By Sharon Eberson
The play Double V harks back to World War II and American soldiers of color fighting on two fronts – on the battlefield abroad and for their rights at home.
That the story was sparked by a letter in the 1942 Pittsburgh Courier is what first caught the eye of Mark Clayton Southers. His Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company is presenting a production by 86-year-old Carole Eglash-Kosoff May 14-29 at the Trust Arts Education Center, Downtown.
The novelist, playwright, and documentary filmmaker, who first approached her subject as a book, will attend the first performances this weekend, coming in from the West Coast, her home and where the play had its only other production.
Double V is directed by Mani Bahia, with Nicholas Page as Ira Courier editor Ira F. Lewis and Boykin Anthony as Frank Bolden. The cast includes Jamaica Johnson, Elexa Lindsay Hanner, Dionysius Westbrooks, Ryan Bergman, Marcus Muzopoppa, and Matthew Southers.
Eglash-Kosoff’s play was inspired by the real-life James Thompson, a Black man who tried to enlist in the Army but instead suffered a beating by white men. Thompson wrote a letter titled “Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American?” published in 1942 by the Courier. This storied Pittsburgh newspaper had a national reach in the 1940s. Its staff included legendary photographer Teenie Harris, who chronicled life in the Hill District in the 1940s and boosted its stature with the Double V Campaign, which promoted efforts toward democracy for civilian defense workers and African Americans in the military.
Flash forward to 18-year-old Mark Clayton Southers as a photographer at the Courier. He became acquainted with Frank Bolden, one of only two accredited African American war correspondents and a character in the play.
“I saw that Frank Bolden was in the play, and I helped him out in his later years. I helped set up his office in Squirrel Hill,” Southers recalled. “His wife is one of our longtime patrons, so I really wanted to surprise her when she sees the character of her late husband. I thought that would be really fun.”
The poster for the play Double V features a drawing by Courier cartoonist Wilbert L. Holloway, known for the “Sunny Boy Sam” comic strip, and the digits he would inscribe in the strip that people looked for to play, well, the numbers.
“His grandson is a neighbor,” Southers said of another local connection to the play. “The numbers in the cartoon … it was a big deal, if only just for that.”
Mostly, Southers was impressed by the way the play spotlights the unheralded sacrifices made by Black American soldiers, who were still subjected to Jim Crow atrocities at home.
The play, he said, shoots down the notion of banning the teaching of “critical race theory” – in other words, eliminating historical facts about slavery and systemic racism from education.
“I want people to have a better appreciation of the risks and sacrifices African Americans take during wartime and continuing through Vietnam,” Southers said. “Double V meant victory abroad and victory at home, with at home even more important. These were people who were sacrificing both physically and spiritually, and they just wanted to be treated fairly.”
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s Double V is at the Trust Arts Education Center, 805 Liberty Ave., Downtown, May 14-29. Tickets are $27.50; $20 for seniors and students with ID. More at pghplaywrights.org.
Categories: Show Previews
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