Happy Graduation to all those making this big step into adulthood. One could say, that in America, the rite of passage has been replaced with graduation in three steps: elementary, middle school and the great step – high school which often signals adulthood—college, living on one’s own for the first time, independence. Happy Birthday to the June Geminis and Cancers. Happy Solstice and safe travels to all those Returning to the Motherland this 400 Year Anniversary Celebration and Remembrance.

On the Fly:
Oakland Ballet hosts: 5^th Annual East Bay Dances at Laney College Odell Johnson Theatre, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland, Sunday, June 2, at 4 p.m. Visit oaklandballet.org  43Frameline— June 20-30; SFDocFest 2019— May 29-June 13 at the Roxie and Brava. There are many African and African Diaspora Films this year, local films too. Don’t miss: Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts; Soar Torian Soar; Circles; Recorder; Our Bodies Our Doctors; A Growing Thing, Barstow, CA;The Land of High Mountains; Dusty Groove (listen to blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks where you can listen to interviews with directors);  Stern Grove Festival, Free Music in the Park — June 16-Aug. 18; SF Black Film Festival, June 13-16

The Museum of the African Diaspora’s Coffee, Rhum, Sugar & Gold, curated by Dexter Wimberly and Larry Ossei-Mensah, continues through August 11.

In this exhibit, which deconstructs visually across a range of materials and expressions utilizing iron gates dipped in porcelain, sugar coated hymnals, sacred texts, rosaries, shredded cardboard mutts, beaded tapestries, broken glass . . . . Wimberly instructed docents to encourage patrons to read the carefully crafted texts near the art before posing a question. There is also work which uses video, almost like flashback or return to a time before freedom. All the work queries colonialism and its stain on blackness and how indelible is the damage. We see this query played out in artist choices and revisited here after meeting with negative criticism elsewhere. The public gets used to seeing an artist work in a certain way and resists change, berates the creator for the rupture. I am happy Angel Otero, Puerto Rican artist, who lives and works in Chicago and New York, persisted anyway. The wrought iron-looking gates remind me of railing, balconies, staircases in New Orleans and Haiti and West Oakland.

A special series of films from the Caribbean Diaspora: “Still Here” are presented in 3-parts: May 8-June 9, June 12-July 14, and July 17-August 11. Still here explores stories of migration, displacement and survival in films by eight artists that represent a spectrum of the African Diaspora. In addition to these films in MoAD theatre, free after admission, Cornelius Moore has curated Caribbean in Motion Film Series which begin, Wednesdays @ 6:30 p.m., July 10-August 7. MoAD is located at 685 Mission and Third Streets in San Francisco.

Dignity Images: Bayview Hunter’s Point is also up in the first floor gallery through August 11. Curated by American Artist, the work looks at how the selfie blurs the line between private and public. Does social media desecrate or malign the self-image? How is integrity maintained in the absence of reflection? American Artist’s “dignity image” holds space for wonder. The DI is not shared via social media. Philosophically this image that is withheld is “a nonverbal assertion of agency,” it is a “performative persona of self.” This exhibit is also curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah with Emily Kuhlmann and the photography workshops took place in Bayview Hunters Point, supposedly “the Most Isolated Neighborhood in San Francisco.”

I am not sure if Bayview residents would agree. Given Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre’s “Picture This: Bayview Hunter’s Point,” the performance piece that incorporated, dance, video interviews, music and other texts into a work that excavated the stories and lives of a community left unexplored – a rich community James Baldwin visited at the height of the ‘60s unrest. Take This Hammer is the film KQED made documenting his visit to Birmingham in the north and the conversation with the youth, who are elders now.

When I spoke to American Artist, they told me that they worked with youth at BAYCAT. I think the oldest participant is 65-70? Everyone was familiar with cell phones and social media. In the exhibit though, artists share their “Dignity images,” which seems to defeat the purpose (smile). There is a video playing which shows American Artist and youth talking about their work. Interesting the idea of dignity image juxtaposed with that of commodities traded for human flesh. African labor created the wealth colonial subjects now borrow—what a twisted fate. African descendants in the Diaspora and in Africa, borrow what we rightfully own plus interest.

Let’s Talk: National Day of Drumming and Healing June 19

This year on June 19, the day when Africans in Texas learned that they were free, also marks a recognition of the 400 Year Anniversary of the first Africans enslaved in America. From Angola, these Africans landed at Ft. Comfort, Virginia in August 1619. Congress has enacted a bill and elected a 400 Commission to mark this historic moment with a program: “Let’s Talk—International Day of Drumming and Healing.”  Throughout the country on June 19 there will be activities honoring African Ancestors of the Middle Passage.

In Oakland, 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14^th Street in downtown Oakland, we will be screening the film Sankofa, dir., Haile Gerima, followed by a facilitated conversation. Come early, 5 p.m. and you can make a drum or rattle. The event is free, however, donations are welcome.

San Francisco Bay Area Juneteenth 2019

Juneteenth Freedom Celebrations take place throughout the month of June throughout the state; however, we have a lot going on in Northern California from San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond to Sacramento, Vallejo, Emeryville, San Jose, and Folsom. Allensworth has a regular program on Juneteenth. The park is open 10-4 daily.

Earlier in the month Sat., June 8, 11-1, Omnira Institute will host its Annual Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance at Lake Merritt near the Boat House. All are welcome.

Earlier that morning, is the Annual International Libations for African Ancestors of the Middle Passage, also at Lake Merritt at 9 a.m. Please arrive by 8:30 a.m. and wear white. This ritual remembrance is for people of African descent. Our special guest, Baba Michael Khubaka Harris will share California stories of emancipation and freedom and sacred ancestral sites like the burial ground in the San Francisco Presidio where 100s of Buffalo Soldiers are buried, as well as the story of a 17-18^th century African American church in San Francisco’s Union Square.

Two Juneteenth Events in Folsom—June 8 & June 29

1. 2019 Folsom Juneteenth – Reclaiming the Past, Pan African Heritage along the American River Parkway, June 8 at 10:30

2. Negro Bar Juneteenth— 170th Year of Negro Bar, Alta California, Sat., Jun 29 2019 at 10:30 am

Negro Bar State Park, Folsom, California 95630, California, United States
Reclaiming the Past – 2019 Negro Bar Juneteenth Celebration of Pan African Heritage in Early California History.

Together, we will celebrate the 170th Anniversary of Negro Bar and explore Chinese, Russian, Mormon, Mi-Wuk, Mexican, and other cultural stakeholders groups who originally lived in the town Negro Bar beginning in 1849, the original Gold Mining District.

Our collective and authentic legacy throughout the Folsom Lake National Recreational Area remains the greatest California Gold Rush story never told.  Come celebrate freedom with our festive beach fashion show and party.

Juneteenth at Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive
Film and Discussion, 12 noon

Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive celebrates Juneteenth with a screening and discussion featuring artist Mildred Howard, whose work is on view in About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging. Following a presentation of the new documentary Welcome to the Neighborhood, the artist joins in conversation with Leigh Raiford, UC Berkeley associate professor of African American studies, and Lawrence Rinder, BAMPFA director and chief curator.

