Mixed Magic Theatre's new play focuses on the Rev. Martin Luther King
02/05/2009 01:00 AM EST
By Bryan Rourke
Journal Staff Writer
From left, When Fate Comes Knocking director Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, and cast members Jim Webster, Jeannie Carson and Danette Briggs.
Answer the door. When Fate Comes Knocking has arrived. The new play at Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket explores the events that shaped the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King. And it also recognizes plenty of other people who made the civil rights movement a success.
"Being a product of the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement, I wanted to find a way to acknowledge these people," says Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Mixed Magic's artistic director.
The one-act, 70-minute play, written by Pitts-Wiley, is told through a group of five people gathered on a back porch, shelling peas.
"This is about the men and women who worked all day. Their social setting was the back porch and they did what was considered a mundane activity, shell peas. But what they really did was discuss the events of the day, their awareness of what was going on and how it was affecting their lives."
The play, which opens tonight and runs through next weekend, touches upon several notable events in King's life, and events in the civil rights movement, which involved many unrecognized individuals.
"People forget the soldiers. We don't think about those kids in Birmingham, Ala., who stood before the water hoses and the dogs and went to jail. Men and women in the South made enormous personal sacrifices for the movement."
King led the movement, Pitts-Wiley notes, but no one can lead if no one follows, supports and sacrifices.
"Movements are created when there is a collective energy, when 10 people say, ‘I'm not going to put up with this anymore.' But does history write down the names of those 10 people? No."
Pitts-Wiley calls his play an appreciation, "a love poem" to an entire group of people who exercised patience and perseverance for a principle: justice.
"The people I write about were acutely aware of what was going on and they laid the foundation for change. I'm a product of that."
King was vital to the civil rights movement, but so, too, were so many others. In this play, Pitts-Wiley brings attention to 50 other leaders in the movement, including Edgar Nixon, Malcolm X and Ralph Abernathy.
"Abernathy wrote a scathing book about King and the movement. ‘Martin didn't do it himself. I was there, too. Where's the Ralph Abernathy Memorial? Where's the Ralph Abernathy Middle School?' I was so struck by that."
Not only does Pitts-Wiley draw attention to other civil rights leaders by name, but by image. A slideshow accompanies the play.
A couple of weeks ago, Pitts-Wiley went to Washington and attended the inauguration of Barack Obama, our country's first African-American president. That historic event, he says, is not the result of the work and the dedication of one person decades ago, but many, many people over several decades. And the effect, he says, is profound.
"This is the first time that African-Americans can talk from the point of view that what we set out to do, we did. Now we tell the story differently. We can see the fruits of other people's sacrifices."
Shows are tonight at 7, tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., at Mixed Magic Theatre, 171 Main St., Pawtucket. A discussion follows each of the performances, which runs through Feb. 15. For tickets, $15, $10 for seniors and students, call (401) 305-7333 .
