During the hot summer of 1919, a Black Chicago teenager named Eugene Williams found himself floating toward an area of Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline that might not have been formally marked out for whites only, as in the South in that era, but was still held that way by the Chicagoans on the beach.
They threw rocks at Williams, causing him to drown. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 ensued, resulting in 38 deaths and more than 500 injured. Thereafter, the City of Chicago commissioned a lengthy report titled “The Negro in Chicago: A Study on Race Relations and a Race Riot.” The intent, which proved overly optimistic, was that no racially charged bloodshed ever would occur again in Chicago.
Those are the basic historical facts behind the very notable new Steppenwolf for Young Adults show, which is adapted by J. Nicole Brooks from “1919,” the second collection of poetry published in 2020 by Haymarket Books by the Chicago poet and sociologist Eve L. Ewing.
In her poems, which are both radical and remarkable, Ewing connects the report to a variety of subsequent racially charged events, ranging from the murder of Emmett Till to the decision not to prosecute George Zimmerman to the Lightfoot administration’s choice to raise the bridges in downtown Chicago to head off protesters following the George Floyd murder.
But Brooks, the adapter, also has infused this ensemble-performed piece with a potent sense of how much it costs to keep recounting this story, the price that constantly has to paid by its tellers.
That’s a Homeric impulse — a nod to the weary poet’s Sisyphean task — and it infuses this piece with emotion and immediacy. In an era when theaters like Steppenwolf are offering mostly shows about issues of racial injustice, they’re constantly calling on Black actors to reenact stories of slavery and subjugation. This was true in the most recent Steppenwolf mainstage piece “Miz Martha Washington” and it’s the case here. And what is the impact on those actors? And on the teenagers watching the show? It needed confronting and not only does Brooks take on that issue, so does this company.
The ensemble, made up of Sheldon D. Brown, Demorris Burrows, Max Thomas, Sola Thompson, Jessica Dean Turner and Alexis Ward, engages with this difficult material, for sure, but they’re always signaling that no actor thereof should or can find it easy. As directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent and Tasia A. Jones, it’s a beautifully performed piece. There were a couple of moments when I felt the need to engage a young audience trumped the trust of the poetry in actually doing that job, but only a couple. For the most part, it’s a portrait of collective commitment.
Over many years of watching the hugely talented Brooks’ work, I’ve sometimes thought she was working on stories that were not always her first choice, with an attendant dislocation. But that’s not the case here. The piece, performed during the day for school groups and during the evening for the public, is not only serving students who’ve largely been starved of in-person arts education during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a reminder of the huge power of locally oriented material. When the show noted the address of Williams, and where he lived and shopped, the students around me (and I shifted during the show) were understanding proximity, both geographic and temporal.
As a duo, Brooks and Ewing are compelled not just by the exhaustion inherent in telling this story, the images dancing late at night in their heads, but by the contradictions of Chicago itself. Especially here, you’ve got the irony of a body of water without boundaries running up against the racial rigidity of dry land, of the promise of a freshwater lake and the reality of bodies on the shore. And by implication, of course, the piece is asking its audience to think about their own home and what hope its history implies and allows.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “1919? (3.5 stars)
When: Through Oct. 29 (limited public performances)
Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
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Tickets: $20-$30 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org