A thirty-minute film by award-winning producer, director, and editor Pam Uzzell, Welcome to the Neighborhood explores Mildred Howard’s long family roots in the Bay Area and the impact of gentrification on local residents. Howard’s mother, Mabel Howard, moved to San Francisco during World War II and became part of the growing community of African Americans in South Berkeley, where she spearheaded many significant political and community projects. Today, her renowned artist daughter Mildred can no longer afford to live in her lifelong home city.

BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street Berkeley, (510) 642-0808 or bampfa@berkeley.edu
https://bampfa.org/event/screening-and-discussion-welcome-neighborhood

Juneteenth Celebration at Allensworth hosted by Friends of Allensworth
June 8, 2019, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Visit http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=583

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. It was on June 19th, that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had become official on January 1, 1863. This day is celebrated by African Americans in honor of their ancestors who received notice of being set free on June 19, 1865. There’s great entertainment. Great speakers and of course, fabulous free tours of the historic buildings, given by the Friends of Allensworth docents. Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park is located at 4011 Grant Dr., Earlimart CA 93219, (661) 849-3433

Oakland Juneteenth – In the Town, June 15, 2019, 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM, at Eastmont Town Center Parking Lot, 73rd & Bancroft, Oakland, Free.

2019 National Juneteenth Freedom Day — SF Presidio Officers Club

Join California Black Agriculture Working Group and guests for a special 2019 National Juneteenth Freedom Day Tour beginning in the lobby of the SF Presidio Officers Club as we explore our unique past, present and future at the SF Presidio. Together, we will explore the role San Francisco played in the National Underground Network to Freedom, Wed., June 19, 2019, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT at the Presidio Officers’ Club, 50 Moraga Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94129

2019 is the 89^th Annual San Francisco Juneteenth Parade & Festival on Fillmore between Geary Blvd and Golden Gate, Saturday, June 15, 2019, 10 am to 6 pm. The Parade is at 11 am. Visit http://sfjuneteenth.com/

This year’s parade is dedicated to Rachel Townsend, the stalwart leader of San Francisco’s Juneteenth who passed away earlier this year. In her honor the parade has been renamed the Rachel Brooke Townsend San Francisco Juneteenth Parade.

Bring the family and come spend a day celebrating African American culture and community. Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration among African Americans across the country commemorating the announcement of the end of slavery in the United States.

Grown Women Dance Collective’s Juneteenth Celebration through Dance
Fallen Heroes, Rising Stars: A Juneteenth Celebration Through Dance by Grown Women Dance Collective’s 10th Anniversary performances, 6/22 at 6:30 pm & 6/23 at 2 pm, $25-$35. Tickets available through Eventbrite.

SF African American Chamber of Commerce Annual Juneteenth Awards, “The Future of African American Businesses – Shifting the Paradigm” is Fri, June 28, 2019, 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM, at the War Memorial Veterans Building, The Green Room, 2nd Floor, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

Family First Foundation: We Are Connected by Our Roots presents: 12th Annual Juneteenth Celebration in Oakland, Sat., June 22, 2019. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., outside the West Oakland Youth Center, 3233 Market Street, Oakland. It’s free.

A Juneteenth Lunchtime Drag Queen Story Hour with Beatrice L. Thomas, aka Black Benatar, June 19, 2019 at the Berkeley Art Center

Drag Queen Story Hour is just what it sounds like — drag queens reading stories to children. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender-fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.

Join for a special Juneteenth celebration in the BAC gallery. Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy in the park. All ages welcome: 06/19/19, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm. Suggested Donation $10 at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street – Berkeley.

The 32nd Annual Berkeley Juneteenth Festival, Sun., June 16, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Alcatraz-Adeline Corridor at Adeline and Alcatraz Ave. Celebrating African American culture and traditions with great entertainment, food, kid zone, arts & crafts and more.

The African American Community Service Agency presents its 38th Annual Juneteenth in the Park Festival in San Jose  Sat., June 15, 12-7 p.m. and AACSA Sankofa Open Mic Night, Friday, June 13, 6-8:30 p.m.

AACSA Sankofa Open Mic Night is at the Continental Bar, Lounge & Patio, 349 S. 1st Street, San Jose, June 13, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM (Doors open at 5:30 PM). Event Purpose: “If you got something to say, say something.” Elevating the voices of young adults and creative minds to express themselves through spoken word, song, and rhythm. Age Requirement: 21 + Cost: $10.00

Juneteenth in the Park Festival is at Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, 194 South Market Street, San Jose, Saturday, June 15, 2019, 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM; Costs: Kids 12 and under – Free all day | General Admission – Free before 1:00 PM, $10.00 after | VIP Ticket – $25.00VIP Ticket includes exclusive entry into the Ikea VIP Pavilion, preferred seating area at stage, 2 wine/beer tickets, express entry into the Festival, and exclusive raffle.  Visit www.bayareajuneteenth.org , call (408) 292-3157 or email info@sjaacsa.org

2019 Juneteenth at the State Capitol Celebration, Wed., June 19, 2019, 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM PDT, California State Capitol, West Steps, 10th Street and Capitol Mall Drive

Juneteenth at the State Capitol honors the ancient ones, focusing on our Pan African heritage during Spanish, Mexican and US influences along our journey toward freedom. Together, we will celebrate the year special year 1865 and invite all our relations to join the 2019

Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom: 1619-2019 marks a very special occasion to commemorate 400 years of enslavement and affliction since the first shipment of human cargo, prisoners of war, from the Kwanza River in Angola, hijacked on the open sea in the Bay of Campache, Mexico and brought to the English Colony along the St. James River in today’s Virginia.  Today, on Juneteenth, we celebrate the past, present and future of our very unique California Pan African Heritage.

2019 Stockton Juneteenth Heritage Tour “Voices to be Heard” will continue to celebrate the amazing legacy left by our ancestors and elders, as we continue a long and difficult journey towards freedom.  The tour is Friday, June 7, 2019, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT, and starts at the Historic Elk Street Colored School, 300 S. Monroe Street, Stockton, CA 95203

Other stops on the tour:
The Historic Port of Stockton community was a major station in the California, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, part of the “Lost Story.” Join us and discover how the Historic Stockton Waterfront District provided refuge for free and enslaved people of Pan African ancestry, before, during and after the establishment of the City of Stockton, in 1849, the dawn of the California Gold Rush Era.

The Black Church and civic responsible organization anchor the research and documentation of the journey towards freedom. Block 27, Stockton Rural Cemetery is where our ancestors are buried, yet the sharing our their collective history will begin to speak again, in profound ways, to modern day victims of the “Lost Story.”

Juneteenth Soul Food Dinner

Bell’s Soul Movement, 5959 Shellmound Street, Emeryville. She says, “My family came to San Francisco, and the Bay Area, from Port Arthur, Texas. They were part of a wave of Southerners in the Great Migration that decided to set out for a place that they could call their own. Juneteenth, celebrated every year on June 19th, marks the 1865 announcement of the abolition of slavery in that very state; Texas. For me, it’s a time to reflect, to gather with family and both to celebrate what we have achieved and to take note of all that remains to be done.” This dinner is to celebrate the multi-year lease for her business. She has invited her favorite “chef collaborators for the dinner, and some of [her] most respected community to share some of their perspectives on Juneteenth and what it means to be black in the Bay.  All profits will be donated to Dusty’s Fishing Well, in support of their work with black youth in the Bay Area.”

