Playwright: Alice Childress
At: Steppenwolf Theatre,
1650 N. Halsted St.
Phone: ( 312 ) 335-1650; $35-$50
Runs through: March 30
In Having Our Say, our centenarian hostesses speak of an interracial couple whose mutual devotion constituted a model of marital fidelity, but who were forbidden by law to marry. Julia and Herman, the lovers in Wedding Band are such a couple. Not only do the statutes of South Carolina in 1918 prohibit such contracts between white and non-white citizens, but Herman's debt to his dominating mother prevents him eloping with his bride to more liberal climes. For 10 years, Julia has endured the disapproval of her neighbors in the 'colored' districts, while her swain chafes under duty to his familywhose German surname, ironically, renders THEM targets of wartime zealots' hostile prejudice.
Playwright Alice Childress, who died in 1994 at the age of 78, knew of what she spoke. As with the sisters Delany, she was THERE, her testimony unimpeachable, and her uncensored candor as unbiased as it is only through its author's refusal to take the narrow view in assigning blame. Bigotry and its imposition on others is not limited to one race, class or culture. Stubborn and unyielding ignorance, as Herman laments at one point, is the enemy that insures destruction and unhappiness for all.
For this joint Congo Square/Steppenwolf production, director Ron OJ Parsons has assembled from the companies' combined personnel a team of seasoned performers who pace themselves wisely to infuse their text with compassion and humanityeven when Childress' plot complications start piling upto create a richly textured environment of photographic accuracy ( hymns sung at a Sunday-morning prayer meeting are never permitted to spill over into musical-comedy showiness, for example ) .
Libya Pugh and Rick Snyder, playing the doomed Julia and Herman, lead a cast which includes Congo Square regulars Ann Joseph, TaRon Patton, Monifa Days and Will Sims II, along with newcomer Jennie Moreau and familiar Steppenwolf faces Deanna Dunagan and Robert Breuler. Scenic designer Todd Rosenthal supplies visual verisimilitude while dialect consultant Joanna Maclay provides oral authenticity to immerse us in a world whose injustices to those who would join in holy matrimony still resonate in our society today.