What I liked
The words, the wonderful words. LL’s delivery of the poems.
What I didn't like
The night I saw it, LL was reaching, at times, for the next line. It’s a huge piece and his only way of getting his bearings, if he loses them, is to review instantly, what has already been said. This could be cleaned up by giving him some sign posts. Divide the piece into sections. For instance, a comfortable reminiscence around the campfire of a happy childhood, broken for moments by strange events (Did he call my grandfather boy?). Then events pile up, so that LL is moved off his seat and drops contact with the audience as he tries to make sense of the endless stream of murders and police brutality. Then a section where he turns to the audience, no longer to share, but to challenge them…..“Can you understand what I’m saying? Can you understand what’s going on?” Etc. Each of these sections has it’s own style, and blocking, so that LL will know where he is, not just because of the previous line, but because he is doing something, or behaving or moving in a way that is associated with that specific section of lines.
My overall impression
A tremendous play. It’s a revelation, a torrential stream of Levy Lee’s personal memories and his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of racism and the struggle for civil rights. An almost endless list of victims and heroes that LL manages to some how turn into poetry. The very length of this list is, in itself, tragic, because it is so long, so relentless, and so far from being over. A shattering experience.
