Welcome to Spirit Expressing with Rev. Ed Townley

“The Good Negro”

 Trying to be a ‘good’ anything is a serious waste of creative energy. A ‘good’ parent, son, daughter; a ‘good’ American, a ‘good’ Christian – in each case the appellation is earned through obedience to established rules and traditions. ‘Good’ students learn what they’re taught and repeat it back without variation or distortion.

 Obedience is an essential part of the spiritual process that brings us into human form; but it’s only one stage of a longer journey. If we’re going to contribute to the expansion of consciousness that will move us forward and upward in spiritual discovery and expression, we have to press forward, beyond established lines and limits, trusting divine guidance as we risk human condemnation.

 Jesus would have been called neither a ‘good Jew’ nor a ‘good servant’ of the Roman Empire in which he lived. If Siddhatta Gotama had accepted the responsibility of being a ‘good son,’ he would never have left home to undertake the long journey toward expressing the Buddha. There is always an element of disobedience required for the creative process to express and expand the collective consciousness we share.

 These thoughts are sparked by “The Good Negro,” a new play by Tracey Scott Wilson currently having its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center through November 9. Directed by Liesl Tommy, the production is a shared project with New York’s Public Theater, where it will be presented later this season.

 The subject of “The Good Negro," currently playing at the Dallas Theater Center, is the civil rights movement as it expressed in the southern United States during the 1950s and 1960s. It’s an epic canvas, of course – a conflict of minds and hearts, of physical abuse and economic power, of an entrenched social order and a growing spiritual restlessness. Wilson wisely keeps her focus narrow, allowing nine fictional characters (many clearly based on real-life counterparts) to interact in Birmingham, Alabama at a time when the movement seems to be losing steam. Three of the men are leaders of that movement – a charismatic preacher, a supportive but attention-starved colleague and a new recruit who brings organizational and administrative skills to the barebones operation. As these three (along with the preacher’s equally dedicated wife) argue and agonize over next steps, two FBI agents listen in through the primitive bugging equipment available at the time. The action is triggered when a white bigot catches a young black mother trying to sneak her young daughter into a ‘whites only’ public restroom – the only one available – so the girl won’t have to suffer the indignity of going in the alley. The leaders see an opportunity, the agents see a PR problem, and the child’s parents see a threat to their safety and livelihood.

 The leaders worry about whether the mother is ‘good’ enough to be acceptable to the white press as a shining example of decency downtrodden. The agents wonder if their KKK informant is ‘good’ enough to pass among bigots and still remain under their control. And at another level the three leaders fume among themselves. Is James, the preacher, ‘good’ enough to carry this off? The relief he seeks from the pressures of his daunting work is sexual and voracious. When incriminating tapes begin to surface, the entire movement threatens to implode.

 Tracy Scott Wilson is a talented playwright, able to create explosive scenes and to find surprising moments of real humor and delight in the tense proceedings. She is well served in this production by an outstanding cast in all nine roles. Billy Eugene Jones initially seems too slight to maintain his central character against the heft of our memories of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on whom it is clearly based. But he grows in the role as his confident façade slips and the pain and uncertainty show through. His second act scene with his wife Corinne (an excellent Roslyn Ruff), who has just received an anonymous tape, represents beautiful work by both playwright and actor. When no reasoned argument can possibly work, words are whispered and shouted with a kind of passionate randomness that communicates all the more effectively for making no literal sense.

 In the end, I think Wilson has written a ‘good’ play. I admired it. Enjoyed it. I can see many well-received productions in its future. But I longed for it to break loose of its moorings – to stop trying so hard to be ‘good’ – to risk shocking and offending in order to explode onto the stage with the same desperate and transformative spiritual energy that drove the civil rights movement forward and transformed our collective consciousness.

 ‘Good’ just isn’t good enough anymore. It may illuminate the past, but it won’t carry us forward into the consciousness of the kingdom that is our only reason for being here at all.

Take a look at this Video about the DTC production:

Visit the Dallas Theater Center website for more information about "The Good Negro."

Read other reviews of "The Good Negro:"

Dallas Morning News
Dallas Observer
Dallas Voice