Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, produce Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph]
By Wanda Sabir
The play currently available on demand at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph], asks a simple question—When will Black wom(b)en and girls voices be amplified publically and behind closed doors? And I include here gender nonconforming Black wom(b)en, all of us together, because we are all included in the silencing. We practice allyship for protect. Allyship is a form of accompaniment— witnessing from the inside. “I see you,” is a start. Agreement is not a prerequisite for belonging. We will find a place where we agree and build on that premise. We need all our people.
We see this practiced in Dickerson-Despenza’s play. There are so many relationships explicated here between these pages danced on the stage. Margo Hall, new Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT), is a magician in her elegant navigation of an alternative theatre space – film. The cast, equally gifted in their ability to capture and translate this wonderful work on the stage via screen gives the urgency of this story primacy: Black girls, Black women are at risk for sexual violence. Black girls and Black women are being violated. There is a direct correlation between a people’s violation especially women and girls and the earth’s violation in the Great Storm where the levees broke contaminating water and land and killing so many living beings.
In the play, young protagonist davis despenza hayes (13) portrayed brilliantly by actor Jamella Cross, tells her story through her drawings. Her artwork provides a road map none but her astute art teacher, ms. t (actor Safiya Fredericks) can decipher.
davis’s loving father, ernest hayes (actor Khary L. Moye) is trapped in his own demons and worries. NOLA post-Katrina, transplant in Chicago, the father-daughter are still swimming with dead bodies two months later. The mother is not there which further complicates the story.
ms. t establishes a bond with the child right off. There is something about “davis,” who joins the class mid-semester, whose craft and skill she admires. There is even what one could call a soul connection evident in a linked synergy to a shared if unnamed trauma neither can articulate initially. davis has nightmares which are staged really well. Sometimes she is up all night and then drags herself to art class where even on a bad day, she still answers all the questions posed by ms. t.
Art is so powerful; one wonders what davis would have used to articulate so beautifully through those nightmares which woke her from sleep had she not had her drawing pad and pens. What stories is davis sharing? ms. t suggests to “ernest,” davis’s dad, at a parent teacher meeting that he look at the drawings and talk to his daughter about them. davis is failing all her classes except Art. ms. t suggests her father think about why davis is doing so well in art. ernest looks at his daughter’s portfolio filled with the faces of people met at the Superdome who died.
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Later on when the father asks davis what the coded language in the pictures means, she does not want to share; however, her father “sees” something is wrong and agrees to find his daughter a therapist. davis, who is “grounded” until she picks up her grades, especially in math, invites a friend to help her. leah (actor Anna Marie Sharpe), davis’s friend from school, who likes her and is also good in math, helps her pass her test. For this, ernest, who is sad davis doesn’t want to spend time with him on her birthday—there is a show at the museum where he works he wants to take her too. He instead, lets davis spend the night with her friend. He doesn’t know the girls have other birthday plans.
The playwright paints adults who care about davis, adults who struggle with themselves yet are not so self-centered that they are unreliable. This is especially true for ms. t. Fredericks’s character champions and pays attention to the details and does not stop at unraveling the narrative davis is intentionally drawing. Perhaps this is the beauty of childhood, the kind of childhood davis had prior to Katrina and Superdome experiences and these experiences impact on her life.
This Covid-19 pandemic has increased the danger women and girls are living with. I wonder where they are finding a safe bed. I wonder about homeless children, runaways, sexual exploitation— The playwright was influenced to write one of the characters based on the story of a child in Chicago gang raped whose body was thrown under a bridge.
Trauma is on the table, yet the father who is trying to keep his job and take care of his daughter while in limbo about his marriage—pushes it to the side. [hieroglyph] ignites multiple explosions, like cluster bombs. davis’s friend, leah—book-smart is also traumatized. What [hieroglyph] suggests is we stop judging our children and their friends and pay closer attention.
[hieroglyph] is part of award-winning 10-play Katrina Cycle of plays Dickerson-Despenza is writing focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina in and beyond New Orleans. [hieroglyph] is fully produced and filmed on stage at SF Playhouse, and is presented as an on-demand video stream through April 3rd, 2021. Patrons may support the organization of their choice by purchasing tickets ($15 – $100) from Lorraine Hansberry Theatre at lhtsf.org or from San Francisco Playhouse at sfplayhouse.org. To listen or watch a Virtual Wanda’s Picks interview on Facebook with Margo Hall, Artistic Director of LHT: https://www.facebook.com/wanda.sabir/videos/10224972454289502