A new play using superheroes to deal with the consequences
of racially-motivated police shootings premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in Los
Angeles on March 13th. Written by Inda Craig-Galvan, a staff writer
for ABC’s The Rookie, and starring
Kimberly Hébert Gregory, best known for her role as Dr. Belinda Brown on HBO’s Vice Principals, the play follows a
grieving mother in the wake of the police gunning down her 14-year-old son,
Tramarion.
Accordingto The Hollywood Reporter,
Craig-Galvan was motivated to write the play in response to what she saw as
Samaria Rice’s (mother of Tamir Rice, shot by police in Cleveland in 2014)
inability to simply grieve the loss of her son. The play addresses the
politicisation of such events, through media and popular discussion, and the
effect this politicisation has on those for whom the event is not political or
social, but personal.
The play
eschews the political aspect of the crime by having Hébert’s character Sabrina
play out her superheroic adventures as Maasai Angel on a metaphorical or
metaphysical level. The removal of the superhero from the “real world” allows
Sabrina to use Maasai Angel, a hero created by her son, as a way of coming
through her grief, “retreat[ing] into a fantasy world of superheroes and arch
villains.” But in asking the question is there a “mother who refuses to do the
things that are expected by the media and by society” in the wake of such
tragedy, some critics note that play “becomes mired in…imagination.” Sabrina’s
superheroic journey recasts real world figures from her life as villains she
must battle but largely avoids confronting “racist policing and an unjust
criminal justice system.” In so racially-charged a social climate, the absence
of this discussion strikes some as glaring.
Other reviews note that the play “deals with anger and violence and the brokenness of our
world but doesn’t get so caught up in those things that it loses the humanity
of its characters,” something that Craig-Galvan prioritized in composing the
play. The questions that remains, however, is whether or not the political
aspect of such crimes should be
removed from public discussions of racially-motivated shootings. Jordan Riefe,
in The Hollywood Reporter, notes that
while no one should have to grieve in public, or not be allowed to grieve in
private, a play like this also has the potential to “be every bit as engaging
and as relevant” in its discussion of the wider, public problems that lead to
these private tragedies.
From the Geffen Playhouse:
Sabrina Jackson cannot cope with
the death of her son by a White cop. Rather than herald the Black Lives Matter
movement, Sabrina retreats inward, living out a comic book superhero fantasy,
played out on stage. Will Sabrina stay in this dream world or return to reality
and mourn her loss?
Black Super Hero Magic
Mama, written by Inda Craig-Galvan and starring Kimberly Hébert Gregory
ran March 13 to April 14, 2019, at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Sources:
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