Mother G Rights A Wrong: A Robert Johnson, Jr. Play

"MOTHER G"
A play by Robert Johnson, Jr.
Directed by: Jacqui Parker. Set, Peter Colao. Lights, Jonathan Bonner.
Part of the 9th African-American Theatre Festival, presented by Our Place Theatre Project
At: Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, through Friday. Tickets $15-$35, 617-933-8600
May 27 - June 6
www.bostontheatrescene.com

The Ninth Annual African-American Theater Festival kicks off this week with "Mother G", a play penned by local playwright Robert Johnson, Jr.

The play documents a tumultuous week in a specific Dorchester, MA church community in 1963. All is not well in the New Beacon Baptist Church. An agitated young singer in the church’s choir comes to Mother G, the spiritual leader of the church, to disclose that she’s pregnant and that the father is none other than the charismatic pastor of their church.

A ‘he said/she said’ conflict ensues in which the male church council votes to retain the pastor. The fault lines aren’t exclusively along gender lines as people take sides and blame the girl or condemn the preacher. Incensed and having more than enough evidence of the pastor’s guilt, the women, led by Mother G, refuse to return to the flock and successfully petition to form their own church.

Eventually, they are joined by some of the men, who have sufficient doubt in the pastor and are stung, and perhaps shamed, by Mother G’s fearless conviction that a wrong must be righted.

The whole drama takes place at a time of political and cultural upheaval in the mid sixties. Fluent in the verses of the Bible, Mother G did more than work tirelessly to organize the women in the church to sing, provide food, and support the men in authority. When it became clear that a man trusted to shepherd them spiritually had breached trust and tarnished the church, she took action. Feminism was in its infancy but Mother G was way ahead of her time.

Singing the music of the gospel has been a source of comfort, conviction, and cohesion in many Christian denominations, perhaps no more emotionally important than in black churches, where song was one of the only sources of comfort since the years of slavery. Playwright Johnson uses the church’s choir, mostly women, to link the scenes of the play.

Jason Cross as Reverend James Mercy and Linda Starks-Walker as Mother G’s sister transformed the theater seats into pews. You didn't just listen to his words or her songs -  you felt them in your guts. You saw the sweat form on their brows and their bodies become animated by a religious conviction that bordered on ferocity. The divided world outside disappeared in the thunderclap of their visceral performances.

Linda Starks-Walker brought down the house with several full-bore body and soul gospel songs that resonate with you long after the two and a half hour play at The Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre. Singing didn’t change laws or right injustices but it certainly dissipated some of the sting and helped one to keep on keeping on in the face of it.

Jason Cross’s portrayal of the charismatic pastor hit the stage like a lightning bolt. With soaring rhetoric and theatrical mannerisms, Cross nailed the effect a preacher can have on a congregation. It's easy to see how he's increased the membership, which fills the church's coffers. That a man who was in charge of shepherding his flock took advantage of one of its most vulnerable made his fall from grace so much more unforgivable.

Latonya Gregg as Mother G, initially incredulous that her pastor could violate his position as moral leader, gathers evidence then plays her role with quiet determination. She stands up, alone at first, and won’t back down.

There are places where the pace drags and where important dialogue isn’t explored. When young Al Burgan (Garry Bates) complains that the women should be taking their message to the streets instead of sealing themselves up in the church, an audible affirmative response ripples through the audience. Perhaps that’s grist for Mr. Johnson’s next play.

As a fifteen-year-old boy, the playwright watched his mother organize opposition to the corrupt pastor of their own church. Her courage and persistence were a moral beacon to Mr. Johnson, who never forgot her willingness to take a stand in a time when it was nearly unthinkable to do so.

I’m used to being in the racial majority for the plays I write about. Not so tonight. Of the 200 people in attendance, you could have fit the number of white people in a freight elevator.  I wondered whether I’d laugh or be moved at the same things or whether I’d feel like an outsider.  It turned out the same way it does for most theater- sometimes I laughed or responded when others did and sometimes I didn’t.

Peering over the racial divide, I’ve wondered how much are we alike and how much are we different. As our president has said, there’s more that unites us than divides us. That rang true as I witnessed this play.

Photo by Robert Johnson: The choir - (from left) Garry Bates, Lakeisha Gilliard, David J. Curtis (back), Marvelyn McFarlane (front, as Hazel), Linda Starks-Walker, Alphonzo Moultrie, and Latonya Gregg, as Mother G.

Comments

[Alice]

Mother G sounds like a fabulous play. It reminds me of the Algonquians where the men ran things. But if they got out of line, the grandmothers deposed them. It would be a good thing if we had a system in place where
those who have raised children, who know how hard it is to raise them, could have more of a voice in who runs things and who we trust.

[Janie]

Paul,
Are you writing these just for Brookline school people or for some local paper? They are quite informative.