'Trouble in Mind': '50s drama rings true today

‘TROUBLE IN MIND’: Brandon Micheal Hall, LaChanze & Chuck Cooper. Photo: Joan Marcus.

TROUBLE IN MIND
Written by Alice Childress
Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright
Through January 9, 2022
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

By David NouNou

Written and first performed in 1955 as an Off-Broadway show to critical acclaim, Trouble in Mind was meant to transfer to Broadway in 1957 but never came to fruition because the playwright, Alice Childress, refused to tone down the racial discourse in her play to make it more palatable for white audiences.

Being an actress herself, Ms. Childress was tired of playing maids and other types of demeaning roles, so she wrote this play within a play and created the role of Wiletta Mayer, the title character. Wiletta has been an actress for many years and has played by the rules of the stage games of complying with everything she has to do to stay in the game.

We meet Wiletta (LaChanze), walking across the stage on the first day of rehearsal, stopping center stage in order to absorb that solitary moment where she is alone on the stage and savoring the thrill of that magical moment. She is about to star in a drivel of a play set in the South. Fellow cast members waft in: John Nevins (Brandon Micheal Hall), a young actor who will be playing her son; Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes), the best friend; Sheldon Forrester (Chuck Cooper), veteran of the stage playing Wiletta’s husband; Judy Sears (Danielle Campbell), the white ingénue who becomes friendly with John Nevins; and the imbecilic white director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen), a guy who has stereotypical notions of directing this show about a black family and whose word is the only word that counts.

On the third day of rehearsals, the fur begins to fly. The director wants all the wailing and flailing and broad gestures associated with black characters from his cast. However, Wiletta tries to explain that she can’t play the character that way and wants to play it in a normal, natural, and real manner. Floodgates open.

Racial issues are at the core of this play but they are intertwined with both humor and seriousness that makes it relevant to this day.

LaChanze is a Broadway veteran who received her first acclaim and Tony nomination for Once On This Island and has never stopped being a force of nature. We know her mostly for her musical performances, but in Trouble in Mind, she hits new heights as a dramatic actress. Her blowup/meltdown in Act II leaves one breathless.

Michael Zegen, better known for playing Joel Maisel in Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” is in the unenviable role of delusional director, Al Manners. His name is an oxymoron.

Chuck Cooper adds nobility to every role he plays, and newcomer Jessica Frances Dukes keeps the laughs coming.

Not as universal in theme as Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Alice Childress shows the universality of what every African American actress has had to endure.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 22, 2021
Reviewed at November 21, 2021 press performance.