8 ways of looking at Ferguson
‘Until the Flood’ creator portrays various characters reacting to police shooting
The creator of the Rep’s ‘Until the Flood’ portrays characters reacting to the police shooting.
In “Until the Flood,” Dael Orlandersmith does not try to explain what happened in Ferguson, Mo., when police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown in 2014. ❚ “We don’t know what happened in those ensuing last moments,” she said. ❚ Instead of litigating the case in her drama, Orlandersmith explores reactions to Brown’s death, police behavior and community protest by creating eight characters, black and white, of varying ages and points of view. Her character Reuben, a 70ish black barber, could be speaking for many of them when he declares, “Don’t judge me by appearances or any of us thinking that you know us so well.” ❚ Milwaukee Repertory Theater begins performances of “Until the Flood” on Tuesday. Orlandersmith performs all of the characters, using pieces of clothing like a shawl and a jacket to transition from one to another.
“Hopefully, it’ll invoke and provoke some conversation,” Orlandersmith said during a recent interview at the Rep.
Repertory Theatre of St. Louis commissioned Orlandersmith’s play; both the St. Louis theater and the Milwaukee Rep have performed “Yellowman,” her hard-hitting drama about love between a dark-skinned black woman and a light-skinned black man.
Orlandersmith, a New Yorker, made a listening tour of Ferguson and St. Louis. She posed one basic question: How has it affected you personally? Then: “I let them talk,” she said.
The characters she created from those sessions and other research are composites, not depictions of specific Missourians. She emphasized that point, contrasting her approach with that of Anna Deavere Smith, whose documentary theater (such as “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992”) she praised.
Orlandersmith’s most provocative character may be Dougray, a white racist who owns houses in Ferguson and fantasizes shooting down a line of black people. But she notes “it’s not simply about race”; his monologue reveals how “the sins of the father” have shaped him.
In a New York Times review of a New York production, Jesse Green praised the nuance and subtlety of Orlandersmith’s black characters in this show, pointing out, for example, how the two black teenagers in “Until the Flood” have completely different responses to encounters with police in their neighborhoods.
Orlandersmith said a stereotyped portrait has emerged that makes it “sound as if everybody who comes from the hood resorts to crime and we have to quote unquote take care of them.” But, she noted, there are parents in the hood who check their children’s homework, and there are teenagers like her character Paul, who plan to go to college — if they survive.
She made one exception to her rule of not quoting real people in “Until the Flood.” During her listening tour, Ferguson poet Marcellus Buckley introduced her to Michael Brown Sr. and his wife, Calvina. During their conversation, Orlandersmith asked if they could forgive Wilson for killing the younger Michael.
In the play, Orlandersmith repeats what they said to her.
“I can forgive Darren Wilson,” Calvina Brown told her. “I know God has forgiven him. I hope he can forgive himself.”
“I ain’t there yet,” said Michael Brown Sr. “I got work to do.”
The characters in “Until the Flood” are speaking to themselves and questioning themselves, Orlandersmith said. “I’m interested in work where you are made to look at yourself,” she said.
As for what she hopes to accomplish with her play, she told a story about seeing Brian Dennehy in “Death of a Salesman” in New York. She sat directly behind a Sikh man and a Hasidic man, who did not appear to know each other. At the end of the play, both stood up and said, at the same time, “That was my father!”
Orlandersmith performs “Until the Flood” as one act without intermission. Following each performance, the Rep will offer its Act II discussion program. A community guest responder will give a brief reaction to the performance. Then representatives of the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion will facilitate smallgroup discussions for those who wish to participate.
Scheduled community guest responders include Vincent Lyles, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (March 21); Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm (7:30 p.m. March 28); state Sen. Lena Taylor (8 p.m. March 31); Milwaukee County Chief Judge Maxine White (2 p.m. April 8); and Nate Hamilton, co-founder of The Coalition for Justice and a brother of the late Dontre Hamilton, who was shot 14 times by a police officer in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park in 2014 (4 p.m. April 21).