‘Until the Flood’ evokes trauma of racism
Every 10 days in America, a cop shoots and kills an unarmed black person; between 2004 and 2014, more than 10,000 people in this country were killed by on-duty cops. How did we get here, and what does it say about who we are?
These are among the questions asked by Dael Orlandersmith in “Until the Flood,” now on stage at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in a production that opened Friday night under Neel Keller’s direction. It ostensibly explores why a white cop killed an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., four years ago. But it’s really about the past 400 years, in a country that still hasn’t overcome.
Based on interviews she did in Ferguson in early 2015, Orlandersmith has crafted eight composite characters — five black and three white, some young and some old — describing how they feel about what happened. And about race in America.
There are two teachers, one black and one white. Two black high school students — one spiraling down and the other trying to fly free. An electrician and a barber. A minister and a retired cop.
Dressed in a nondescript white top, jeans and running shoes, Orlandersmith lightly accessorizes with a shawl and jackets to distinguish characters. Underneath our differences, she suggests, there’s a great deal we share.
Many characters have fraught relations with parents; some of those parents were physically abusive.
Nearly all of them are afraid, of their past and themselves. Some of them are angry; while embodying them, Orlandersmith can resemble a volcano. Or the roiling waters suggested by the buckling floorboards on Takeshi Kata’s evocative set — a raised platform that recalls both the Michael Brown memorial and a raft adrift in a rising tide of violence.
All eight characters — including a venomous white racist who comes closest to being a caricature — are trying to reach beyond themselves, searching for what one character describes as an “oasis from all the tension,” even though she knows it’s only “for a little while.”
Such moments — involving a cruising teen and barbershop bonhomie, the beginnings of interracial friendship and one interracial marriage, dreams of studying art history and belief in a brotherhood that transcends race — offer pinpricks of light in a lowering sky.
But make no mistake: This is a dark piece, and Orlandersmith’s large and expressive face — wise but weary, determined but sad, aware of all that’s been lost and how little we’ve found or figured out — channels the painful history of many thousands gone.
Orlandersmith’s ambiguous ending won’t rule out the prospect that this is a nightmare from which we’ll wake someday. But she also leaves no doubt that if we’re going to leave the killing grounds behind, we’ve got work to do.
“Until the Flood” continues through April 22 in the Stiemke Studio, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, visit MilwaukeeRep.com. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com.