Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu thinks big. The artistic director of Obsidian Theatre masterminded the huge 鈥21 Black Futures鈥 project: 21 short plays responding to the question 鈥淲hat is the future of Blackness?鈥
The project recently won four Canadian Screen Awards including Best Web Program in the fiction category.
For her return to live theatre, Tindyebwa Otu has chosen a play so ambitious that it鈥檚 taking three companies to produce it: Obsidian, Canadian Stage and Necessary Angel. 鈥淚s God Is,鈥 by American writer Aleshea Harris, is an epic story about 21-year-old Black twins who go on an odyssey across America to find the father who set them and their mother on fire years ago.
鈥淢ake your daddy dead,鈥 their mother, played by Alison Sealy-Smith, orders the young women, who are portrayed by actors Oyin Oladejo and Vanessa Sears. 鈥淢ake him all the way dead.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 an audacious piece,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu. 鈥淚鈥檇 never seen or read anything like it before.鈥
The play is a mash-up of different genres and traditions, from Greek tragedy to spaghetti Western to hip hop and Afropunk, that moves across American locations from the Northeast to the Deep South to California. This production will be its Canadian premiere.
For Tindyebwa Otu, what鈥檚 most striking about the piece is 鈥渢he Black female perspective at the centre of it all.鈥 The play presents 鈥淏lack women in a way that I hadn鈥檛 seen them portrayed onstage before. It was just very freeing.鈥 Harris has 鈥渕ythologized our experiences as Black folks,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu.
The play challenges respectability politics, which Tindyebwa Otu described as 鈥渢he idea that in order for Black women to be accepted in society 鈥 they鈥檙e just bearing everything that鈥檚 been handed to them. They鈥檙e resilient and no complaints. They鈥檙e just going to take it all.鈥
鈥淚s God Is鈥 turns this idea on its head. 鈥淕od is a Black woman who鈥檚 going to get justice through whatever means necessary,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu. 鈥淎nd that is asking her two daughters to go on this righteous revenge trip to avenge her. You don鈥檛 blame her for wanting that kind of justice when you read the play.鈥
鈥淚s God Is鈥 鈥 for all its fantastical, theatrical qualities 鈥 gets at an issue central to Black communities: the roots of violence. The sisters鈥 quest for vengeance 鈥渋s coming from a place of acute abandonment, and a place of neglect and a place of wanting to make things right,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just violence for the sake of violence.鈥
Having three companies on board as co-producers mitigates the risks of mounting a play of this scale in these still unpredictable times. There have been challenges during the rehearsal period, including a COVID-19 outbreak in the company that pushed back the start of performances by several days.
The idea of making this a multi-company collaboration was initially driven by creative reasons as much as practical ones, said Tindyebwa Otu. She approached Canadian Stage because she felt that the company would relate to the 鈥渆xperiment of the piece, in terms of its esthetic and how unapologetic it is in terms of its message.鈥 There was some kismet involved too: Necessary Angel鈥檚 artistic director, Alan Dilworth, came across the play on his own and suggested to Tindyebwa Otu that she direct it, not knowing that she was already planning to.
All of the characters in the play are Black, which Tindyebwa Otu believes makes the play accessible to many audiences. The play is 鈥渘ot about explaining Blackness,鈥 she said. 鈥淏y getting into the story of this family and these sisters where their humanity is at the centre 鈥 it actually makes it universal by getting at that specific story.鈥
The power of Harris鈥檚 vision and storytelling 鈥渂ears it all,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu. 鈥淵ou just take it as is. And based on your vantage point, your relationship, your entry point to the piece, you鈥檒l come out of it with something different.鈥
The performance on May 10 is a Black Out Night exclusive to Black spectators, including $15 discount tickets and a post-show discussion. 鈥淲e鈥檙e coming out of two years of a really hard time,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu. 鈥淧eople have gone through so much on a personal level. There鈥檚 all this pent-up rage within us.鈥 The goal for this night is to 鈥渏ust to throw that up onstage 鈥 and see how the play sits for Black audiences,鈥 she said.
She does not, however, anticipate uniform responses. 鈥淏lack, it鈥檚 not a monolith,鈥 she said.
There have been a number of plays by Black American writers staged in 海角社区官网in recent months including Branden Jacobs Jenkins鈥 鈥淕loria鈥 and Dominique Morisseau鈥檚 鈥淧ipeline,鈥 each very different in formal approach and perspective. 鈥淭here鈥檚 really nothing like a Black esthetic; there鈥檚 Black esthetics,鈥 said Tindyebwa Otu.
As an artist and artistic director, she said her central goal is to 鈥渢ake a hammer and just smash the idea that there is one esthetic singular Black story.鈥
鈥淚s God Is鈥 runs at the Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St., Toronto, May 6 to 22. See for information.
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