Playwright: Abby Mann
At: Victory Gardens, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: (773) 871-3000; $30-$35
Runs through: March 2
Freedom Summer, 1964, Mississippi … when thousands of whites and African-Americans descended upon Mississippi to help register African-Americans for the vote. The goal was to liberate brothers and sisters from prejudice and discrimination. Giving them the vote was the first step in making their disenfranchised voices heard.
Pearl Cleage's play, Bourbon at the Border, uses this time as the back-story for a Detroit couple, Charlie (E. Milton Wheeler) and May (Velma Austin), who were part of the efforts during that hot, strife-filled summer. The play, receiving its Chicago premiere, was penned by the author of the novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, which was an Oprah Book Club Selection. Ms. Cleage's gift for storytelling and deftness with characterization and dialogue are on ample display in Bourbon at the Border, a powerful and moving story of how we deal with trauma. Cleage has set her story 30 years after Freedom Summer, when May and Charlie, now a middle-aged married couple, have settled into working-class life in Detroit. Charlie has struggled with mental illness, and, when the play opens, a nervous May awaits her husband's return from an institution. Rosa (Cheryl Lynn Bruce), upstairs neighbor and best friend, softens May's anxiety when she pops in, and extols the more reserved May with tales about her latest boyfriend, Tyrone (A.C. Smith). When Charlie appears, we see a flatness of emotion, but an earnestness to return to productive life. The first act of Bourbon at the Border loosens up its audience for the dark turn the second act takes by making us laugh. This ensemble, especially Bruce's effervescent Rosa, is adept at comic timing and Cleage supplies the quartet with ample opportunities for laughter. When Rosa tells May about her interview at a phone sex operation, she nearly brings the house down. But there are hints that something much darker lurks underneath as the characters discuss a series of unexplained murders of white men.
It won't be ruining any surprises to reveal that Charlie is the killer … that point is predictable enough that even the most distracted viewer could figure it out. Cleage's play isn't about being a thriller; it's about the buried anguish that Charlie and May have tried to come to terms with since Freedom Summer, when the pair endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of racists. Cleage shows us how two people dealt with trauma … May's strength, and Charlie's unraveling. The second act contains few laughs as May and Charlie's world falls apart. It's a breathtaking and moving moment when May reveals the tragedy at the core of her relationship with her husband.
Yet, Bourbon at the Border sets itself up for the trappings of the thriller, and fails in its promise to deliver. While the play's subtext runs much deeper than the events it portrays, it still needs to be free of contrivance to be credible. The fact that Charlie is found to be responsible for the killings because the police discover a piece of paper with his name on it is far too convenient. Added to this is the fact that, while in real life, trauma may burn for years before coming to a head, the telegraphed world of drama requires a trigger for such a momentous deed as murder. Finally, Bourbon at the Border has a problematic, derivative ending that mirrors so closely the final scene of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men that it distracts us from what could be a powerful moment if it was handled in a more original way.
Bourbon at the Border has a lot going for it: an astonishingly talented ensemble, tight direction by Andrea J. Dymond, and a script that, even with its flaws, displays a gift for rendering credible and interesting characters. These reasons alone are enough to make Bourbon at the Border worth seeing, but not enough to hail it as a triumph.