I didn’t know much about the life and legacy of Stokely Carmichael before seeing the world premiere of Nambi E. Kelley’s “Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution” at Court Theatre.
By the time the 90-minute one-act directed by Tasia A. Jones was over, I had a better understanding of what the playwright thought motivated the activist, but I wasn’t — and still am not — sure her perceptions are accurate.
According to Kelley, Carmichael, who was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1941 and died in Conakry, Guinea, in 1998, had serious mother issues. He couldn’t forgive his mother, Mabel Charles (later May Charles), for abandoning him when he was only 2 to emigrate to the United States, leaving him in the care of his Trinidadian grandmother who instilled in him the value of bitter experience as she mixed the medicine for his asthma attacks. At age 11, he rejoined his parents in Harlem, and they later moved to the East Bronx where he became an activist while attending the Bronx High School of Science and then Howard University.
One of the original Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) freedom riders in 1961, Carmichael was a major voting rights crusader in Mississippi and Alabama but became disillusioned with the two-party system after the 1964 Democratic National Convention and decided to devote himself to developing independent all-Black political organizations including the national Black Panther Party. He helped popularize the philosophy of Black power in his speeches and writings, becoming so crucial and controversial that he was targeted by the FBI. As a result, he moved to Africa in 1968, adopted the name Kwame Ture and began campaigning internationally for revolutionary socialist pan-Africanism as a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
In Kelley’s play, the tense relationship between him and his mother persists right up until he’s dying of prostate cancer at the age of 57 in Guinea. He asks her to carry on his legacy by helping with the recordings he’s making, and she refuses.
A difficulty with following the storytelling is that it’s totally nonlinear. The idea that Ture is recording his memories of important people, places and events in his life as they come to him is the device Kelley uses to bop around in time and space, making thematic connections if she wants to; if not, not.
One minute, Carmichael is a cancer patient anxious to complete his project before he dies. The next, he’s a little boy gasping for breath because of his asthma. The next, a passionate young man arguing for voting rights. The next, a wooer approaching his idol, Miriam Makeba. And he’s played at every age by Anthony Irons, who gives a powerful performance, especially considering the difficulty of the task.
For those of us who aren’t as knowledgeable about the civil rights and Black power movements of the 1960s and 70s as we should be, keeping straight all the influential people in Carmichael’s orbit is a challenge, especially since most of them are portrayed by three actors: Dee Dee Batteast (Grandma Cecilia and others), Melanie Brezill (Tante Elaine, Miriam Makeba and others) and Kelvin Roston Jr. (Carmichael’s father Adolphus, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others). Yes, we’re probably all familiar with Dr. King, Malcolm X, James Baldwin (referred to as “Jimmy”), John Lewis and Fannie Lou Hamer, but I only knew Bayard Rustin’s name from the recent movie about him. Court doesn’t use printed programs anymore, but the digital one would benefit from having a glossary.
There also are parts of the script that need more attention. Carmichael’s father seems to function only to express dismay over his son’s turning down admission to Harvard University. An incident involving Carmichael’s comment about a woman’s place in the movement being “prone” is recounted just so it can be dismissed as a joke (should any feminists have doubts about him).
The great South African singer Makeba is seriously short-changed, relegated to a very brief courtship and the suggestion that the hit her career took because of his political activities caused their divorce. Ture’s second marriage and children aren’t even mentioned.
Mom May has a big role, however, and Wandachristine does the character’s flawed, prickly nature justice. The arguments between her and Irons’ Stokely are among the highlights of an evening that relies too heavily on telling rather than showing, notwithstanding the special effects for riots and police raids and a couple of lovely spirituals.
Yeaji Kim’s scenic design featuring all sorts of furnishings and other stuff piled high conjures up a barricade (perhaps deliberately), and Daphne Agosin’s lighting adds atmosphere. So do Willow James’ sound design and Gregory Graham’s costumes, though until the in-your-face finale, “Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution” somehow misses the gestalt of Carmichael’s time.
