Following an experienced Black stage actress through rehearsals of a major Broadway production, Alice Childress's wry and moving look at racism, identity, and ego in the world of New York theatre opened to acclaim off-Broadway in 1955. At the forefront of both the Civil Rights and feminist movements, the prescient Trouble in Mind was announced to move to Broadway in 1957...in a production that never came to be.
There are a total of nine actors in 'Trouble in Mind,' the size of the cast one of the signs of a play written years ago. If a few of the characters come to feel extraneous, and some of the scenes feel like filter, the actors each have at least one scene where they are put to good use. Brandon Micheal Hall portrays John Nevis, a brash young Black newcomer to acting, which gives the playwright an opportunity to impart her hard gained wisdom about dealing with the white people in charge of show business: 'White folks can't stand unhappy Negroes... so laugh, laugh when it ain't funny at all.' John generally ignores her advice, thinking she's behind the times, and starts sounding just as glad-handing and fatuous as Al Manners. Chuck Cooper, a standout as usually, portrays Sheldon, a Black actor who has learned the lesson of accommodation too well. But there's one arresting moment when Manners is urging the cast to express more fear. 'I'm not asking you to dream up some fantastic horror... it's a lynching. We've never actually seen such a thing, thank God... but allow your imagination to soar, to take hold of it... think.' Sheldon speaks up and says he has, in fact, seen a lynching.
For sheer crackling timeliness, the play most of the moment is in fact the oldest: Alice Childress's 'Trouble in Mind,' which opened on Thursday at the American Airlines Theater. Originally produced in 1955 in Greenwich Village, but derailed on its path to becoming the first play by a Black woman to reach Broadway - a distinction that went to Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun' four years later - it is only now getting the mainstream attention it deserves, in a Roundabout Theater Company production that does justice to its complexity.
2021 | Broadway |
Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Chuck Cooper |
2022 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Trouble in Mind |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Awards | LaChanze |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Trouble In Mind |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | LaChanze |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design (Play or Musical) | Emilio Sosa |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Chuck Cooper |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Trouble in Mind |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Play | Emilio Sosa |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Chuck Cooper |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | LaChanze |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Trouble in Mind |
Videos