By Hands Unknown (review)

In 1914, African American author Angelina Weld Grimké drafted a three-act play about lynching, now known as Rachel, which was first staged in Washington, D.C., in March 1916. During the next two decades, lynching plays proliferated as dramatists turned to the one-act format, often forsaking traditional theatrical success. Kym Gomes's By Hands Unknown returned to such scripts. Gomes decided to address racial violence after seeing the 2000 New York Historical Society presentation of Without Sanctuary, an exhibit featuring nearly a hundred photographs of lynch victims. These images originally circulated in turn-of-the-century newspapers and picture postcards; meanwhile, American dramatists wrote one-acts about those who survived the mobs' attacks. Lynchings often drew large crowds, but plays highlighting long-term consequences did not. Most often, lynching plays appeared in magazines, available for amateur performance and dramatic readings. When Gomes's show, consisting of seven one-acts from the 1920s and '30s, joined the 2010 New York Fringe Festival, a wider audience encountered these scripts and the genre's message. In particular, Gomes's revival demonstrated that the physical brutality captured in the photographs was only the beginning of the damage to US families.

The family in Aftermath before John knows that his father was lynched while he served overseas: Jihan Ponti (Millie), Phil John (Lonnie), Carmen Balentine (John), and Valerie Elizabeth Donaldson (Mam Sue). (Photo: Claudia Turbides.)

Given the source material, the show could have seemed dated and disjointed, but the choices made by Gomes and her co-director Harvey Huddleston as well as the expert execution of the ensemble cast highlighted the dramatic power of the original works and the relevance of lynching plays for today's audiences. The show's careful transitions, emphasis on thematic connections, and manipulation of sound and silence articulated this history's connection to the present.

With seven one-acts, transitional elements proved crucial, and the choices were flawless. Throughout the two-hour presentation, performer Safiya Fredericks provided continuity; she remained stage right, with a musician by her side. Before each individual play, Fredericks recited a different poem while a single light shone on her and the musician, who played guitar or harmonica or remained silent. Fredericks began with the words of "Strange Fruit," the poem by Lewis Allen that became a famous song with Billie Holiday's 1939 recording. Although Fredericks recited it as a poem, not a song, the recognizable lines assured audience members that we knew something about the show's subject matter. When the poem ended, the stage went dark, and it remained so when a choir's singing initiated the action of Georgia Douglas Johnson's A Sunday Morning in the South (1925). The choir stayed in the shadows, representing a church near the home where the action took place. When 19-year-old Tom was falsely accused of rape, the singing stopped. Police officers dragged him from the house, and his grandmother cried and prayed. The presentation suggested that whenever "strange fruit" hung from trees, families mourned.

A daughter tries to convince her father that violence is not necessary in Country Sunday: Alison Parks (Emmaline) and Rick Schneider (Samuel Bates). (Photo: Claudia Turbides.)

Every recited poem created a bridge between the one-acts. Fredericks ushered the audience from the sympathy inspired by a praying grandmother to the militancy of Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die" (1919). Insisting upon the necessity of fighting back, this poem prepared the audience for Mary Burrill's Aftermath (1919), in which a black soldier returns from World War I to discover that his father has been lynched. The action ended with him exiting, pistol in hand. Similarly, McKay's poem "The Lynching" (1922) describes white women who looked without sorrow at a hanging corpse; this image provided a segue into Corrie Howell's The Forfeit (1925). In this...