The Change is Gonna Come

This personal review touches upon topics like the Black Panthers, Rodney King, OJ and Katrina, as well as black grandmothers, the symbolism of King Kong and the images of black lynchings in the not too distant past.

The show (directed by Michael Torres, with music and sound by Tommy Shepherd) uses radio to organize the content in a couple of ways. Lacy is introduced at the radio microphone in silhouette, and he seems to change subjects in his monologue according to songs we all hear as if randomly from the radio.

The strategies of humorous recollection up against pathos and tragedy deftly evoke the human costs of racism, with that quick dose of shock that makes the moment memorable, although (if I understood one person in the Q & A after the show I saw) some white people can still feel attacked. But older audiences of any race could relate to aspects of common culture now gone (including the kind of middle-class factory jobs his parents had: his father at RCA, his mother at Western Electric). Younger audiences learn history they may never have heard.

It’s worth celebrating that while our society is getting more diverse, race matters less to young people. Those facts don’t necessarily go together. But this brings with it an embarrassed but damaging silence on racism that still does exist. Lacy’s show is one of the few opportunities to bring these realities to light, and it does so effectively, while being an entertaining piece of theatre.

Coming Up: North Coast Rep opens its new season on Thursday, Sept. 18, with Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (www.ncrt.net). Also beginning on the 18th, for one weekend only, HSU Theatre presents a staged reading of Fire-Bringer by Judy GeBauer, directed by Dan Stone. It’s about a small community battling a forest fire (HSUstage.blogspot.com).

Later this month, Arcata Playhouse hosts the Ghost Road Company of Los Angeles, performing the first part of its Oresteia trilogy, before its formal premiere in Hollywood.

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