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Ideas Of Ancestry

Ideas Of Ancestry image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
June
Year
1976
OCR Text

IDEAS OF ANCESTRY

Northwest Activities Center
June 9-27
Presented by the Paul Robeson Players, written and directed by Eugene Johnson

In the last couple of years we've seen several very powerful dramatic works which dealt with the contemporary black family, not the least of which were the play and film versions of River Niger, Ron Milner's Broadway smash What the Wine Sellers Buy, and the critically acclaimed film, Claudine, We have to say that Eugene Johnson's new Ideas of Ancestry is on a par with these major works, because it focuses on the accepted, almost-instinctive rationalizations of modern black domestic life, and because its acting and production are also first-rate.

Johnson, who wrote and directed Ideas of Ancestry, spent six years working on its script before finally turning it over to The Paul Robeson Players, a high-energy unit with plenty of genuine talent. They use the play's street realism, bold contradictions, and mind-jolting climax to create a performance that is both authentic and thoroughly entertaining.

Ancestry centers on a family whose four children are almost grown, ranging in age from 16-25. The oldest son, Donald (Fred Bennett), is a fancy dresser who prefers to live by his wits; while younger brother Harvey (Michael Joseph) looks for success and security through discipline and study, and has just graduated from college. Their sister, Nora (Riah Armstrong), has fallen in love with an ex-convict; and Kevin (Robby Davis) the "baby" and naive member of the family, wants to be a professional basketball player.

Holding together and providing for this brood is mother (Miriam Flowers). Some ten years ago father went down the drain, and after brutalizing mother and making a show of being unfaithful to her, split. When father writes that he will return to visit the home he deserted so long ago, he unwittingly touches off a chain reaction in which the family members become forces pulling wildly in separate directions. The situation gets completely out of control at the play's merciless ending when tragedy strikes from a sudden and unexpected source, and the young "men" of the family awkwardly move to take responsibility for it.

Ancestry's full impact is a delayed one – the play asks so many questions about basic roles in black drama and life (and most, if not all, a apply to whites, too) that it takes awhile to realize the scope of everything that is implied. Why did father leave? Why did he return? What is mother's secret? Why can't the brothers communicate with each other? Can any member of the family find happiness in the world they live in?

Ideas of Ancestry is strong stuff, to be sure, and the depth and breadth of the performance is indeed a credit to to Johnson, The Robeson Players, and the City's Northwest Activities Center, where it continues through June.