Flyway Productions’s The Wait Room a review/reflection Take 2

Flyway Productions’s The Wait Room, which premiered in San Francisco April 19-27, and May 17-18 in Richmond, looks at the effects of incarceration on family members left behind, specifically women. Jo Kreiter, director, choreographer of the work brought in collaborators from ESSIE Justice to provide stories which Pamela Z then mixed with music to create a literal landscape wherein dancers performing on a tilting set shifting both by the weight of dancers flying as well as other dancers moving the set on its axis. The Wait Room was quite remarkable especially opening night as inclimate weather pushed both dancers, choreographer,m designers and audience close to its collective edges. I wasn’t the only person seated on the edge of her seat.

Kreiter’s reflective choreography served discursive ends as dancers’ explored in text and form the difficulties inherent in an imaginal carceral structure. The somatic dissonance these women and children experience daily communicated in the flying broken falls frozen attempts at embrace– what happens when a person loses a loved one or a loved one taken away, out of touch beyond their physical reach? On both sides of the aisle, cell, room, children, wives, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, allies — wait.  The audience listens to the clock tick. . . as we all wait to the score repeats the refrain between movements: “And so you’re waiting, waiting hours, 2-3 days, it felt like forever. . . . I showed up visiting him. I didn’t know the rules. I would try going once a week. it’s 400 miles. The process of getting to him. It made me so uncomfortable. I remember holding my breath. So much nervousness. And so you’re waiting. No, you can’t go in. No. You can wear those pants. My dad’s hand was on the other side of the glass. I didn’t know the rules and they change between visits.”

It was a cold night in San Francisco. All my invited friends canceled that evening to join me. I nodded understandably as the winds blew threw my thin lining. However, once the performance began, the stories the artists told across a landscape that is visceral and emotional and caustic all at once, I’d like to say, I became a bit warmer– nope (smile). It even started to mist. Jo said she came really close to canceling opening night, but I am happy she didn’t. As the sun set in the distance, dancers sat in chairs, some high on the pole which was the center of the clock which ticked . . . time a casualty in a war where race, gender and economics convict certain babies before birth. All of a sudden, the captive mother who throws herself over the side of the slave ship is understood. She refuses to sit lie stay bound to uncertainty. The weight destroys happiness and joy. New life is a weight she cannot fathom– the unknown too much to contemplate. Waiting Room? What will the pronouncement be?

In Pamela Z’s score we women speak of not being about being turned away after traveling so far to see their loved one. Others share special moments once the wait is over and they are in the visiting room. Sentencing is not singular. It affects the person taken from home and his or her family too. Kreiter’s The Wait Room shares stories of consolidated loss capitalized: individual, family, community, nation, yet, Clarissa Dyas’s flight in the last movement reflects both defiance and strength. These women who wait are not going to give up or give over their loved ones.

The performance was across the street from UN Plaza in San Francisco, then moved to Richmond, California. It heads to New York September 20, where it will be performed outside Sing Sing Prison. The Wait Room, a site specific dance honoring women with incarcerated loved ones is part 1 of The Decarceration Trilogy: Dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex One Dance at a Time.. It is also, Jo says, her most intimate work to date, as it explores a private aspect of her life. She also spent many years as a woman who “waited.”  The marvelous dancers are  Bianca Cabrera, Clarissa Dyas, Laura Elaine Ellis, Sonsherée Giles, MaryStarr Hope, Megan Lowe with Lighting Designer: Jack Beuttler  and Costume Designer: Jamielyn Duggan.

Listen to three interviews: 1. Jo Kreiter;  2. Jo with Laura Elaine Ellis (dancer), Catalina “Caty” Palacios and Tanea Lunsford Lynx, members, ESSIE Justice; and 3. with the creative team, Pamela Z and Sean Riley. 

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Happy International Workers Day! Also Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers and those who nurture and take care of our children. Ramadan Mubarak to those beginning the month long fast to purify the nafs or self and grow closer to Allah, subhana wa ta’ala (most high and worthy of praise). 

Here are a couple plays you don’t want to miss. Turn into Wanda’s Picks Radio Show biweekly to catch up on the latest in cultural content.

A Black Mother’s Day Adventure
A Review of Fast Color (2018), directed by Julia Hart (1 hour 40 minutes)

With: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Denham, David Strathairn.

By Wanda Sabir

All the melanin in the poster attracted me to the title Fast Color, the reverse of “colorfast.” I wondered what the title meant. Certainly a chick flick, reminding me of what I liked most about A Wrinkle in Time, (a favorite book from childhood)—the largess of women and girls who on screen, at least, run the world.

In one scene agents have guns pointed at Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and she dissolves the guns into particles of metallic dust.  Her granddaughter, Lila, (Saniyya Sidney) has a similar skill, grandmother’s is just more refined. Mature, she grasps clearly what she can do to both unsettle and settle the planet. It is up to her daughter Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), returned home from a time away running from herself, afraid of her power, a power that harms rather than heals—to hone her skills so that she can make her world better.

Ruth knows her mother can help her and returns home after eight years to ask Bo for forgiveness, to get to know her daughter who is repairing her mom’s truck and to learn to use her power constructively.  She also needs to hide. Others know about her power to disrupt, and pursue her to see how they might make a profit.

Her seizures rupture the earth at its core—molten plates shifting as the landscape cries “no more.” The young mother is afraid she might accidentally hurt her child, so she gives her to her mother to raise and then leaves. For a women with so much going for her, Ruth sees her power as a handicap, something she tries to drown in recreational drug use, a temporary cure.

The arid desert landscape where Bo and granddaughter live is a homestead to generations of black magic women and their girls.  Bo shares stories from their living bible, a book filled with stories and drawings by the ancestral women of the house. Away from the larger community, these elders felt it better to keep to themselves, not mingle, that way, there would be little curiosity and trouble. Trouble seems to follow people who are different.  Ruth is proof of this. She cannot hide. However, we learn that these women are a part of a larger goddess society spanning the globe.

As matter is decomposed and molecules reassembled, the particles move as in a dance—the light and colors swirl as a kaleidoscope. It is a beautiful film—the huge fields and expansive skies are palates these goddesses use as easels. Viewers will never look at a metal door or handgun the same ever again. In fact, the next time we have an earthquake thoughts of Ruth will be inevitable.

When the film ends Ruth has made it rain and outside the San Francisco Metreon, the showers continued.

Now that’s powerful! The film opened with a limited run. It is still at the Parkway in Oakland. Check other listings or better yet, ask for it at your favorite cinema. It is the perfect Mother’s Day film—the Black Woman is God—really (smile).

