The Ghost of Michael Brown

Until the Flood – Goodman Theatre

 

On August 9, 2014, just a couple days before he was to enroll at a technical college, 18-year-old Michael Brown was gunned down in the middle of a street in Ferguson, Missouri. This young black man was about to begin a new stage, embarking on a trajectory to improve the quality of his life through higher education. But what exactly happened? We may never know the details. All we know for sure is that white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fired 12 shots into this unarmed teenager, whose hands were in the air, claiming that Brown was a threat to life.

 No one knows what Michael was doing that evening. We don’t know for certain if Wilson harbored racist feelings. Was Michael surrendering for some unknown crime, or was he actually terrorizing Officer Wilson outside his car. All the answers to these queries are no longer answerable. The only indisputable fact is that, four years later, a white man was found innocent of manslaughter, and is still alive, while a young black boy is dead.

Portraying eight different real-life characters, playwright,  Pulitzer Prize finalist and performer Dael Orlandersmith, has created and stars in a 70-minute one-act that’s as powerful and moving as any full-length, two-act August Wilson drama. Interviewing dozens of citizens in and around Ferguson, both black and white, male and female, young and old, Ms. Orlandersmith takes their thoughts and uses their own words, stepping inside their shoes for us to better understand the turmoil of feelings buried inside this moral morass. In giving voice to these eight characters, the actress/playwright helps audiences understand the meaning of this murder. In providing these honest impressions of a variety of Missouri citizens she resurrects the ghost of Michael Brown.

In this documentary style program of monologues, the actress is ably backed by Takeshi Kata’s makeshift memorial scenic design, and a collage of piqued projections and a score of original melancholy music, created by Nicholas Hussong and Justin Ellington, respectively. Ms. Orlandersmith portrays an entire cast of diverse characters by simply slipping on a costume piece, designed by Kaye Voyce, and immediately turning into each individual. 

The actress totally becomes each character. She’s Connie, a white high school teacher, who feels deeply about this case, but who’s unknowingly offended her black friend with her views. She morphs into a scared, black 17-year-old kid who uses rap to express his anger and pleads with God to help him get out of Ferguson alive. Then she becomes a white racist named Dougray, who’d like nothing better than to line up all the African Americans in town and mow them down. 

But in opening and closing her terrific play by portraying Miss Louisa Hemphill, a retired black teacher who has experienced decades of racism herself, Ms Orlandersmith touches every theatergoer with her words and thoughts. The elderly woman feels that Michael Brown, perhaps, set himself up to be victim. She tells us how, at a young age she realized that in order to succeed as a young African American woman, she’d need to move away from Ferguson. Then she sadly recalls the advice she gave herself, a message she would give Michael, were he still alive to hear it: “Don’t let the sun go down on you in this town, if you’re black.”

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas   

 

Presented April 26-May 12 by the Goodman Theatre in the Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, Chicago.

Tickets are available at the box office, by calling 312-443-3800 or by going to www.GoodmanTheatre.org/UntilTheFlood.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.