PicksInSix Review: Big White Fog - Court Theatre
Court’s ‘Fog” A Lesson in Time
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton
The theatre pioneer Theodore Ward's ambitious “Big White Fog” is the latest offering at Court Theatre, playing through October 12. It is directed in unabashedly huge strokes by Court Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson and, in many ways, is both a grand story of impact and resulting fallout and a lesson in time. There is an inevitable connection/comparison between Mr. Ward's opus and the delicate, powerful classic “A Raisin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry. They are two plays in dialogue that address family and, more pointedly, the Black experience in America. They share the same soil but blossom differently in their individual stories. The period in which the Ward play is written—the edge of the Great Depression into those years of unrelenting economic challenge and unending—magnifies that painful reality.
It is about three generations of the Mason family, who live on the South Side of Chicago. It's the 1920s, and the economic disparity between races is never more pronounced. The family itself is split across ideological lines. There is a fussy, battling matriarch Martha (Greta Oglesby is a strong, appealing presence) who shuttles from one location to another to find peace. Victor, a construction worker and the head of his family (Joshua L. Green, magnetic and powerful) is exhausted by the frustration of the family's economic woes, so he turns to Marcus Garvey and the “Back to Africa” movement for a kind of guidance. Meanwhile, brother-in-law Daniel (Amir Abdullah, ever present and antagonistic), wants to beat society at its own game, so he's diving into capitalism full-bore. He even buys a building to turn into apartments. And the problem for Victor is that Daniel seems to always have just enough money, which makes the more difficult philosophical stance in following Garveyism even more pronounced. The family is constantly battling to hang onto each other.
Meanwhile Lester (effectively understated by Patrick Newson Jr.) is about to go to college and waiting on scholarship money. When the money is denied to him because of his race, it begins in Lester's mind a long-range consideration in banding groups together with his Jewish friend Nathan (Artem Kreimer, quiet and appropriately supportive) to solve the family's issues. Ella (the marvelous Sharriese Hamilton) is constantly pushed to the brink, trying to hold onto a family that seems more and more bent on self-destruction. Ella has a breakdown about husband Victor where she finally shares her frustrations. Yet she continues to be a stoic presence and will not bend to the pressure, no matter how it affects her personally. Family, first and foremost.
When the Great Depression hits, the family is one of many facing eviction. In time, there are officers sent to make sure the eviction is carried out, becoming a behemoth that the Masons simply cannot fight. Lester, in the meantime, has gathered his friend Nathan and several others to make sure that the family stays in the house. The ending is still a surprise in its violence, and Victor pays the ultimate price for his will to keep the family moving forward.
The seventeen-player ensemble is exactly that—an actor's ensemble to the end. They feed off each other well, and each leaves a strong, individual mark. Ayanna Bria Bakari (Wanda Mason), Saran Bakari (Claudine/Sister Gabriella), Jada Jackson (Caroline Mason), Ronald L. Conner (Percy Mason), Alanna Lovely (Juanita Rogers), and John McBeth III (Philip Mason) are the family unit. Other strong contributions come from Anthony Irons and Lionel Gentle as the officers who help Victor in his adaption to Garveyism; Brandon Dahlquist as the Lieutenant in the eviction; and Nathan Daniel Goldberg as Bailiff.
Mr. Ward was a playwright and writer of strong leftist stance and allowed it all to reflect in his work. The “fog” is both literal poverty and figurative uncertainty about the right path forward. The "dream deferred" from the Langston Hughes poem is a reflection of how Ms. Hansberry viewed the same experience, some twenty years later, in her own activist outlook. In a way, she stands on Mr. Ward's shoulders. Both deal with dreams, with housing, with systemic racism. Both the fog and the dream deferred represent the same frustrating viewpoint. And both stand out loud in their own ways to shout the virtues, and the very tightness, of the family unit.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com Coming soon, his new solo play about Ben Franklin, THE FIRST EMBASSY.
PHOTO | Michael Brosilow
Court Theatre
presents
Big White Fog
5535 South Ellis Avenue
though October 12
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