‘The Sum of Us One-Act Festival’ @ Bishop Arts Theatre Center
—Jan Farrington
“Why can’t we have nice things?”
That was the question asked by Heather McGhee, an expert in economics and social policy, in her insightful 2021 book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Her premise, that the “system” we live inside—all of us, not any one race or group—plays a damaging zero-sum game with our lives, making us buy into the idea that gains for some (them) means losses for others (us).
It hurts (and costs) all of us, putting power into the hands of people not interested in our needs and hopes. And things could be changed, McGhee writes, if we came together to pursue what she calls the “Solidarity Dividend”—everything we could gain if we came together across the racial and other “divides” that keep us apart. In one response to the book, Cecile Richards (co-founder of Supermajority and daughter of Ann Richards) asked: “What would it be like to live in an America where we embraced diversity as our superpower?”
Bishop Arts Theatre Center’s 2024 Banned Books celebration is titled The Sum of Us One-Act Festival, and presents six short plays in rapid succession over 90 minutes of stage time, each linked in some way to the issues and ideas McGhee writes about in her book. This is the third year the company has asked playwrights to submit work—and it’s the best collection yet.
Well directed by Rebecca McDonald, ten area actors jump in and out of roles, reappearing moments later as someone quite different in the following one-act. They are: Monica Jones, DR Hanson, Dontray (Dee) Roaf, Carrie Viera, Priscilla Rice, Riley Turner, Shyama Nithiananda, Joseph Tulley, Wesley Scott Johnson, and Alex Sudhir Joshi.
In “Rho Gamma Gamma” by Rickey D. Wax, a college sorority offers a competitive scholarship, and three young members are eager to win. Past snubs and grievances among the trio come out, as the white, Black, and Latinx students (Turner, Jones, and Viera) relate their stories of hardship and trauma—adding new details to stay in the game. They’ll be a vote at the end, and we only think we know how it might end.
“If it’s legal, it’s ethical.” In Kathleen Culebro’s “Still No Exit” young employee Carla (Viera) is told she’s out on her ear unless she gets tougher on the clients of her big insurance company. Her boss (Hanson) lays out the goal: grab every last dime—offering shiny deals that will wreck them in the long run. Enter Mrs. Brown (Rice), a careful woman who’s never missed a mortgage payment. She has no idea she’s in a zero-sum battle with Carla, who can’t “win” unless Mrs. Brown loses…if you can call it winning.
In Alex Lead’s “Plantation Station,” a Black supervisor (Johnson) keeps an uncomfortably close watch on two workers taking piles of picked cotton (sound familiar?) and assembling them into feminine hygiene products. Angel (Rice) sweet-talks the higher ups; her younger co-worker (Tulley) has a copy of the Communist Manifesto…and isn’t afraid to use it. Maybe.
Roger Calderon’s “Case #031983” is a brief encounter between case worker Mrs. Simmons (Roaf) and young white guy Denny (Tulley), up on DWI charges. He’s shocked by how “one mistake” could cost him his job, send him to jail, ruin his finances, send him down a different road. “I’m not like the others in that waiting room,” he says. “I’m not a criminal.” She asks him why he’s so sure “the others” aren’t caught in the system…just like him.
Olivia de Guzman’s “Zero, Sum, Hero, Bum” has a fun, noisy game show format and another win-lose story line—this time, white guy (Tulley) competes against Black guy (Johnson), with Latinx Sweetie (Viera) as the eye candy onstage between them. The show is hosted by Jesus Christ (Joshi) in a flashy gold lamé suit; nobody pays much attention to his fast line of (mostly) gibberish—and the rounds of competition seem skewed to racial stereotypes, but perhaps some realities too. And where does Sweetie fit in?
In “Lavani,” Shyama Nithiananda introduces us to newly-emigrated couple Lavani and Danush (Nithiananda and Joshi). They have a new baby. He’s on the run from threats in the home country, and inclined to keep his head down. She’s a journalist who does political reporting—and that scares him. Let’s focus on safety and stability, he tells her, not activism. But Lavani says you make a world worth living in by going beyond self-interest, by “doing your best for a stranger”—who might be your new baby, your husband/wife in an arranged marriage, your co-workers, your fellow citizens. How will Danush respond?
This lively and thoughtful collection of one-acts plays runs through March 17. On March 15 and 16, author Heather McGee and colleague Dr. Gail Christopher will attend the performances and participate in talkback sessions after the show.
WHEN: February 29-March 17, 2024
WHERE: BATC, 215 S. Tyler Street, Dallas
WEB: bishopartstheatre.org
