Playwright: Anthony Moseley
At: Collaboraction Studios in the Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: 312-226-9633; Collaboraction.org; $5-$30. Runs through: May 20
A Blue Island in the Red Sea at is a crackling world premiere of devised theater from Collaboraction.
Written and directed by Artistic Director Anthony Moseley, the script takes us on a journey through Chicago's racial history using a clever framing device: The Chicago Racism Museum. "Curator" Uday Joshi enters the space, telling theatergoers they are in the Chicago Race Museum, a 4D virtual exhibit, and we are its first-ever audience.
The promise of 4D in a modest—not dinky—blackbox space like Collaboraction's turns out to deliver in the one-two punch of Jose Manuel Diaz-Soto's briliiant set design, and Parker Langvardt's lights. A hollow rectangular platform dominates the stage, with two screen walls and entrances stage left and right. Momentous events in Chicago's history are projected on the screens while actors depict the scene inside and outside of the walls, creating a textured image that worked much more effectively than video or projection alone.
Andrew Rios led us through the history of the Puerto Rican Day Parade of 1966, when Arcelis Cruz was shot in the leg by a police officer, inciting a huge civic movement in the Puerto Rican community in Chicago. The story of Emmett Till is conveyed with Dana N. Anderson portraying his mother, giving a heartfelt speech over his open-casket funeral.
The ensemble is to be commended for not shying away from discomforting imagery and confronting these horrors directly. Anderson also depicted the story of Leanita McClain, a Black journalist who worked at the Chicago Tribune when it endorsed Harold Washington for mayor of Chicago. McClain's famous piece, "How Chicago taught me to hate whites," was published in the Tribune one year before her death, and it created a beautiful piece with text from that as well as her suicide note, the final line of which which read: "I will never live long enough to see my people free, anyway."
The first half of the play is well-crafted, using joy and poignancy to highlight events like the founding of house music—with a shoutout to Knuckles and the Warehouse, a staple in '80s queer culture. The second half takes us back in time to first rehearsal. Each cast member reveals his or her personal history, with race and real names and stories used. It is a device to explain the cast members' collaboration and choices, including why Moseley, a white man, should be the person to helm such a project. I appreciate the unmasking of intention around this piece, but I think this second half could be half as long. They should trust the work in the first half, which is absolutely brilliant.
Related article at www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/THEATER-A-Blue-Island-in-the-Red-Sea-tackles-Chicagos-racist-history/62515.html .
