A Play's Exploration Of Four Thorny Issues

True to its title, Face to Face, a two-act play which ran recently at the National Black Theatre in Harlem (in association with the Brooklyn-based Rainbow Repertory Theatre), bravely confronted four thorny issues within the African-American community: homosexuality, color-consciousness, sexism, and class, with a generous amount of humor thrown in to ease the tension.

The action of the play takes place entirely in the inner city Washington, D.C. home that Neal (Jeff A. Haskins), a black nationalist undergrad at Howard University, shares with Marcus (Raan Lewis), a religious homeboy.

When Neal's brother Sammy (Bryan Webster), who is about to graduate from Notre Dame, calls him from the airport to announce his arrival in town, Neal rebuffs his request to stop by. It's clear there is no love lost. One cause of the tension is Sammy's "theft" of Neal's girlfriend Hillary. Another source of tension is Sammy's reputation as the "boy wonder" of the family.

While waiting for Neal to come home, Sammy meets Marcus. They instantly take a dislike to each other because of class differences. When Catherine (Tia Sinclair), a light-skinned classmate of Neal and Marcus, enters the picture, she accepts Sammy's invitation to dinner. Neal hits the roof when he learns he has lost another girl to Sammy. After he finds some love letters in Sammy's bag addressed to a guy named Tim, he sees his chance for revenge.

During the confrontation with Neal, Sammy gets his second attack of stomach pains (AIDS-related?) which forces Neal to regard his brother with more sympathy. That sudden change of heart I found unbelievable, especially since the brothers, Neal in particular, have such deeply rooted animosity toward each other.

Near the end of the play, Sammy, with suitcase in hand, prepares to catch his flight back to Notre Dame. Before he can set foot outside the door, he and Marcus come face to face again. This time the confrontation has a murderous result when Marcus, a closet queen, discovers his true feelings for Sammy.

Although Bryan Webster's acting is a little wooden and he and Jeff Haskins look too old to be undergrads, you'll be too involved in the swiftly moving story to care, especially when Raan Lewis, a truly gifted actor, is on the stage.

This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (November 21, 1991).

Two Actors, Few Props, No Scenery

For  its second season, Rainbow Repertory Theatre will present January 6-21 [1989] Philip Blackwell's Twoheads, a theatre piece for two actors, at the Alonzo Players Theatre, 317 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn.

Originally commissioned in 1983 by John W. M. Neeley, a black art gallery owner in New York, Twoheads, in its diversity of themes and characters, has something of interest for almost everybody. The ten vignettes--some humorous, some serious--explore such issues as torture in South Africa, intergenerational romance, sexism, and homosexuality.

The production, directed by Rainbow Rep's artistic director Reginald T. Jackson, is not only a challenge to the actors, Raan Lewis and Bryan D. Webster, who must play a multitude of roles, but also to its audience who are required to use their imaginations since there are few props and no scenery. "Theatre happens," explained playwright Blackwell, in an interview I did with him for the New York Native, "somewhere between you and the actor. You ought to participate in theatre. Not like film where you can sit there and it sort of does it to you. It's very passive. Theatre's not like that. In theatre there's 'suspension of disbelief.' You say, 'I'm not in this big room with this woman kicking me in my chair. I'm on this beach with these people. Once you do that you hear the surf. It's not there, but that's what happens."

Blackwell admits that "some of the pieces are more successful than others, of course. The piece, 'Herbert, Look,' is about a black gay man and his black lesbian friend who commit illegal acts on a billboard in San Francisco."

While waiting for a bus to take them to see a Busby Berkeley movie, Laurie calls to Herbert's attention the "offensive" billboard. Herbert, with a shrug, can't see "what's so terrible" about a black woman appearing in a liquor ad bearing the slogan "Have you ever tasted Black Velvet?" Laurie heatedly replies, "How can you look at it and not see that it's a terrible ripoff of women? And in this case, a ripoff of black women?" She decides, to Herbert's dismay, to take "direct action"--with spray paint.

"Herbert, Look," continued Blackwell, "comes out of an aborted play I tried to write and which had never gone anywhere for me. To be honest, it works better as a piece in Twoheads than it would have worked as a play.
"'Brother, It's Good to See You' is the South African piece that was also very successful. It comes out of a combination of my continuing concern with what's going on in South Africa, what that means to me as a black man in America, and some specific things that I read."

Samuel, a victim of police torture, tells his friend Frederick of his experience: "If you'd seen what I've seen. We were in cells only this high. You couldn't lie out, you couldn't stand up... And hot. And no water...And the torture rooms...We could hear the screams. Then silence. Then screams again. They would come to the cell and pound on the door. And laugh. They would say, 'Come on, you're next.' And then...nothing would happen. They would go away."

Twoheads is part of Rainbow Rep's continuing effort to promote the work of gay and lesbian playwrights of color, with the added aim of presenting positive and inspiring images, especially to gay youth, who will be provided free admission.

This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (January 21, 1989).

Note: See blog post published on April 3, 2012 for an interview with the late Philip Blackwell.