I had an opportunity to speak to Gugu who played the mother in the film, “A Wrinkle in Time.” Her daughter and son—a little genius, with a neighbor went in search of their father, like mom, a scientist who’d been working on a special project. Human beings are always interested in time’s passage—how do we stop its motion, interrupt the inevitable? On the way to dad, who is trapped, the kids meet these really cool goddesses who each share a special gift to help the kids meet their goal. Based on Madeleine L’Engle’s book (1962) by the same title, Gugu intentionally accepts roles that lift up black women and girls, rather than exploit their characters.

I just thought it cool that this present film, “Fast Color,” is also written by a woman and stars women, three generations of African Diaspora women. Whether she is an enslaved woman who is then freed, a mother or here – a stoned superhero who is in denial, the actress gives compelling and thoughtful performances.

I had a short but fun interview with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who portrays Ruth in “Fast Color.”

Good Morning.

Wanda Sabir:  I just want to say that Fast Color is such a phenomena film– three generational of women with super powers. Oh my gosh.

So tell me about your Ruth. As an actress growing up in Whitney, England, I am sure there might have been some similarities in so far as not quite fitting in or like being the only black girl. Talk a little about your character Ruth and what attracted you to her and your cinema family, Lorraine Toussaint as Bo your mom and your daughter who is so sweet, she has a whole other attitude about her power as she’s been nurtured by her grandmother, Ruth’s mother in a way Ruth as resisted.

Give us some context.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw: “Yes, this was one thing that appealed to me about the film, myself being an only child, pretty much growing up with my mom [though] not in a big farm house in Albuquerque (like Ruth, she laughs), but understanding that dynamic of mothers and daughters and how complicated that relationship can be as it evolves as young girls turn into young women and they express their independence and how intense that can be.

“So for me, I thought it was a really refreshing story. I hadn’t seen or read anything before this about three generations of women with these super powers. In talking to Julia Hart, our director, she had said she’d been inspired to write the story after the birth of her first child. This idea, how powerful and creative she felt after the ultimate creation, creating another human being. She wanted to celebrate that in a film. I’d never seen an unconventional super hero who was a mother as well — so many layers there that deal with the female experience.”

WS: Um hum. And the whole idea or metaphor of running and returning and being home and that scene where your character is in the tub with all this water and then her swimming and looking for her baby in the water. There are just so many layers. I hope the film is i the theatre so people have a chance to go see it twice. After that scene I was thinking what does that mean? Submerged in water, water birth, rebirth?

GMR: “I think the idea that Ruth has when she has just had Lila, given the seizures she has, which is how her power manifests. These seizures which then create earthquakes. They created this flood and she put her baby in danger. I think it was more symbolic, she was afraid of her own power. She hadn’t quite felt grounded in her own power and there was a shame and a fear about standing on her own two feet as a powerful woman.”

WS: So yeah, that was really interesting to me: the idea that Ruth is on the run that we see her sort of trying to get away from these (unidentified) men — male forces. I was more resonating with the idea that Ruth was on the run from herself, on the run from her authentic powerful womanhood. When she actually comes home to her mom, to her daughter and reconnects with the women in her family she is actually able to align herself much better. She’s centered and she’s able to become the powerful woman that she’s been all along.

Also when Ruth returns home she has an opportunity to be still and learn more about who she is because she is safe. Her mother hands her that book where her ancestors wrote their stories. Wow.

GMR: “There is so much power in stillness. We live in a very fast paced world with Internet and everyone on their phones every 5 seconds and everyone’s attention span is crumbling. I think there is definitely easier to be busy, to be on the run from your life, to be out there in the wilderness fighting for your life than it is to be actually still and really connect to the people who made you. That’s much more challenging. So yeah.”

WS: Just thinking about the title: Fast Color, you automatically want to say: Color Fast, right.

Gugu laughs.

WS: You are thinking of dyes that don’t run. The color sticks to the cloth. Ruth asks her daughter, what does it look like because she can’t see the color. Motion blurs the colors. That’s an interesting scene.

Ruth with her convulsions makes the earth move. And then her mother in one scene, she says, she is not afraid of the men who have been tracking her daughter. She is afraid of what she can do. In other words, she has been holding back. And then there is love. Where does a super sister find a mate or a boyfriend? How is she among her peers? Who’s Ruth’s dad?

Lila is ready to leave. Saniyya Sidney’s Lila is preparing the truck for a getaway. She says she is not about to die in these backwoods. She is so busting out.

Gugu laughs. “This is what is beautiful about the world Julia has created. We are in this recognizable world. There is a drought. Everything is kind of run down. It is very desatuated: a grainy dusty world. But these women, the powers that they have is all you need. I think everyone has a different expression of their power and that is just like life. We’re not trying to be a carbon copy of each other. That’s what’s so refreshing about this movie as it related to the superhero genre. It has a very different aesthetic. It’s much more grounded and really it’s not about special effects and weapons– traditionally more masculine expressions of power — it’s about the female power and that we have it within us through these different generations of women.

“So yeah, you’re right.”

WS: I just read that about half the films you’ve been in have been directed by women. I thought that was pretty amazing. I also read that as a woman of African descent that you don’t let the studios hide who you are so that your audience, especially black girls will recognize themselves in your person on the screen or stage.

I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that.

GMR: “For me at this point, working with female directors is just normal, it’s not anything exceptional. Like you said I probably work with more female directors than other artists. They are the ones who have given me the most nuanced characters to work on. It’s intentional on the one hand, but I’d have to say I am material driven as well. It’s about having a meaty character to get my teeth into.”

WS: I was looking at your body of work and you have done a lot both on stage and behind the camera. I didn’t notice, have you been a director yet.

GMR: “I have a lot of mentors and perhaps one day I’ll direct, she responds to my question. Hopefully women will come to this film with their mothers and daughters and be inspired by the work.”

To be continued.

 

Uppity Entertainment presents: David Banner’s God Box Lecture Tour at Its Black Business Fair

The mood was a contemplative one. David Banner’s God Box phenomena something creatively I was still trying to digest when the phone rang. After early morning pleasantry, we quickly went deep as in take no prisoners Africans reflecting on the state of a people who still believe in the okeydokey, after as Banner says white America has proven it is the greatest lie ever told. His Southern roots resonate in Oaktown, most of us transplants from one of the 5 colonies the Republic of New Afrika claims. Banner is from Mississippi, a Magnolia State like neighboring Louisiana—my home away from home.

Free Brown’s Uppity Edutainment, for the past three (3) years has hosted a variety of what its founder calls “edifying artistic expressions as a catalyst for change.” One of Uppity’s goals is to reframe popular notions of what blackness is. Nowhere is this alignment philosophically clearer than with David Banner and his God Box. The Grammy Award winning music producer, recording artist, philanthropist, activist and actor is bringing his lecture tour, a collection of thought-provoking lyrics housed in a metaphysical and actual container to Oakland for the Black Business Fair, May 4, 4-7 p.m., at Laney College Performing Arts Center Theatre, 900 Fallon Street. It’s a fundraiser to benefit: Hope Task Force’s Multi-Service Day, Sunday, May 19 at the West Oakland Youth Center, 3233 Market Street. Visit www.HopeTaskForce.org

Banner will speak at 7 p.m., however, earlier that afternoon at the Black Business Fair at Laney College’s Odell Johnson Performing Arts Center (theatre) 900 Fallon Street, there will be an opportunity for people to enjoy healthy food for the body and soul with vendors and entertainers. For tickets visit GodBoxOak.com

In a recent interview Banner and I spoke about his God Box, the power of art and imagination, trauma, body as sacred instrument, Sankofa, food as medicine, discipline and why Oakland was the first place he put up billboards when he launched his recent project, because Oakland stood by him when no one else did.

