When the riots erupted in Ferguson, Missouri about four years ago (after a young black man died in a police shooting), the nation took notice. Although those headlines have since faded, the rippling waves of emotion sparked by this tragic event have been captured and expressed by Dael Orlandersmith. The the Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright is the author of Until the Flood. The show is performed as a one-woman piece that lasts a bit more than an hour. In the play, Orlandersmith herself takes on the characteristics of eight people — all with different opinions on what happened in Ferguson, as well as their general feelings about race in America. The characters were created from hundreds of interviews Orlandersmith did for this piece. Appearing on a set that’s sparsely furnished with a few chairs (including a barber’s chair, as well as a living room upholstered chair flanked by a side table), Orlandersmith begins to weave a hypnotic journey through the psyches of those she interviewed in and around Ferguson. She is guided by director Neel Keller; whose touch is so seamless that it appears as though Orlandersmith is responsible for revealing these personal stories. In the program notes, Orlandersmith is quick to note that the play’s characters are composites, not individuals. During the play, Orlandersmith “becomes” a white teacher, a pastor, a barber, a punk teenager, an enterprising teenager, and a retired police sergeant. The characters are black and white, male and female. Much of the play is disturbing as well as thought-provoking. The “N” word is used freely during many of the characters’ impassioned speeches. The play’s structure represents a tough challenge for any actor, let alone one who also wrote the play. Orlandersmith appears in a nondescript shirt and pants; she tosses on a jacket or a shawl to indicate which character she is playing. Both before and after Orlandersmith speaks, a series of sound and visual projections serve to raise the emotional level of the proceedings. We see an image of Michael Brown, lying dead on the street. It’s a haunting image, and one that stays with the audience throughout the performance. Shortly afterwards, police dispatches are heard as the words appear on the screen. The point, Orlandersmith seems to be saying, is that not much about the shooting is known for sure beyond these short, cryptic messages between the police dispatcher and one of the cops on the scene. In addition to the fleeting projections behind Orlandersmith, the stage platform also serves as a giant memorial to Michael Brown. Teddy bears, candles, flowers, deflated balloons, etc., are all mixed together with falling leaves at the base of the stage, as if to suggest that Michael Brown’s memory lives on, providing a milestone in Ferguson’s legacy.
The edges of the stage are marked by pried-up pieces of wood — perhaps to indicate the fraying nerves of these characters’ lives. “I heard about the (1968) race riots in Chicago while I was living in New York City,” notes a black teacher who eventually returned to the Ferguson area. “It set me on fire.” The same seemed true for another character, that of a black female minister. “The Michael Brown case has been hard on me,” she admits. She talks about going with her husband (also a minister) into Ferguson; they offer to pray with people gathered near the shooting site. They pray for understanding and comfort with everyone, from white police officers to black citizens. The play is tailor-made for Milwaukeeans, as a similar scene (the police shooting of an unarmed black man) also sparked riots about two years ago. Even before then, when a similar event occurred in a city park, Milwaukeeans were questioning what was going on in their city, and what they wanted their community to become. Orlandersmith’s play puts an exclamation mark on that search.
