The first play by a Black woman ever to make it to Broadway was “A Raisin in the Sun” by Chicago’s own Lorraine Hansberry in 1959. But in 1955, another Black woman, Alice Childress, almost made it to the Great White Way with “Trouble in Mind,” a backstage drama about a group of Black and white actors working together on a stereotypical commercial play.
The Broadway transfer never came. Nervous Broadway producers wanted Childress to tone down some of racially charged rhetoric, especially her pointed comments on what white audiences wanted to see from Black actors and characters. She refused. That was, after all, the whole point of her play, which you now can see in an intensely detailed and richly acted revival from director Ron OJ Parson at TimeLine Theatre.“Trouble in Mind” might not soar with the poetry of “Raisin” (a very high bar), but it is a brilliantly incisive and emotional rich piece of writing, filled with characters suffering from what poet Langston Hughes famously referred to as “the dream deferred.”Both of these roughly contemporaneous plays make the point that systemic racism dehumanizes everyone, both white and Black. I’ve long thought “Raisin” made it to Broadway because it was relatively easy for a liberal white audience to separate itself from the racist emissary of the white resident’s association: “We’re not like that,” the audience could tell itself. But “Trouble in Mind,” which was prescient and unstinting in its exploration of such issues as cultural appropriation, the exploitation of Black misery and the denial of opportunity to Black actors, offered no such easy way out.I saw “Trouble in Mind” on Broadway last season and was deeply disappointed in the production, frankly. TimeLine’s version, performed on an immersive setting from Caitlin McLeod and with elegant period threads from the designer Christine Pascual, is far stronger because it much more truthful and, well, lived in, if you know what I mean.Childress’ point here was to satirize and expose the ordinary ways the theater did business in the mid-1950s, which was not so different from how it did business for the rest of the 20th century, if not beyond, and success with this play means capturing its insistence on the quotidian nature of the oppression it wants to expose.Parson’s fast-moving show manages to do that most of the time, although there were moments on opening night when it came close to veering over the top. Tim Decker, who plays the domineering white director, has to watch that: when he keeps the needle in the middle of the dial, he is devastatingly effective.
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But the focus of the night, and of this production, is on an experienced actor named Wiletta Mayer (Shariba Rivers), who has had it up to her neck with the compromises needed to get and keep a job. Rivers digs very deep here and, as her character talks to fellow performers richly played by Kenneth D. Johnson, Vincent Jordan and Tarina J. Bradshaw, the show ripples with energy, anger and the moral dilemma known to anyone who has inhabited a competitive workplace: when to tell the bosses what they want to hear and when to take a stand. In this production, Parsons also pays close attention to the white theater people, played by Jordan Ashley Grier, Guy Van Swearingen, Charles Stransky and Adam Shalzi, all actors offering strikingly interesting portraits of well-meaning characters defeated by the world beyond the doors of their theater.There was no easy answer in 1955 and there is no easy answer now, just as most all actors find themselves caught between wanting to please a large audience, which brings financial reward, and being irritated at what said audiences want to see. Such is the paradox of show business, especially when it comes to race. And it was part of the impulse in that era for the creation of the nonprofit theater movement.Radical but balanced with empathy for all artists, “Trouble in Mind,” is a remarkable play that offered yet further rewards on a second viewing in relative short order.Childress (who died in 1994) lived far longer than Hansberry, who was dead at just 35 years old. That longevity meant more creative opportunity but also more years of barriers, boundaries and frustration.Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.cjones5@chicagotribune.comReview: “Trouble in Mind” (3.5 stars)When: Through Dec. 18Where: TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutesTickets: $42-$57 at 773-281-8463 and timelinetheatre.com
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