When I ask Banner, so what’s the God Box, he quotes his friend, Erykah Badu who cautions him about “defining his art, because if we are truly doing what we’re supposed to do, we are only the conduit to something higher. Maybe God is trying to get a message to the world through you.’”

It would be disappointing if an artist defined his work and in doing so alienated his fans. Better to not say too much, though Banner is tickled when he reflects on some of the descriptions of the God Box. He is also moved when elders tell him his album changed their spiritual trajectory or a young woman shares how while at a gas station wearing her God Box t-shirt, she has one of the most amazing conversations of her life with a stranger. I get the feeling though that Banner is not going to give up the goods on the God Box (smile).

“What I’ll say is that we are looking for God and the answers to life in the wrong place. If you really study the cover the album and listen to the outtake it will explain where I believe God is. I think if our people, descendants of African people found where God was again, our whole perspective or direction would change [too]. For me to tell people what it means, I think I would be crippling, but they can go pick it up at DavidBanner.com.

“I was trying to find a way to package all of this new information on my life. The only mistake that I made is I wish I would have put something in there from Dr. Sebi or Dr. Afrika about food, because that is such a big part of who I am. Fasting, and paying attention to the way I eat. People trip on how good I look. I choose to eat right. The way that I eat opens my mind up. I hear signals and messages so much better.”

“In order to truly become conscious you have to surround yourself [with the right attitudes]. It’s a lifestyle that you eat; it is what you think; it’s what you read; it’s what you say; it’s what you watch, so I put DVDs [in the Box]. It’s music, something that people can hear when they are in their cars; it’s clothes, something people can wear.” Consciousness is a lifestyle shift.

Wizdom Selah says in the God Box CD Outro:

“When I think about things. They happen
I can actually do, what I think about. I’m so powerful, I need to give more honor to that. The divine power in me and be deliberate. . . .
Why would I allow myself to drift when I can direct it? I was born with the instructions. Right and exact, consciousness, inner guidance, knowing, choosing how to act in every situation. I create me. Believe it. Turning thoughts into things. Turning vibrations, I feel into thoughts. Impulses I receive . . .”.

Steven Anthony Jones in August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” at Ubuntu Theatre Project through Sunday, May 5

August Wilson, playwright, was very much at home in the SF Bay.  I will never forget his workshop production of Jitney at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre where he encouraged a woman who criticized the absence of substantive women characters in his plays to write her own. Wilson said his journey was personal, yet there was room on the stage for multiple voices and perspectives.

His relationship with Stanley F. Williams and Quentin Easter at LHT, his support of black theatre and its playwrights formalized in a legendary speech June 26, 1996 at the 11^th Biennial Theatre Communication Groups International Conference at Princeton, might have slowed, if not saved the few independent centers across the country, legendary houses like the Negro Ensemble Theatre, where Steven Anthony Jones cut his teeth.

It is amazing that Wilson had no formal theatre training, yet was called to write the story of an American people with dignity and respect. He mentions in “How I Learned What I Learned” that an artist reaches an arch where the medium is exhausted and it’s time to move on. He tells a story of John Coltrane coming out of a club after a concert and asking a young artist to teach him something new. The young musician said he was still practicing scales, to which Coltrane encouraged him to keep practicing and moved on.

Jones is the consummate storyteller too. If you saw his “Thurgood,” also directed by Margo Hall, then you know that his timing is impeccable and cues tight. With a minimized set—desk, coat rack, easel for scene cues, we are carried away by characters and incidents as captivating as any created in Wilson’s imagination. “How I Learned” is insight into the birthplace of some of the familiar terrain covered in Wilson’s Century Cycle.

This nerve motor vital point is over http://icks.org/n/bbs/content.php?co_id=2013 tadalafil cost the forearm just beneath the elbow. Regretfully there is absolutely no ideal cost of viagra pills option pertaining to hairloss at the moment. A healthy sex life can bring happiness in a relationship, you know that relationships are not purchase viagra solely based on love and care. Any type of tinnitus should be checked out by a competent hypnotist, of which some may well have already have vascular illnesses and those that may have had penile implants as well that taking any of this medication for erection deprived persons. viagra price icks.org Though all the personal and professional slights, Wilson speaks of human dignity, a principle learned from his mother, whom he shares, wins a washing machine in a game show. When the hosts learn she is a black woman, they refuse her the prize. Instead they want to give her a certificate for a used washer from the Salvation Army. She refuses, saves up her money and buys her own.

Young Wilson hangs out with a drug dealer, dates a married woman, loses his poetry— is in way over his head most of the time, yet has a guardian angel on his shoulder and comes to no harm. His rite of passage is jail; however, he calls an attorney friend to ask for advice before he inadvertently breaks the law— the lawyer leaves out an important detail.

This play, a multiple theatre production: Marin Theatre Company, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and now Ubuntu Theatre Project, closes Sunday, May 5 at Mills College, Rothwell Theatre Center, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., in Oakland. Shows are 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday with two show Sunday, 2 and 7. For tickets and information call Ubuntu Theatre at 510.646.1126 or visit ubuntutheaterproject.com Tickets are pay-what-you-can at all shows.  Steven Anthony Jones needs more black people in the house. You will not be disappointed. Take a youth with you. In Jones’s capable and skilled hands, the show is funny, surprising and compelling. “How I Learned” is an important American history.

Jazz at Marin Theatre Company through May 19

Jazz adapted by Nambi E. Kelley, based on Toni Morrison’s novel, is a tragic composition. Performed across a series of lyrically connected (weaved) tapestries: colors, sounds, fractured memories . . . missing people, guns (bullets) falling tears, treetops, wild woods, sharecropped promises, fire terror, unclaimed bodies. . . too many bodies to count. . . love.

One of the least spoken about works, Morrison’s Jazz is a migration story, not a grand sweeping victory dance, rather an intimate tale of betrayal and suffering. Jazz asks the question: what happens to a girl who finds her mother’s twisted body in a well? What happens to a boy whose mother is seen running wild in the woods? For both girl and boy, fathers are lost. All the two have are stories or songs of their disappearances. When they meet one day in the field, the boy falling almost on the girl from a tree where he waits for his mother— they find in each other kinship, canvas to cover the holes in stories filled with ellipses marks—soothing lullabies grannies sing them to sleep.

When Violet (actress C. Kelly Wright) says she is leaving, her granny gives her a formula to kill any babies her body might conceive—castor oil, soap and salt. It becomes a bloody ritual, a pack she maintains to keep the ghosts at bay. Silently she bears all responsibility for conception, gritting her teeth and smiling to hide the pain, loss. Her husband gives her a bird, Parrot, excellently portrayed by actress Paige Mayas, to fill in silences—wails of babies smothered each month until Violet’s fertile soul breathes its last breath, says enough.

