[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Gospel According to James" at Ensemble Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

Amen to Ensemble's 'The Gospel According to James'

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 2/1/13

 

Sometimes storytelling begets storytelling.  Such is the case with Charles Smith's "The Gospel According to James," a riveting drama that is currently enjoying its Ohio Premiere at the Ensemble Theatre.

 

It all began with Lawrence Beitler's iconic photograph, taken in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930.  The image shows the lynched bodies of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two young black men falsely accused by a teenager of raping his white girlfriend.  In the forefront of the photo are jubilant members of the mob and assorted on-lookers, brandishing weapons and exuding civic pride.

 

This photo inspired the heart-wrenching song "Strange Fruit," penned by the Jewish poet Abel Meeropol and later recorded by Billie Holiday, as well as Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row."  It lead to the book "A Time of Terror," which was an eyewitness account of the lynching by James Cameron, a third black youth identified as an accomplice to the crime but whose life was spared.  

 

No one knows for sure what actually led to this tragic event.  James stated in interviews after his arrest that he fled the scene before the rape of Mary Ball and the shooting of her boyfriend, Claude Deeter, who later died.  Mary would later testify that she was never raped.  It is this ambiguity - this blurred he-said/she-said, black and white nature of the story - that inspired Charles Smith's dramatization of what may have occurred on the days leading up to the lynching.  

 

"The Gospel According to James" is an intriguing and gripping fiction that explores the fatal flaws of historical memory.  Under Celeste Cosentino's astute direction and with a stellar troupe of performers, it is a marvelous piece of theater.

 

The play centers around an imagined meeting between James and Marie (the name Mary now goes by), fifty years after the lynching.  Since that time, James has become the fervent, self-appointed historian of that tragic night and is intent on documenting his account of what transpired.  He carries with him a metal ammunition box filled with historical artifacts-a remnant of a blood-soaked shirt, a piece of the lynching rope, bark from the hanging tree-that he calls "evidence."

 

Marie-damaged, bitter and desperately trying to forget her past-has a different recollection; one where Claude was hardly an innocent victim, James did not run away, and she and one of the accused assailants, Abe, were friends and lovers. Taking poetic license and to further demonstrate that memories fade while the emotions that surround them crystallize, the playwright offers an intriguing and plausible alternative take on what happened that August in 1930 in Marion, and why.

 

These respective, subjective remembrances play out in flashback, as the present-day Marie and James watch on a raised platform as their younger selves go through the motions of their past.  Aided by four pillars that display photographic images to help establish time and place, Ian Hinz's and Andrew Eckert's set and lighting design is simple, understated, and very affective.  

 

So too are the performances.  

 

Although Peter Lawson Jones, as the aged James, gives in to the occasional melodrama that seasons the script, everyone in the ensemble creates authentic characters worth caring about during this 2 ½ hour production.  

 

The chemistry between Katie Nabors, Tim Walsh and Valerie Young as young Mary and her lower-class parents is striking and serves to capture the redneck mentality and hard times that led to the lynching.

 

Kyle Carthens, Antuane Rogers and J'Vaughn T. Briscoe are so endearing and vibrant as the youthful Abe, Tommy and James that their tragedy resonates long after leaving the theater parking lot.  

 

Keith E. Stevens does a remarkable job of showing the different versions of Claude as recalled by James and Marie, one as convincing as the other, which assists the playwright in creating a sense of doubt about what truly transpired.  

 

Particularly superb is Anne McEvoy, as the aged Marie, who displays her character's deep psychological scars with astounding sensitivity.  It is her mental frailty-her doubts about her own memories-that drives this drama.

 

Never preachy, pandering or pedantic, "The Gospel According to James" and this Ensemble Theatre production of it tell an engaging story that still needs to be told.  And they tell it well.

 

"The Gospel According to James" continues through February 17 at the Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland Hts.  For tickets, which range from $10 to $20, call 216-321-2930 or visit www.ensemble-theatre.org.
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