MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on MInneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theater production called "Point of Revue," which has 15 African American writers interpret the state of Black America in 2006.
MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on MInneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theater production called "Point of Revue," which has 15 African American writers interpret the state of Black America in 2006.
CHRIS ROBERTS: This isn't the first time Mixed Blood Theatre has asked a gaggle of writers to speak to the same topic. Two years ago, it staged the critically lauded Bill of Rights, which featured nine writers pondering the modern-day relevance of one of America's most important documents.
The new production, Point of Review, is presented like a vaudeville show-- 15 separate pieces woven together by music, song, and dance.
SPEAKER 1: 1, 2, 3.
GROUP: (SINGING) Boy, I'm with you
To review what is new
CHRIS ROBERTS: Mixed Blood artistic director Jack Rueler says when the theatre commissioned 15 Black writers for the production, its only requirement was that they not be afraid to express their opinions.
JACK RUELER: This sort of through line surprisingly became that they picked a topic. And you thought they were going for one thing, and they took a left turn and surprised you with what the real topic was and what their point of view was.
CHRIS ROBERTS: A piece called Public Transportation looks at Black appreciation of theater. When a young Black woman meets a local theater actor on the bus, she fails to recognize him or the prominent Black theater company he belongs to. She does recall her only trip to the theater, when she was in high school.
SPEAKER 2: They told us it was going to be a play about some sisters. That wasn't nothing but some white people sitting around talking in all that Shakespeare talk about how they need to "get off the farm" and "get to Moscow," or something. I kind of liked it, though. Those big cushy seats. Theater? Mmm. That's some of the best sleep you can get.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Point of Review moves along at a rapid pace. There's an examination of the inner struggle of a Black mother of a child with Down syndrome. Another piece focuses on African immigrants in corporate America.
Blown Away, written by Twin Cities writer and actor Gavin Lawrence, is a musical elegy for a teenager who's just been shot and killed.
GROUP: (SINGING) Emmett Till has been killed again
He was killed yesterday
He is killed today
He will be killed again tomorrow
CHRIS ROBERTS: Lawrence compares the murdered teen to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Mississippi boy whose lynching in 1955 catalyzed the Civil Rights movement.
GAVIN LAWRENCE: And I repeat this line in the song, "Police line, do not cross. Emmett Till has been killed again. He was a good boy." And I repeat that because I think that there are many Emmett Tills running around and potential Emmett Tills running around in our country today. And it'd be good to save some of them.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, freelance theater critic Christy Desmith raved about Point of Review, particularly its writing and unpredictability. In her opinion, there is not one weak link in the show. She admits, however that, stringing a series of mini plays together into one production is bound to strike a chord with just about anybody.
CHRISTY DESMITH: Well, it's a little noncommittal. You know, it's very ADHD-friendly. If you're getting bored with one piece, or if one piece isn't speaking to you, you can move on to the next. So success is built in. There's something for everyone.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Desmith says she came to the production hoping for light-heartedness and fearing heavy-handedness. She believes some social issue themes have been over explored in Black theater, and that may affect an audience's expectations.
CHRISTY DESMITH: When we hear that we're going to see a production that captures the contemporary African-American experience, we think we know what that means. And somebody who went in to see this production, Point of Review, would be completely blown away.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Having staged two similarly structured plays in Bill of Rights and now Point of Review, it would appear that Mixed Blood Theatre has latched on to a successful formula. It's developing a production for next year that again features an array of writers, this time working on a single piece. Jack Rueler says the theater has commissioned five biracial playwrights to take a tag team approach to writing one play about being biracial. It's called Messy Utopia. I'm Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio News.
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