Color in Stages
By Chad Jones
insnews.org
{Excerpted}
“There are all these plays from the 1960s,’70s and into the’80s about being black in America,” Young says. “I was tired of them. I wanted to see black actors do something else because I know from my own experience that life isn’t just about being black. Like most people, I’m a struggling person with other problems in life that run the gamut.”
Playwright Wilson, whose work can be seen on local stages in February, was born to a white father and black mother. He felt strongly that black Americans should tell black American stories and that color-blind casting — like an all-black “Death of a Salesman,” for instance — had nothing to do with the African-American experience.
“I understand Mr. Wilson’s thinking,” says Young, 38. “But he was thinking inside the box. His upbringing was in an era of limitation and struggle. I grew up in an era where things were more unbounded. Dream your dream! What if? I understand his thinking, but in this era, it’s faulty.”
Young says that theater companies have to face the fact that the nation is changing. So is the Bay Area.
“If black theaters continue doing plays that are only about the black experience, the pure black experience, they might be doing themselves a disservice,” she says. “There are people in other communities — Asian, Latino, Russian, whatever — who want to see your story, and they want to see something of themselves. They want to be able to relate to what you’re going through as people.” (more…)