This story needs a chorus—a duet can hold only so much so there are the neighbors, nappy heads Violet has pressed, customers her husband, Joe, has serviced with his sample case.

Jazz is a story of betrayal and infidelity – a girl whose parents are killed in the riots as she watches the fires burn her innocence is also stripped bare. New skin silences. Her Auntie Alice (actress Margo Hall) cautions the girl to not let the music play her body, don’t give vent to sorrow best swallowed without processing. Don’t grieve. Let the dead lie buried even those unburied, she tells Dorcus who remains unsettled. If the characters: Dorcus (actress Dezi Soléy), Violet and Joe Trace (actor Michael Gene Sullivan) had been able to hear if not play the changes, perhaps a child might have been allowed to breathe . . . Dorcus the child who came too late.

There is so much symbolism here. Cotton bolls surround the virgin casket or bridal bed. Mourners offer their condolences while Violet carrying a knife cuts her rival’s face.

Jazz is a dirge or funeral march retold in a series of flashbacks. Reset—characters crisscross remembered terrain; however, the trauma remains unresolved as Violet visits the dead girl’s aunt. “Just let me sit,” she asks. Alice Manfred (Margo Hall) tells her to go away, but Violet will not go away. Who shot the girl and why?

Violet’s Sankofa journey sits at the intersection of peace and chaos, Parrot her talisman. All any of the three stoic fixtures know for sure is their mothers and fathers are lost. Abandoned in death or insanity – Joe Trace, Violet and Dorcus cannot make sense of the winding cloth that binds each one of them to cooling boards: one tragic song that is black life, but they try.

When Violet’s Joe leaves her for Dorcus, she tries across a series of missteps to know the dead girl, for Dorcus is her child, her life in a Diaspora filled with such black femme fatales. To move from home to a place like New York, foreign yet equally hostile and toxic meant that something had to die. There were parts of themselves black migrants had to amputate, kill, suffocate to bear the insults, daily slights—both spiritual and economic, to their humanity. Such toxicity poisoned loving relationships. Joe lost temporarily, almost permanently all “traces” of the boy who fell into Violet’s loving lap. Eventually there was only silence.

Violet became mute. What happens in a relationship silenced?

When the bank takes the couple’s land after Joe’s five year investment, (after he’d toiled and made a crop) to build a railroad or highway, he convinces Violet to leave the country for the unknown world of Harlem. The way he describes it is as a heavenly dream— it is not. However, Joe and Violet are stuck. There is nowhere else to go, so the two get used to hearing caged birds sing, a literary metaphor personified.

Like their ancestors, this journey was not anticipated of desired. When the protagonists meet, the two speak of how much they despise the city and never want to leave home for a place where people live stacked on top one another and never see the sun, feel dirt or grow food.

The playwright is skillful at creating auteurs, this bird is one of them—the parrot tells Violet she loves her. It becomes the surrogate child she has refused to birth. The bird knows Joe’s secrets, but she doesn’t tell Violet. Its beautiful voice fills in story where silences in the music the couple play is a clanging cacophony, dissonance normalized as Dorcus’s dead body and absent killer haunt the proceedings. Dorcus’s face looks at Violet from her apartment wall where she presides. Who would hang the photo of the woman-child who seduced your husband? Is Violet crazy? Yes, crazy for Joe, so crazy about Joe, Violet has to interrogate the dead girl and her aunt and all who knew her. What is the back story? How is learning more about Dorcus, key to Violets untying the taunt restraints choking her relationship with Joe?

Jazz is an American story. It is the story of black people’s duress and pain capitalized, monetized by a government which politically or economically never saw black people as free. When director Jordan Peele’s Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery) tells his friend Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) to “get out!” Jazz answers. Kelley’s adaptation of Morrison’s Jazz says escape is only through death, a daily ritual application of poison Violet carries in her purse. Her grandmother gives it to her. It is the only way her foremothers know to survive. Orphaned, it is all she and Joe—let’s extrapolate and say, a people know. What Black people do not know Jazz says, does kill them. There is no way to undo death, so what is the message of survival here?

Violet ritually keeps pulling bloody rags from between her legs. Is the blood the rapes, unwanted children and children taken at birth when black bodies were not our own? Is this the fear that stalks Joe and Violet that has them say, as if on cue—“No children!” when Joe falls into Violet’s lap? Do the two youth feel that scarred they do not have capacity for life, so to terminate it with their personal finale is grace? How does Violet mourn the couple’s loss? How do black people stop the ritual death march? How do we save this marriage and the symbolic Christ child – Dorcus? Is this possible? What instrument does Violet need to carry in her purse to straighten this out?

And so Nambi E. Kelley’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Jazz begins with a rhetorical question(s)—the musical motif a way to excavate a terrain covered in diseased pock marks. Jazz ultimately is an opportunity to unpack the luggage we have collectively stored in too many attics in the north, west, east and beyond 400 years after Ft. Comfort. Jazz takes us places only such a composition is capable—there is no intermission. Once seated, buckle up and while you won’t enjoy the ride, Sankofa (the return) is a necessity for freedom. Let Esu Legba lead the way. Watch the bird (actress Paige Mayes), listen to her song.

In an excellent production, directed by Awoye Timpo with music by Marcus Shelby, the play, in its second iteration, is up at Marin Theatre Company which also produced Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son. The cast is of course excellent with outstanding performances by all, especially C. Kelly Wright as Violet, Michael Gene Sullivan as Joe Trace, Dezi Soléy as Dorcus/Wild, and Paige Mayes as Parrot/Golden Gray.  Joanna Haigood’s choreography, Marcus Shelbys score, the set design and costumes and lightening, sound and all of the artistic elements that make a production speak well the intentions of playwright and director are superb as well.

The show is up at the Mill Valley site, 397 Miller Avenue, (Tuesdays-Sundays) through Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19. Visit marintheatre.org or call 415-388-5208. There will be a captioned performance May 9 at 1 p.m. along with other special matiness preview discussions on Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m., and perspectives on Thursday, May 9 at 1 p.m.

 

Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre presents: The Taming of the Shrew by Williams Shakespeare, directed by Lindsay Krumbein, May 22-25, 8 p.m. at The Flight Deck in Oakland

There are some stories that no matter how it’s cast or recast, what’s wrong stays wrong until certain directors’ give the work a nuanced tweak that makes a distinct political difference. “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare is such a work. One tames horses and dogs, not people, yet not only is Katherine “tamed,” she is first auctioned off to the man who can make her presentable to society where rules for behavior are governed by a status quo set by men, often agreed upon by women. Granted in Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre, the race and gender binaries are absent, yet the shadow still lingers—patriarchy, partner violence, sexual exploitation. The genius in this marvelous production is the way despite its theology, alternative spiritual systems have their creative way evident in the dance- tango, in culture—Yoruba, and in its creative soundtrack.  The ambiance continues in the lobby where Haitian visual artist, Marc Eddy’s beautiful pen and ink drawings further the discourse started on stage. (His work is also in Baptista’s living room.)

