‘Scottsboro Boys’ in minstrel format depicts judicial travesty

 

Carol Davis

SAN DIEGO—Just recently the curtain came down on Cygnet Theatre’s critically acclaimed Parade, Alfred Uhry’s historical musical drama depicting the story of Leo Frank and the lynching that led to his untimely death after being falsely accused of raping and killing young Mary Phagan.

Frank managed an Atlanta pencil factory where Phagan was brutally murdered on the fateful day that Frank chose to work in his office instead of attending a Confederate Memorial Day parade.  The play depicted Frank’s trial, the commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment,  the prison “break-in” and Frank’s subsequent lynching in Marietta.

Fast-forward to 1931 and another notorious case of “southern hospitality” makes the news.

Now through June 10, the Old Globe Theatre in association with American Conservatory Theatre is mounting the Kander and Ebb musical or minstrel /vaudeville show look alike/sound alike to bring our attention to another miscarriage of justice in this, the West Coast premiere of  The Scottsboro Boys. In a 180-degree turnabout, these two shows, both Tony Award nominees, couldn’t be more of a contrast all around in presentation.  That said, there is more than one way to skin a cat to make a point and Scottsboro Boys does just that.

Scottsboro Boys is based on the real life story of nine black teenagers in 1930’s Alabama who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aong with several others, they  just happened to be riding the freights hopping from car to car either looking for work or just plain adventure.  The Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931 had two dozen or so white and black young men along with two white women dressed in overalls aboard.

A fight erupted between the two camps on the train; the blacks forced most of the white men off the train. After the white boys complained to the stationmaster, the train was stopped and mounted by a posse in Paint Rock,  Alabama. Things went from bad to worse and the blacks were rounded up, arrested and taken to a jail in Scottsboro on charges of assault.  Complicating the mess, the two white women from Paint Rock accused the boys of brandishing knives and pistols while gang-raping them.

The trials of the Scottsboro Boys began twelve days after their arrest when the Interlocutor proclaimed, “We are men of justice”.  “That’s right!” answered Sheriff (Bones). “Our justice!”

Over the course of the next two decades the Scottsboro Boys, as they were lumped together and called, had one trial after another. They were found guilty and had their convictions overturned on several occasions and the girl accusers even recanted their stories, but to no avail.  The juries were all white men. Their original lawyers were drunk (one was called Johnny Walker) incompetent or just plain unwilling to listen to reason; witnesses were never cross-examined and when the boys were called to defend themselves it became a mockery.

Their last and best bet of an attorney was Samuel Leibowitz, a northern lawyer to have been brought in to defend them. He too was Jewish and from New York as was the lawyer who defended Frank. He also had a sterling record of 77 acquittals.  Their fate nonetheless, was predetermined as was Frank’s. It seems race and religion were the trump cards held in southern politics at the time.

The musical team of composers John Kander and the late lyricist Fred Ebb are no strangers to musical theatre aficionados. If you know Chicago and Cabaret then you know their work. Both shows delve into the serio-comic events, in rather contemptuous ways, of the stories they are depicting and both are anchored in the early 20th century. In Chicago much of the same cynicism and mockery are used to make a point.

Add David Thompson’s book and Tony Award-winning choreographer and director Susan Stroman (The Producers and Contact) to the mix along with a cast of 13 very talented singers and dancers, a gripping historical story to tell and beware of the flying debris from this latest bombshell of a musical.

The only white character in Scottsboro Boys is the / Interlocutor/ narrator/master of ceremonies, (Ron Holgate).  Looking more like W.C. Fields or as some thought Colonel Sanders he introduces us to his two sidekicks, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo (Jared Joseph and JC Montgomery) who play the parts of the clowns, the corrupt sheriffs, the smarmy lawyers and the prison guards with distain, sarcasm and scorning smiles daring us not to believe them.

But when the story focuses on the nine men, all teenagers, the seriousness of what faces them creeps into the psyche and one almost feels guilty for enjoying the levity of what’s in front of us knowing full well that this is not a musical comedy that has a happy ending but a charade in the form of one. Stroman and company faced with a musical at odds with itself manage a degree of excellence that begs, not only for more, but also for a different ending. Would that it could have been.

Thankfully, the minstrel show has gone the way of Mr. Tambo but that’s not to say that Scottsboro Boys didn’t benefit from the form. Getting the story out in a more traditional way might not have made the impact that this particular format has. Some of the stock characters and shtick are still there such as the black face minstrel number that drew a collective gasp from the audience, but Thompson’s narrative when the ‘boys are telling the story’  is able to move away from the stereotyping and present us with nine real life flesh and blood characters that the state chose to treat as one.

Most of the cast are black men with the exception of Holgate, who also plays the white judge and governor of Alabama. The Lady (C. Kelly Wright) whom we learn is witness to the events, becomes a bridge to the future segues into Rosa Parks at the end of the play and stays in character throughout. Her character marks the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, as was the case of Leo Frank and the beginning of the Anti Defamation League.

Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, the two white women who accused the boys of rape, are played tongue in cheek by James T. Lane and Clifton Oliver. Clifton Duncan plays Hayward Patterson, with a vengeance.  He was one of the nine who was the most defiant refusing freedom rather than admitting guilt to a crime he never committed. Patterson entered prison as an illiterate and within eight months was writing letters home and reading anything he could get his hands on. At the urging of journalist I.F. Stone, Haywood told his story and in 1950 his book The Scottsboro Boys was published.

In Beowulf Boritt’s simple set design, twelve or thirteen chairs stacked in a pile when the play opens  are transformed into box cars, holding cells, prison cells, staircase to heaven, windows, a bus, planks and any other change of venue the story takes us. Ken Billington’s lighting design worked miracles as an electric chair reenactment played out and Toni-Leslie James’ costumes fit the bill especially for the two clowns.

All in all, the entire ensemble along with musical director Eric Ebbenga’s nine-piece orchestra, Jon Weston’s sound design and Larry Hochman’s orchestrations Scottsboro Boys is one of those rare pieces that brings a multitude of musical flavor enhancing the grim background information of a time in our history that most would like to forget, but thanks to Kander and Ebb, we won’t.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: through June 10

Organization: Old Globe Theatre

Phone: 619-234-5623

Production Type: Musical

Where: 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park

Ticket Prices: start at $39

Web: theoldglobe.org

Venue: Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage

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Davis is a San Diego based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com