Theatre Review: The Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro Boys tells the true story of nine black teens who were falsely accused of raping two white women aboard a train traveling across Tennessee in 1931.  With little corroborating evidence, the boys endured multiple mistrials while waiting for justice in the town of Scottsboro, Alabama.  For most of them, it never arrived.  The five oldest were sentenced to prison and all but one died before being pardoned by Governor George Wallace in 1976.  The largely unknown story seems to have fallen through the cracks between the abolishment of slavery and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.  American education, in general, still hasn’t figured out how to talk about black history outside of those two events, and seems to have particularly little use for sad stories with sad endings, preferring country roots that highlight the continuous march towards greatness and moral superiority.  Thus, racially-motivated miscarriages of justice are deemed unworthy of study.  Nobly, Scottsboro seeks an audience looking for a little more frankness and authenticity.  However, the Kander and Ebb musical is not content with just a simple retelling.  Instead, the production's history lesson arrives in the form of a minstrel show--the deeply racist entertainment that gained popularity in the 1800s by depicting African-Americans as subhuman cartoons.  It's no surprise that Scottsboro closed after less than a year and has had trouble finding the momentum necessary to carry a national tour.  Essentially, the play asks its audience to pay to feel uncomfortable.  However, the major flaw of the production is that it does not make the audience feel uncomfortable enough. 

Ruby Bates (James T. Lane) and Victoria Price (Clifton Oliver)
in "Alabama Ladies"

The show (book by David Thompson) opens with one white man and nine black men--two dressed in exaggerated costumes designed to instantly identify them as “coons”--taking the stage.  While the coons make the biggest impression jumping around the stage and telling off-color jokes, it's clear that The Interlocutor calls the shots.  In the opening number, he describes himself as "the master of these folks."  He speaks not of slavery, but his role as the Master of Ceremonies.  However, in the context of the minstrel tradition, playing on questions of who owns the media (hint: white people), we are left to wonder what the difference really is.  Throughout the play, The Interlocutor represents the benignly racist white man: he's not evil, but just exceedingly comfortable with the status quo, willfully blind to his own power.  He announces that our black troupe will be telling us the story of the Scottsboro boys.  One of the black actors inquires, “This time can we tell the truth?”  The Interlocutor quickly agrees, his reaction indicating that he assumed they had always told the truth.  

Haywood Patterson (Clifton Duncan) 

And, thus, the story begins.  The plot is fairly straightforward–no tricks in timeline or contrivances.  In a nice twist--at least for the first quarter of the show--the “minstrel” roles are reserved solely for when the black actors play white characters.   Whether portraying sassy white girls or drunken incompetent white lawyers, the actors seem to be having a blast with the broad characterizations and loud performances.  In stark contrast, when the only Caucasian in the production assumes the roles of his white characters, though no more upright, they're depicted as natural and human.   It's a shrewd reminder about what can happen when specific groups must rely on others for representation.  Unfortunately, the point gets a little muddled later in the show when black characters break out into buffoonery as well.  The mishandling of the conceit begins to undermine its effectiveness, as the performances are never funny or shocking enough to place the audience in complete unease.  It's like someone took the worst of the minstrel traditions and lessened the intensity by half, as if to make it more palatable to a modern audience--the opposite of what the premise needs to be successful!

Bates (Lane) does the air splits
in "Never Too Late"

The show comes closest to reaching its potential during one memorable number in which three of the accused men don white gloves and break out into a tap dance segment centered around an electric chair.  The audience gets lost in the choreography as they shuffle around the stage, only to be jolted back to the specifics of the scene every time the stage darkens and the buzz of electricity reminds us that real men are going to die unjustly.  The scene's impact, however, is somewhat dampened by the limited technique of the performers who clearly are not trained in tap.

Clinton Roane,
swing member

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that while the Scottsboro illustrates how dehumanizing minstrel depictions are, it never gives us a full three-dimensional portrait of any character.  The story clips along at such a quick pace, characters are never allowed to feel more than one emotion at once, and motivations remain superficially examined.   Clifton Duncan gives a solid performance as the lead Haywood Patterson, but isn't able to elevate the material by adding shades to the character missing from the book.  Most of the remaining characters are given too little to truly leave an impression.  The ones that do are too one-note to resonate.  As Clarence Norris, Eric Jackson brings little more than over-the-top anger.  Angel-voiced Nile Bullock, portraying twelve year old Eugene Williams, plays his characters' anger, annoyance, fear, and hopelessness at the same volume--blistering hysteria.

Scottsboro's score ably moves the story along, though it seems to resist any showstopping moments.  "Go Back Home" is the strongest number, an understated gem that finds the nine boys in jail, quietly yearning to catch a train home.  "Southern Days" is another standout number for reinforcing the theme of how storytellers effect storytelling.  The Interlocutor mentions how he loved to hear the black field workers singing wistfully about their beloved South.  


He has the troupe sing:

DON’T YOU MISS

THE SIGHT OF WILLOWS DRIPPIN’

ON A BALMY SOUTHERN DAY?

DON’T YOU MISS THE TASTE OF JULEP SIPPIN’

AS YOU WHILE THAT DAY AWAY?

The second verse takes an unexpectedly dark turn as the troupe reclaims their version of the story, much to The Interlocutor's dismay and confusion:

DON’T YOU MISS

THOSE HONEYSUCKLE DAYS IN ALABAM?

HOW THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

COME BACK TO ME!

LIKE DADDY HANGING FROM A TREE

Clifton Duncan 

The Old Globe Theater's production seems to be fairly faithful to the Broadway version (which received an unprecedented twelve nominations and no wins two years ago at the Tony's).  The set is bare, comprised only of nearly a dozen chairs which serve as train, prison cell, courtroom, etc, as the scenes dictate.  The props are nearly nonexistent, and the costumes are plain enough to be invisible.  On the whole, it's a bit underwhelming, and Scottsboro might be better served by a greater commitment to both commentary and spectacle.  None-the-less, bold works like this deserve to be seen, debated, and encouraged.  I appreciate what a hard sell this show must have been from the beginning, and the empty seats in the theater only reinforces the fact that we should do better in supporting challenging new works.  For that alone, I recommend this production.  The Scottsboro Boys closes June 10th at the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center at the Old Globe.  In later June, the American Conservatory Theatre will commence a month long run in San Francisco.  

This review was from freelance writer Dan Johnson.  Please welcome Dan to the Cinesnatch fold.  We look forward to his future coverage.