‘One Ninth’ takes inside look at 1957

I wish every show I saw was one-tenth as good as the production of “One Ninth” I saw Friday at the Argenta Community Theater.

The play, by Spirit Trickey Tawfiq, is the story of her mother, Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. (Trickey, by the way, was in the audience Friday night; Tawfiq helped introduce the show along with director Satia Spencer.)

Tawfiq, with the advantage of first-hand sources, takes the audience inside the raw emotion, the hatred and cruelty that faced these youngsters (including the telephoned death threats), through their first attempts to enter — faced down by National Guardsmen placed at the school by then-Gov. Orval Faubus — to the day, at least partially protected by members of the 101st Airborne deployed by President Eisenhower, when they finally made it through the school doors.

The abuse didn’t stop, of course; we see white students harassing them, swearing at them, calling them ugly names, dumping food on them, all while teachers do nothing and the principal brooks Minnjean’s reprisals with suspensions and eventually expulsion.

The cast is superb throughout, in particular Tyranni Hubbard as Minnijean Brown and Evanee Dra’a Dokes as best friend Melba Pattillo, but also Monica Bernard and Anthony “AK” Valley as her parents and Noah Cawich as the worst of the abusers. Maddie Robinson gets a shining moment without lines as student Elizabeth Eckford, whose attempt to enter the school while being screamed at by a protester was captured by Arkansas Democrat photographer Will Counts.

Spencer’s direction is just a little uneven in spots, particularly in the scene changes, but she gets to the heart of the story with considerable vigor, assisted by contemporary hit tunes and projections of historic footage on the upper level of Sara Cooke’s excellent set, which faithfully reproduces the front of the historic school (the stairs swing out to create the interiors of the Brown household and the school cafeteria).

It would have been helpful if the introduction mentioned that, as is usual at this theater, some entrances are made through the audience, and that there would be an intermission, which sort of caught the audience a bit by surprise.

“One Ninth” continues onstage through Sunday at the theater, 405 Main St., North Little Rock. Ticket information is available at argentacommunitytheater.org.