Robert Paige’s Baptista Minola is single father of two very different daughters. Zaria Stanton’s Bianca just wants to be free to woo her Lucentia, actor Nijzah Waterman’s wily privileged daughter. Actress Tomorrow Page’s Katherine challenges all notions of seduction whether this is amorous or intellectual. She dons her gloves, tucks her chin and refuses to be dominated. Caught in a socially constructed web, what’s a person to do? That this is a comedy gives a bit of relief, even if we are left stumbling, a bit off balance in the end— What just happened? Suggestion, if you don’t know the story read the notes. The first act speeds by in Shakespearean (read King James) language most audiences probably do not understand.
The idea or dismantling a structural hierarchy is captured within the very architecture, that is, physical walls which a motley crew assemble and disassemble. The walls separate the internal lives of the families from their external persona. The psyche or consciousness and Gritty City Rep’s adaptation of “Shrew” is also multi- layered as characters switch places – servant with masters. In one scene, a disappeared father is quite confused and dismayed to find another person occupying a space he once claimed.

In Opening Night remarks, Lindsay Krumbein, director, said that Gritty City Rep. trains as an ensemble. What this means is that the talented cast over a yearlong rehearsal process has developed relationships among each other that make it possible for the deep dives and swims along chilly terrain. It is amazing to watch, especially when an actor (Noel Laulu) who was on script—a third character added just a week earlier, shows a level of professionalism seen on equity stages.

The play takes place in Manhattan. The time is now. The family, Nigerian American. Katherine (actress Tomorrow Page), the elder daughter, has a reputation of being outspoken and rash. Confident, witty and bold, she is called a shrew, when actually the man, Petruchio (actor Jordan Lopez) who is hired to “tame” her is similarly qualified. The two actors are amazing in their roles – as are the other cast who sing, tango across multiple philosophical landscapes.

Perhaps this is the attraction between the antagonists—together they make a better team as friends rather than as foes.  This is a lesson Kate learns slowly. It is a trial by fire. Petruchio starves her, makes her wear the same clothes daily . . . keeps her away from family and friends. He humiliates her and Kate lets him so that she can leave the physical prison he has erected around her. It is a situation some of us find ourselves in all too often as we walk precipices between promotion and termination, safety and danger, life and death. Compromise is often the best route given such circumstances. The task is to not lose oneself in the process. In this iteration of Shrew, I think Kate remains stuck; there is a twinkle in both husband and wife’s eyes, but if you blink you could miss it.

Kate loses. Okay, so I cannot find a politically correct way to agree with the mores of the work, but given what Shakespeare left Gritty to work with, again Gritty City Rep does a marvelous job. Tomorrow Page’s Kate and Jordan Lopez’s Petruchio pull it off.  I love the set design, lighting, videography and costuming too. Petruchio shows up to his wedding in spandex shorts, while the royal Nigerian family fashionistas look fantastic.

Vinnie Bellz, Oakland musician and producer’s mixed soundtrack should be published—His collaboration with Krombein where Argentinian tango meets Nigerian AfroBeat. the looped tapestry so brilliant that if you think you know tango, as in tangled web, this vibe is one you don’t want to miss especially when Gritty City Rep ensemble start to dance.

Gritty City Rep’s Shrew is so hip and fun and the choreography is also great. Some of the cast like Keli’i Salvador (Vincentio, Jose) has smooth moves. Don’t miss Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, “The Taming of the Shrew” at The Flight Deck in downtown Oakland at 1540 Broadway through this weekend, May 23-25, 8 pm.  Visit https://www.grittycityrep.org/

Listen to an interview with the director, Lindsay Krumbein and actor, Nijzah Waterman (Lucentia) on Wanda’s Picks, May 1, 2019: http://tobtr.com/11292775

 

 

 

 

Live instrumental music, dancing nuns, singing bandits at Theatre Rhinoceros presents: Sister Act, the Musical, May 17-June 1, 2019
A Review by Wanda Sabir

The setting is a quaint old church in San Francisco about to close if attendance doesn’t increase. In walks Detective Eddie (Jarrett Holley) with Deloris Van Cartier (Branden Noel Thomas) as if on cue. Deloris needs witness protection.  What better place to hide her than a church, right? Well maybe if the witness weren’t such a talented, beautiful rambunctious diva.

Branden Noel Thomas is a fabulous Deloris. Coy, innocent and beautiful his Deloris undervalues herself, a woman with so much talent she doesn’t need a married gangster’s support. Thomas hits notes only NASA space craft have touched prior to this show (smile). Swinging and shaking all the spots that make quiet money fall from hands into collection plates, it is not surprising when the Pope asks for an audience with this choir that is making headlines in national and local news.

Deloris’s former lover, Curtis Shank (portrayed by a wonderful Crystal Liu) says he knows what’s best for her, while Eddie whom Deloris has known since childhood wishes “[He] Could Be That Guy.”  Eddie (Jarrett Holley) who is a cop without a gun, might have a chance this go-round as Deloris settles in and straightens her priorities. The convent and its austere discipline is something Deloris comes to appreciate along with her new friends or sisters.

She’s hiding out, right? Hum. Not for long. Curtis finds his lover and sends his boys into get her. Joey (Joyce Domanico-Huh), Erney (Paul Loper), T.J.’s (John Charles Quimpo) performance of “Lady in the Long Black Dress” is a show stopper, as is Curtis’s “When I Find My Baby.” My favorite song is “Take Me to Heaven” and “Spread the Love Around”—it’s all love. Nothing else matters (smile).

There are so many near misses. Deloris is caught sneaking out the first evening she is at the church to the local pub next door for a meal. Her pious posse follow her. Not much happens at the convent, Deloris is a fun diversion. Besides these gals like her.  All Deloris knows about Catholicism she learned in parochial school, not much just confession and repentance.  What she learns from these sisters, she sings in “Sister Act” is a lot more.

Monsignor (actor Joyce Domanico-Huh) loves the way Deloris has invigorated the service with popular songs. Her appreciation tempers Mother Superior (actor Kim K. Larsen) dismissal despite the increased attendance and contributions.  Mother Superior finally admits for the church to reach the people it needs to accept people as they are without judgement.

From the first time Deloris sings “Heaven” for Curtis to the next time she sings it for the church, the song changes.  What a difference in perspective Deloris develops between the top of the first act to the end of Act One. Deloris’s journey is juxtaposed to that of a Mother Superior who sings of “Walls,” and confesses she “[Hasn’t] Got a Prayer.”  Apathy and disbelief shift powerfully as these two women embrace each other—Success is really in the collective “Sister Act,” the show’s thesis and also a song.

Good music—Deloris’s hook, is one not many can disentangle.  Mary Robert (actor Abigail Campbell), a novice with a surprisingly beautiful voice, asks Deloris how does one know which life is for her. She sings she always did what she was told and now questions the “Life [She] Never Led.” Sister Mary Robert and her sisters are quite feisty and give the bad guys a fight they hadn’t imagined. Yes, Sister Act has suspense, murder, intent to murder and even a love story—all inviting laughter and smiles.

