Penumbra

BLUE – by Charles Randolph-Wright – is the story of a successful Black family as they face moments of reality through the music of their lives. One is reminded of the themes of music within the plays of August Wilson. He brought to light the search that African Americans make to find their own songs. This quest for the individual, as well as collective song, continues in many contemporary ways. Charles Randolph-Wright has revealed, in a very personal way, the challenges of singing (and hearing) these songs. Within the story of BLUE, many secrets are revealed for this complicated family. Surrounding it all are the songs and music of significant decades. They listen to them being sung again and again; not truly hearing them until reality hits.

To be a member of the generation that remembers the issue songs of the late 60’s and early 70’s sung to inspire a societal change, is to live in the memory of those songs that made your heart beat. Connecting to the lyrics of yearning, passion as well as bitter tears, we understood that the heart is at the center of our song. Those songs can make us dance, cry, and sometimes laugh. It is something that connects deep in our collective emotion as a people. Those songs connect to the universality of music and how it can speaks. Searching for love, happiness, solutions to pain are all a part of this life. Music helps to get through it all.

Randolph-Wright has had the courage to show us living with music. The outside appearances are as shallow as the Ebony Fashion Fair photo shoots. Those days were important but they were created with the idea of instilling pride in a people who were transforming America and its values. The hierarchy of beauty based on a certain skin color as well as the preference of hair styles was touted by members of a new class structure. This was created by successful Black families who felt they had arrived in different areas of the country. But we could not escape the fact of who we were – and are. Differences of opinion on social appearances were embedded from decades of denial in mainstream America. Dancing outside of those borders was dangerous. The deeper the music went, the core of the people wanted to be more distant. The emerging truths always popped up though, much as the truth pops up here in the story of this family.

Harry Waters, Jr.
Assistant Director

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