REVIEW: 'Warriors Don't Cry' Presented by Tennessee Women's Theater Project

There may have been more emotionally draining and completely inspiring evenings of theatre before, but you'd be hard-pressed to remember anything else after seeing the richly satisfying production of Warriors Don't Cry, now onstage at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, presented by Tennessee Women's Theater Project. And, certainly, there have been other stunning performances on stages the world over, but tonight there's nothing to compare with Vilia Steele's beautifully nuanced take on history.

In just over an hour, Steele takes her rapt audience on an informative and entertaining, if too heart-breakingly real, tour through the 1957-58 school year at Little Rock's Central High School. As she becomes Melba Pattillo, one of nine African-American students chosen to challenge entrenched racial roles by integrating the public school "where the wealthiest of Little Rock's citizens sent their children to be educated," Steele ably educates her audience about our country's darker days. It's a moving experience that elicits both tears and laughter and results in new pictures of bravery and heroism etched upon your heart.

The story resonates more strongly today given the tenor of our political times, as birthers and deathers debate health care reform, while conservative pundits exhort their audiences to regain control of their country, as hate and fear framed by racism and xenophobia once more claim victims across our country. It is at once Melba Pattillo Beals' personal story and a universal story of faith and redemption, of good triumphing over the forces of evil.

To be honest, Steele's richly drawn portrayal and Maryanna Clarke's confident, sure-handed direction makes the upsetting subject more palatable. From Steele's first moments onstage to her final statements to her attentive listeners, Warriors Don't Cry is representative of the transformative nature of exceptional live theatre.

The facts of the story are startlingly horrifying: nine students want no more than to get their high school diplomas at the local high school, only to be physically attacked, mentally tortured, emotionally abused...Every. Day. Of. Their. Lives. They are attacked, their homes and families targeted ,by an ignorant white public and they are vilified and shunned by some members of their own community content to maintain the status quo rather than call attention to themselves. It's astounding and frightening--and it happened only 52 years ago (which may be the scariest aspect of this story).

Clearly, it's easy to brand all white people as villains, but there is the tale of Linc, a white boy in Melba's class who surreptitiously feeds her information that helps her survive. When Melba reveals the reason behinds Linc's kindnesses, it will move you beyond measure. She also tells of Danny, a trooper with the Screaming Eagles of the 101^st Airborne, sent to Arkansas by President Eisenhower to protect the nine students from the screaming, teeming mobs. Although Melba is uncertain if Danny's vigilence and advice stems from his merely being a good soldier or is due to his being a good person, it doesn't matter; he kept her alive and irrevocably changed her life.

All of the intertwined stories related in Warriors Don't Cry are like that: they deliver truly amazing tales of regular people caught up in extraordinary times. You leave the theatre with new heroines (Melba and her steadfastly supportive grandmother, India) and new heroes, as well. You cannot help but be transformed by the play.

It may be, of course, that my response to the piece is unique, although I suspect that many of those in the audience have their own reasons for reacting so forcefully to Melba Pattillo Beals' story as re-told here by Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Eisa Davis. For me, it recalls some particularly disturbing scenes from my own childhood: I was born two days before those nine students attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School for the first time. Growing up in West Tennessee, the stories were fresh in the collective memory.

My elementary school was integrated seven years after Little Rock, in 1964, when I was a seven-year-old third grader. I vividly recall being asked by an aunt visiting from Wichita how I felt about going to school "with those little black kids" (although I doubt she referred to them as "black kids" and the memory may explain why I never much cared for that aunt after that) and how oddly strange I found her question. After all, to me it seemed stranger to not go to school with the kids I played with every afternoon after school. It never made sense to me that we went to separate schools.

I now know that it must have been difficult for Anita Smith and Sylvia Williams to be the first two African-American girls in my third grade class, though at the time I didn't realize the history being made. As we went through the rest of our school years together, and our friendships continued, it became more evident, but it was not until I was well into adulthood that I fully realized how they must have felt on that first day.

Hearing Melba's story so effectively related in Warriors Don't Cry made me feel guilty as a white man about the injustices perpetrated for centuries against all minorities in general, and African-Americans in particular. I shouldn't admit it, but I wept openly as the tale of Melba, her schoolteacher mother and her loving grandmother was so eloquently presented. Warriors Don't Cry is compellingly dramatic, but it is presented free of stagey artifice, thanks to Steele's exquisite performance and Clarke's stellar direction.

--Warriors Don't Cry. By Melba Pattillo Beals, adapted for the stage by Eisa Davis. Directed by Maryanna Clarke. Produced by Chris Clarke. Presented by Tennessee Women's Theater Project at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, 2301 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard, Nashville. Through September 27. For tickets, call (615) 681-7220. Visit the TWTP website at www.twtp.org

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