all day.

BRIAN GRANDISON: All day long. And she said--

SPEAKER 1: You got to kick them out when you have dinner coming.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Well, actually, she said, what they would do is they would bring a change of clothes, and they would stay two or three days. And they only lived down the street, but they would come and visit. And they would camp or they would sew, and they would sew for two or three days while the men went hunting or even while the men weren't hunting while the men were out at work. But they would visit.

We talked about Mama's faith. Her faith is everything. Her faith is why Mama gets up in the morning, why Mama felt she and Mr. Edwards could adopt the young girl Evelyn and raise her. And because they felt they had something solid to give her.

SPEAKER 1: I'm speaking with Brian Grandison He's the director of the play Everlasting Arms by Evelyn Fairbanks. It's a prequel to Days of Rondo, which she also wrote. Evelyn Fairbanks now lives in Onamia, Minnesota. And this play is being staged at the Great American History Theater in Saint Paul. The family is here, Mama, Mr. Edwards, and Evelyn.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Absolutely.

SPEAKER 1: Can you set that up for me, and then we'll bring the actors in?

BRIAN GRANDISON: OK. This scene happens towards the end of the play when Evelyn asks Mama to tell her the Christmas story again. And Mama starts the Christmas story. And then what you're about to hear is where Evelyn takes over the Christmas story a bit and makes it her own.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 2: Now, you've heard of the angel called Gabriel.

SPEAKER 3: Gabriel? Is that the one that you said was the trumpet player, daddy?

SPEAKER 4: Yes, baby, he's the trumpet player.

SPEAKER 2: Anyway, Gabriel was sent by God to deliver a message to Mary, baby, just like I sometimes send you to sister Hampton's house to deliver a message. What you tell sister Hampton is not your words, but rather words I've told you to tell her. So it was that Gabriel was delivering a message from God himself.

SPEAKER 3: Mama, I know the part about Gabriel visiting Mary.

SPEAKER 2: I know that's your favorite part of the story, so you tell us.

SPEAKER 3: Mama, you said Mary wasn't anything special. She was good and she loved God, but she wasn't a princess or anything. Her picture is in our book at Sunday school, and she's really pretty. And God loved Mary.

One night in the middle of the night, an angel came to visit Mary. Mary was scared. She had never seen an angel before. The angel had wings like a bird, except those wings were big.

Those wings took up the whole of the room where Mary was sleeping. Mary started to scream. Then she quit because the angel said, "The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women."

SPEAKER 2: Baby, where did you get that idea about Mary starting to scream. I never told you Mary started to scream. And when Reverend Lawrence preached a sermon on the nativity, he didn't say nothing about Mary starting to scream.

SPEAKER 3: I know i would have started to scream if I saw big angel at night. Wouldn't you've started to scream, daddy?

SPEAKER 1: You know, it's hard sometimes in this Christmas season, this holiday season to bring forth a play such as this that has talks about the holiday season. The Christmas story is an integral part of what's happening here. It's shared in a family. They retell it, and they get some solace from it and some happiness because it's a tradition. It's hard to do that well, I think, in an age of cynicism.

BRIAN GRANDISON: One of the things I explain to our cast for Everlasting Arms was that this is a play that exists before the war, before World War II. There's a theory in theater that the world was mirrored in theater. After World War II, the mirror shattered, and that began became the age of cynicism because annihilation was seconds away. And it became hard to believe in things because Hiroshima became a possibility.

What's wonderful about this world that Evelyn writes about is Hiroshima is not a possibility. So there is a rock solid belief that these people have that tomorrow, the sun is going to shine. It's in talking sometimes with students, students have a hard time believing that, especially young Black children have a hard time believing that they're going to make it into their teens.

So that's what's pleasant and what's wonderful and why I think the story needs to be told, because there was a time, and there still can be a time when all we have to do is just choose to believe, as Mama would say. You just you believe, you put one foot in front of the other, and you just walk. And she walks on faith.

SPEAKER 1: Where are the descendants of all these characters now, do you think, in our world? How are they being played out? We know about Evelyn. She grew up and saw some dreams realized.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Absolutely. That's a good question. I think they're out there. I know they're out there because these women remind me of my family.

So I can only look back in my life or my wife's life or the people I'm closest to and know that I do have relationships with friends, my daughter has relationships with friends of mine who, God forbid, if anything were to happen to us, I know my friends would raise our child in the way that Evelyn was raised by the community. And that's important. That's important to know that-- and there needs to be more of that. But I think those descendants are out there. I think maybe we just need to find a way to highlight them.

SPEAKER 1: Well, I want to thank you very much for your time today, talking about the play.

BRIAN GRANDISON: Thank you.