The Good Negro Goodman Theatre | Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Viaduct Theater
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The action starts with the violent arrest of young mother Claudette (Nambi E. Kelley), who’s taken her four-year-old daughter into the whites-only restroom of a department store because the one for colored women was out of order. A trio of black activists—charismatic, media-savvy Reverend James Lawrence (Billy Eugene Jones); his coarse, showy second-in-command, Henry (Teagle F. Bougere); and fastidious, stats-happy Rutherford (Demetrios Troy)—immediately seize on Claudette’s case as a cause celebre. She’s perfect for their purposes—a “good Negro,” attractive, well-spoken, and respectable.
Claudette’s blue-collar husband, Pelzie, is quite a bit less polished, and through him Wilson explores an aspect of the civil rights movement that tends to get overlooked: the divide between its middle-class leaders and the dirt-poor blacks who often felt estranged from it. Pelzie’s resentment of the “sweet-talking preacher mens” and his resistance to becoming their pawn make him far and away Wilson’s most interesting character, especially as played by Tory O. Davis, who gives him a powerful air of sullen reserve.
The oldest of the men was born in 1912, the youngest in 1982, and there are representatives from almost every decade in between. They come from all over the south—rural spots in Mississippi and North Carolina and metropolises like New Orleans and Atlanta. Johnson groups their narratives into categories announced with supertitles (“Coming Out,” “Sex,” “Love/Relationships,” and so on) and weaves in his own recollections of growing up black and gay in Hickory, North Carolina. Johnson evokes each man’s distinctive personality and, especially, his peculiar way of putting things. The oldest, a nonagenarian called Countess Vivian, says of discovering that he liked men, “I don’t know what caused it, it just come right on, you know?” On the subject of AIDS, a dandyish Atlantan asks, “Can you imagine the Broadway shows we would have had if we hadn’t had AIDS? Shows I would have been star of?”
Through 6/6: Wed-Sun and Tue 5/25, check with theater for showtimes, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$71.
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South
Through 5/29: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western, 773-296-6024, aboutfacetheatre.com, $15-$25.
