The entire world looks different to a child—psychologically, of course, with its array of new creatures and concepts, but physically, too. Everything is bigger, for one thing. Adults appear initially, not as faces, but as buttocks and bellies, sternums and shoulder blades. To be a child in the midst of a crowd is to be invisible, an encumbrance tripped over, stepped on, or kicked aside by swarms of pedestrians. In order to avoid being sucked into the chaos, a child must focus exclusively on escape to the shelter of familiar surroundings.
This is the experience related by Jessica Blank and April Yvette Thompson in their first-person account of how the latter, at the age of 12, ensured that she and her little brother arrived safely at their home in the Liberty City district of Miami during the riots of 1980, sparked by the acquittal of a policeman accused of illegally shooting a black man.
Our raconteur in Liberty City doesn't turn us loose on the streets right at the outset, however. First, we meet her social-activist Cuban-Bahaman father, her likewise progressive-minded African-American mother, her Aunt Carolyn, cousin Valerie and LaMarr, the neighborhood hairdresser. We hear Saul Thompson chastise a teacher for belittling his daughter's knowledge of her tribal roots and sympathize with his efforts to improve neighborhood conditions—his failures leading to frustration ultimately alienating his wife, who finds comfort with the Jehovah's Witnesses ("cult church" sneers her spouse). We watch as Valerie succumbs to crack cocaine, and share the agony of Aunt Carolyn as she applies draconian measures to free her daughter from the debilitating addiction. By the time young April bravely faces fire, blood and a populace gone temporarily berserk, we are aware of her strength, as well as from where it springs.
Thompson's 90-minute narrative encompasses a wide range of personalities and locales—April's dad takes her on pilgrimages to the Eleuthera Island's slave quarters in the Caribbean—but under Jonathan Wilson's perspicacious direction, Anna Dauzvardis (alternating with Dionne Addai on certain dates) navigates the complex dialects to be found in Miami's ethnically diverse culture, deftly distinguishing between degrees of assimilation and levels of maturity with no more than a change in stance or vocal nuance. Repairs on the ETA Arts Center in Grand Crossing may mandate the adjacent gallery space doing duty as an auditorium, but the bare stage and floor chairs in no way impair the powerful story brought to life in this riveting performance by a significant new talent.
