Systemic racism, injustice, and rebuilding lives explored in plays by Pittsburgh natives Adrienne Kennedy and Leon Ford
By SHARON EBERSON
I had the recent experience of bearing witness to two one-act works about the tragic consequences of driving while Black in the 2010s, and seeking a university education as a Black woman in the 1950s.
Both plays have stayed with me for many days since, and both are by native Pittburghers: The Weight of Forgiveness by Leon Ford is based on the aftermath of the real-life Pittsburgh police shooting that left Ford paralyzed from the waist down at age 19, just as he was about to become a father. The mostly metaphorical Ohio State Murders is told in flashbacks to the early 1950s, around the time award-winning playwright Adrienne Kennedy, now 95, born in Pittsburgh and reared in Cleveland, was an undergraduate student at the university.
Ohio State Murders at the Shaw Festival. (Image: Michael Cooper)
Kennedy’s first play to come to Broadway, Ohio State Murders starred Audra McDonald as Suzanne Alexander, a recurring character in the playwrights’ works. Directed by Kenny Leon, the 55-minute two-hander was short-lived in 2022, closing early but earning McDonald one of her 11 Tony Award nominations. It had been the first play at the newly named James Earl Jones Theater.
The play is now at Canada’s Shaw Festival, directed by Philip Akin, with Sophia Walker as Suzanne, and André Morin as Professor Robert Hampshire.
In 2022, speaking in an interview with Time Out magazine about what she hopes audiences will take away from seeing the play, Kennedy said, “I want them to realize that they’re listening to a very articulate, thoughtful American Black woman and, perhaps, they should pay attention to what she’s saying.”
At the Shaw, the audience for the 55-minute play in the intimate Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre was mostly white, mostly senior on a Saturday night toward the end of the run (July19-October 3).
The hard fact of the play is that it is believable enough that you likely will wonder how much of it is true, no matter the color of your skin. A Black female artist is asked to return to her alma mater and give a lecture on why there is so much violent imagery in her work. She then proceeds to tell the story of finding a love of language in an English lit class, the encouragement of her professor, and then, being turned away from her aspirations at every turn. Being an English major was not an option for a Black woman at Ohio State, where she was assumed to be incapable of such an undertaking.
Within that context, the unimaginable happens to Suzanne. Yet Adrienne Kennedy was able to imagine it.
I have become stuck on the idea of how much of the play is ashamedly plausible, as Suzanne relates her yearning as she listens to her professor read classical passages, her hopes dashed by the isolation and obstacles of misogyny and racism.
The unfathomable murders of the title are, at first, off-handedly recounted, as part of the narrative of Suzanne’s life. The whodunnit comes fairly quickly, with the rest, a buildup to the how and the why.
As Suzanne, Walker stalks the maze of a set, a whirling red oval reminiscent of a Hot Wheels track, as he exudes frustration and pain.
Morin, as Suzanne’s white professor, moves in and out of the space and her life, to mesmerize her with passages from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, or to represent the build up and tearing down of the dreams of a gifted Black woman.
In 1995, when the Signature Theatre staged a season of Kennedy’s work, she told The New York Times, “I feel that white America is against me, in a struggle to take away my birthright. My only salvation is to write.”
My impression of the audience make-up was mostly subscribers who did not know what they were getting into, watching Kennedy’s blistering indictment of systemic racism.
At the time she attended Ohio State, there were 300 black students amid a campus population of close to 27,000. Kennedy’s play unleashes a Pandora’s box of racist, chauvinistic policies that aim to kill even the most buoyant of spirits.
Although the circumstances are different and they were written decades apart, you can draw a direct line from Ohio State Murders to a.k. payne’s BURNBABYBURN! An american dream, a recent world premiere co-production of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and the August Wilson House. In the play, a young woman of today looks back at generations of women in her family, and their collective will to persevere in the face of bitter hardships.
I had traveled with a friend to the Shaw, specifically to see Ohio State Murders, having missed it on Broadway and wanting to know more about Kennedy, the recipient of a lifetime Obie Award and a Theater Hall of Fame inductee.
We arrived at that Canadian feast of plays — a pleasant drive from Pittsburgh when the weather is cooperative —
just a few days after seeing the one-night-only performance of another two-hander, The Weight of Forgiveness.
Directed by Mark Clayton Southers, the play featured riveting performances by Dionysius Westbrook as Leon Ford and Michael Patrick Trimm as the Pittsburgh police detective who fired five bullets into Ford during a mistaken-identity traffic stop.
The details of the case have been closely reported in the media, and they are recounted here from both points of view. The Officer continually justifies his actions, refuses to apologize, and shockingly suggests that the incident has turned out better for Ford, who has become somewhat of a celebrity after the incident, while his own life has been in a downward spiral.
Westbrook, as Ford (who was present for the performance), registers the rage you might expect, but has determined not to be ruled by it.
An introductory narration specifically asks that we pay attention, be brave in the face of what we are about to experience, and try not to take sides. As described in the program notes, the meeting is “a battle over identity, responsibility, and who gets to define what really happened.”
The Weight of Forgiveness is a powerful piece that I hope will reach a wider audience after the showing at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture on September 16.
Ford’s is a Pittsburgh story that has been tragically on repeat. It was 1995 when Jonny Gammage died after being pinned on the pavement by five suburban white police officers following a traffic stop on Route 51. An East Pittsburgh police officer fatally shot 17-year-old Antwon Rose II as he fled from a traffic stop on June 19, 2018.
Ford has channeled his personal tragedy into building bridges.
He is a playwright, author (“An Unspeakable Hope: Brutality, Forgiveness, and Building a Better Future for My Son”) and cofounder, with former Pittsburgh Police Chief Scott Schubert, of the Hear Foundation, “the first and only nonprofit in Pittsburgh dedicated exclusively to collaborating with community leaders, Public Safety Professionals, and residents to create a safe, thriving community for all.”
Kennedy’s play tells the tale of a Black woman who builds a new life despite being haunted by heartbreak beyond measure. Ford’s play is about living the reality of what happens when fear and injustice reign, the strength it takes to move forward with hope, and work toward a vision of brighter tomorrow.
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