Thurgood at the PPT

Last night, a few other local Pittsburgh bloggers and I got to see the PPT's production of Thurgood playing at the O'Reilly dahn-tahn.  A good play, a good performance by Montae Russell, a good evening all the way round.

The play itself was written by George Stevens, Jr. and opened on Broadway in April of 2008 with Laurence Fishburne as Thurgood Marshall.  Earned the grown up Clean Miller a Tony nomination, by the way.

Told in the first person, this one-man bio relates many anecdotes of Marshall's life - including, of course, his interactions with some of the most important legal events of 20th century America.  Brown v Board of Education ranks high in those events.

In the rare event that you didn't know (or have been living under a rock for the past 6 decades or you get your news entirely from Fox News), that was the case where the Supreme Court unanimously declared that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Plessy and educational segregation was ended.

I was curious to see how the decision played out in the local press at the time - what did the Post-Gazette have to say about it?  The Pittsburgh Press?  Luckily, the Google News Archive gives us access to both.

On May 18th, 1954, the editorial board of the Editorial Board of the Post-Gazette editorialized in favor of the ruling:


And published this editorial cartoon a day later (May 19, 1954):


One really can't fault Cy Hungerford for being a man of his time (I am sure he was a great guy and he obviously thought the end of school segregation was a good thing) but there's something mildly offensive to me about about the whole imagery.  Seems a bit patronizing - with a little more than a hint of racial caricature in how the two kids were drawn.  To my eyes, at least.

On the other hand, I'm looking in from more than five decades later - how was Cy to see that I'd be put off by his cartoon 59 years later?

The Press was similarly pleased (with a caveat of sorts) with the decision:


And the caveat?  This paragraph:

Extremists of both races?  I know what white extremism looked like on that then - this is from the front page of the Press from that very day:

What would the opposite analog be?  What was the extremism opposing segregation looking like back then?  How many troops?

59 years since Brown is a long time, to be sure.

1776 Follow-up

Last night, the lovely wife and I finally got to see the Pittsburgh Public Theatre's production of 1776.

Good performance - though you gotta rush if you wanna see it.  It closes on the 24th.

A month or so ago I was lucky enough to score a chat with two of the leads; Steve Vinovich, who plays Franklin and George Merrick, who plays Adams.  Last night they were nice enough to give me a few more minutes of their time to discuss what, if any, effect an actor's extended performance of a play has on that actor's understanding of the play or the part.

I got the idea from this series of books on Shakespeare - not just a blogger, you know.  I got some lernin' too!

Anyway, their answers were quite interesting.  It wasn't necessarily the case that an actor would understand the role any deeper - unless I misunderstood, they both said that they tried new things over the course of the production to keep the flow of the narrative fresh.  "Things" being defined, I guess, as subtle shifts of tempo or inflection in how they speak their lines.

In strictly musical terms, I'd say they were always working to find the groove.

Vinovich admitted he tried something new last night.  Towards the end of the play, after debating the necessity of removing the passages on slavery written into the Declaration of Independence, Franklin says:

We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?

Vinovich said he shifted the emphasis on that last line a bit and played it down somewhat.

The part that surprised me/impressed me (and this is out of complete ignorance on my part) is that they're working to improve with the performance with only a handful left.

As I said - good performance.  Catch it if you can.

Next up for the PPT: Thurgood.  From the PPT's website:

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became our first African-American Supreme Court Justice. In this exuberant one-man play we hear Thurgood’s story in his own words – from humble beginnings as a waiter in Baltimore, to behind the scenes with leaders such as General MacArthur, Robert Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson, to his triumphant rise to the highest court in the land. A journey of epic proportions, Thurgood is an eye-opening, humorous, and uplifting portrait of a true American hero.