Lynn King in Trouble in Mind (Brian Paulette)
Nearly 70 years ago, Alice Childress’ play Trouble in Mind was robbed of its Broadway premiere by producers set on lessening its message. Following a well-received off-Broadway run, Childress was asked to make substantial changes to the script, specifically to lighten the racial commentary in a satirical drama about racism in theatre. Childress, who was set to be the first Black woman to have a play on Broadway, refused and the run was canceled. It didn’t make its Broadway debut until 2021. However, those without any knowledge of the history of the play, currently running at Kansas City Actors Theatre, might well have thought it was a new work.
Trouble in Mind stars KC powerhouse Lynn King as Wiletta Mayer, a Black actress starting work on a new play, titled “Chaos in Belleville.” Wiletta and her colleagues are used to resigning themselves to disappointing roles—roles named exclusively after flowers (Petunia, Daisy) and gems (Ruby, Opal), who exist only to fawn over the main white characters and to “shout ‘Lord, have mercy!’ for two hours every night”—and this new play is no exception. It’s full of insulting stereotypes and dehumanizing character choices, but the difference is that this play is being heralded as having something to say about race, as being progressive and “important.”
When we meet Wiletta, she is already a jaded industry veteran, quick to offer her bright-eyed young costar John Nevins (Robert E. Coppage III) some unsolicited advice in dealing with white people in theatre: Don’t let on that you’ve had training lest it ruin their impression of Black actors as “natural” talents, don’t ask for too much, always laugh at their jokes, and never, ever let on that you know the play stinks. This ethos has gotten Wiletta through decades in this business but this is the play that will test the limits of what she can endure.
Childress’ pacing is spellbinding and played to perfection by the cast, under the deft direction of Teisha Bankston and Darren Sextro. The play opens on the first day of rehearsals, and the cast meet-and-greets have a charming patter. The first act has a lightness to it, full of laughs, but there is a dark undercurrent present throughout. Their reminiscing and the professional war stories they share reflect an industry that has consistently failed them. The play they’ve gathered to mount is insulting. The show’s white director, Al Manners (played brilliantly by Joh Resenhouse) is jovial, especially with Wiletta, talking at length about their history together and calling her pet names. But he has sinister edges to him that show when he’s questioned or during acting exercises purporting to help the actors find their truth by belittling them. Manners’ insistence that Wiletta needs to think less is a short bridge to making it clear he wants to hear less from her, preferably nothing at all.
These moments build slowly, as every question and suggestion Wiletta puts forth is dismissed with growing impatience from her director at being asked to consider the lived experiences of the people he claims this show is in service of. Even the most well-meaning of the show’s white characters approach the subject matter with a lack of understanding, curiosity, and any indication that they believe the show might actually be better if the perspectives of their Black colleagues are heard. By the end of the second act, there is no room left for another single aggression, micro or not—the only options are to bottle up the slights and injuries and continue on (not really an option at all) or break open entirely.
The play is set in 1957 (as Atif Rome’s simple modern set and Matt Snellgrove’s crisp costumes so beautifully communicate) but the content is infuriatingly, tragically timeless. Just one year before Trouble in Mind finally debuted on Broadway, a coalition of hundreds of BIPOC theatremakers released an open letter addressed “Dear White American Theatre,” calling out the industry’s deep-seated racism and demanding an overhaul to its practices top to bottom. The injustices and indignities they described in the letter could be straight out of Childress’ script.
“We have watched you un-challenge your white privilege, inviting us to traffic in the very racism and patriarchy that festers in our bodies, while we protest against it on your stages,” that letter reads, in what is also a distressingly apposite synopsis of the play written and first performed decades earlier.
Bankston and Sextro have assembled an exceptional cast. King exhibits a remarkable vulnerability in Wiletta’s journey. As fellow actress Millie Davis, Chioma Anyanwu captures the lyricism in Childress’ language with an enchanting banter but also a no-nonsense pragmatism in maintaining her and her Black colleagues’ safety. Brad Shaw is Sheldon Forrester, the most averse of all of them to making waves, even though he has the closest ties to the subject matter of the play, as he reveals in a show-stopping monologue in the second act.
Childress’ Trouble in Mind is a funny, tragic, important work of art, expertly executed on KCAT’s stage. This play is basically the definition of a “conversation starter” and will give you no shortage of material to think and talk about—sparking a conversation that has, unfortunately, been necessary for far too long.