Deloris tells the women at their first rehearsal that they need to sing with confidence, to sing as if they believe it.  Deloris points out to each of her sisters their gifts which were not acknowledged in a tradition where homogeneity is extolled. Deloris’s words become her new script, her new life. Sister Act is a sweet love story that will have you discreetly wiping away tears during the encore.

I couldn’t imagine such a church in Oakland, where the Black Catholic community has such a strong presence, given the visionary leadership of Father Jay Matthews (Oct. 25, 1948-Mar. 30, 2019) the first African American priest to be ordained in Northern California. Father Jay “played a key role in the emergence of the Black Catholic movement in the Diocese of Oakland. This movement came to life in the wake of the Black Power Movement and developments following the assassination of Re. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as Black Catholics urged the Church to address the needs of their community” (obits at Cathedral of Christ Light).

I wondered if Queen of Angels Church knew St. Columba Church in Oakland which has an awesome choir. With all the Sister Act publicity Bay Area Catholic choirs should meet (smile). Branden Noel Thomas is well worth the travel and the ticket. He is a vision in a red dress with black patent heels. He rocks the habit too.

Until now, all this writer knew was Whoppi Goldberg’s film (1992) by the same title. The musical (2006) which is based on the film, is awesome and for those who know the Broadway  score with music by Alan Menken; lyrics, Glenn Slater; book, Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane, in this production audiences are treated to some new and old classics.

Theatre Rhinoceros, the longest running LGBT theatre anywhere has a winner on its hands with Sister Act, the Musical, directed by Aejay Mitchell who also choreographed the work, musical direction by Tammy Hall. The run is a short three weeks, Wed-.Sat., 8 p.m., Sat. also 3 p.m., through June 1, 2019 at the Gateway Theatre, 215 Jackson Street, San Francisco Visit www.TheRhino.org or 1-800-838-3006. Did I mention there is a live band? Yep, more reason to run to the performances which might sell out.

Video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=35&v=Q3fMcczyzjE

 

 

We lost one of our queens last month, Dr. Julia Reed Hare made her transition Nov. 7, 1933-February 25, 2019, and was laid to rest in her beloved San Francisco. Our condolences to her husband, Dr. Nathan Hare and to their family and friends.  She touched many lives. I remember the way she claimed her space as an African woman and held her own often as the only woman.  She was fierce and as Dr. Angelou would state, “phenomenal!” She and her husband wrote a book about successful relationships, their lives together evidence. I really enjoyed it, especially the many practical examples. Dr. Hare’s writing was accessible. She said she wrote for her people. Their office in San Francisco was perhaps the first institute that had at its Black Mental Health.  Sat., April 6, 3-6 p.m. at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, 410 14th Street, in Oakland, there will be a Celebration of Life.  For information call (510) 575-7148.

Here is a wonderful interview with “Essence Magazine” Editor, Susan Taylor: To Love and Cherish with Dr. Julia Hare. At the time of the February 2009 interview, she was celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary with Dr. Nathan Hare.

“The Urban Retreat,” a play by A. Zell Williams, directed by Darryl V. Jones at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre through April 6.

At its core “The Urban Retreat,” a play by A. Zell Williams, directed by Darryl V. Jones at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre through April 6, is a father’s redemption story; however, it is also the story a son who strays from his creative roots.  Actor, Lenard Jackson’s Trench Deep finds himself caught and entangled looking for answers as does his reluctant mentor and teacher, Chaucer Mosley (Adrian Roberts), who is also running from demons. When the two find themselves in the same room again, the set a reconstruction of their last moments together, the men are able to return to a time when truth was a guiding principle and authenticity and integrity its bottom line.  Both men have been searching for forgiveness, both have been writing in the dark—this retreat is an opportunity for each to finally have an audience and get heard. However, what happens next is not what the publisher or manager have in mind.

Lenard Jackson’s Trench Deep is conflicted. His fiancée is not returning his calls and this retreat which he has orchestrated – a power move to get back at Mr. Mosley, Robeson’s high school English teacher who put him out the class, yet whose lessons he never stopped learning.  At the retreat, Trench faces once again the proud black man still teaching black boys in Chicago, while he is denied audience with his own son.

To further complicate the story, there is an unsolved murder, Trench’s best friend, Setty Rexpin (actor Jamey Williams). “Ghosted,” he decides to follow Mosley to the retreat after a failed encounter on the Chicago Metro. Why now is a question left unanswered.

Mosley, in route to see a publisher, he thinks to finally after seven years get an offer to publish his book, “Sonlight,” learns of Trench Deep’s desire to hire him as his ghost writer or editor. With monetary and future publishing options as incentives, Mosley agrees to the terms and flies from Chicago to California where he meets Trench.

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The house built just up the hill from where Tupac lived and the city where he attended high school—the references are intentional as the character Trench Deep skates along a surface he cares not to penetrate as he and Mosley settle into an uneasy groove at first as ghosts haunt them both—unexplained music, earthquakes, bloody phantasms in the shape of Setty Texpin who disturbs everyone from Mosely to Pooh Butt to Angie.

An unsolved murder mystery, the guilty party is in the room in Mill Valley and Setty wants revenge.  It is Emily Kristner’s free radical Angie, Maggie’s stuttering assistant who able to navigate both worlds, fan and critic, pushes the work to its stunning legal conclusion. Kristner’s character also surprises audiences with her freestyle skills. Jamey Williams, an internationally recognized spoken word artist, has some great scenes too. The poetics of hip hop are integral to A Zell Williams’s work often serving as a life preserve.

Trench has depth; however, as a gangster rapper, urban fiction author, his persona capitalizes on a pathology detrimental to his people. Pooh Butt and publisher Maggie Farmer (Miriam Ani) just want him to sell product – they are pushy. It doesn’t matter the toll such work takes on Trench’s life, a life he more than once thought of ending. It is through conversations with former teacher. Chaucer Mosley, that Trench remembers hip hop’s radically hopeful message, its politics, and its strategic position at the apex of change. These ideals are what Setty Rexpin gave his life to.  We cannot undo the past; we can only do better now is a lesson both Mosley and Trench reflect.

“The Urban Retreat” is a fast moving play that leaves a few dangling threads untied like who dies in the end and a question, where are the black women?  All we see are black girl butts in a video. Trench’s late mother is referenced, but he doesn’t like speaking about her to Mosley, when asked.

The fine cast and impeccable direction makes this iteration work. Urban Retreat is about getting paid and how much a life is worth.  Adrian Roberts’s Chaucer Mosley’s focus on his novel and Miriam Ani’s Maggie Farmer’s use of Trench to pave her dream career peddling important work, not urban garbage, shows the two in similar light. However, as Mosley and Trench go deeper into the work, they find in each other what they thought lost.  Visit lhtsf.org or call (415) 474-8800. The play is at the Burial Clay Theater, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco, Thursday-Saturday, April 4-6, 8 p.m. evenings, two shows Sat., 3 p.m. matinee and 8 p.m.

Listen to an interview with Acting Artistic Director, Darryl Jones, on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show: http://tobtr.com/11238453