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A harrowing look at the many shades of prejudice

Yellowman

By: Dael Orlandersmith

The playwright, actress and poet has been described as ‘One of the important new poetic voices in America today’ (Her other works include: The Gimmick, Monster, and My Red Hand, My Black Hand.)

Director: Lara Bye
Cast: Mwenya Kabwe, David Johnson

Too big, too skinny, too dark, too pale, too much like mommy, too much like daddy. The child, the miniature, is an easy target for the angry parent trapped between their own powerlessness and society’s bitter prejudice. So it is in the explosive American drama, Yellowman, deftly directed in this production by Lara Bye.

Eugene (David Johnson) and Alma (Mwenya Kabwe) are children, enthusiastically and innocently throwing themselves at life’s great adventure. They are not just the light-skinned boy and the big, dark girl that others see.

They run together like wildfire through their small South Carolina town. In each other, they have found a soul mate and they are saved from the twin brutality of poverty and prejudice by having someone to dream with.

They celebrate the things they share, similarities, common ground. In the background, others obsess about their difference, the things that set them apart.

They grow into teenagers and fall in love. One can feel the stifling, oppressive heat, and almost smell the sweat as the two actors deliver riveting performances and make this story their own. David Johnson is great as Gene; Mwenya Kabwe is absolutely brilliant as Alma.

Suspense and sadness fill the air as Gene and Alma emerge from the wonder and safety of their childhood friendship into an adulthood of tough choices and harsh reality as they experience the full force of the anger in the poisoned hearts around them.

What a week to see this play (showing at Baxter Sanlam Studio from November 4 to 29), two days after Barack Obama, son of a white American woman and a black Kenyan man whom he hardly knew reached the pinnacle of power in the Western world. Orlandersmith had said that she would have to leave the States if Obama was not elected.

The cast and crew:

Zambian-born Mwenya Kabwe holds a Master’s degree in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town, where she lectures in the Drama Department. She is one of seven Spier Contemporary 2007 winners for a collaborative performance work unyawo alunampumlo.
One of Cape Town’s rising actors, David Johnson was seen in the title role of Hamlet at Artscape earlier this year. On television he played the character Dwayne in the popular soap Sewende Laan.

Faheem Bardien’s lighting design was inspired by Caravaggio paintings to help create light and shadows with design and costumes by Leila Anderson.