Staging a Philadelphian race utopia

On Friday, EgoPo Classic Theater artistic director Lane Savadove was able to toast the opening night of his production Uncle Tom's Cabin: An Unfortunate History, which, since announcing cross-race casting in January, has attracted as much controversy as any Philadelphia play could be expected to.

"I don't know how important theater will ever be," said Savadove, raising his plastic cup of champagne with excitement and some relief—the much-debated opening night was greeted by standing ovations—"but we've made it as important as it can be."

In their straightforward, naturalistic adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's pre-Civil War novel (which also has a lengthy controversial history since its first publication in 1852), EgoPo struggles to depict America's historical racism in a productive and constructive manner. The result is a physically dynamic production, epic in scope and engaging, and so on the pulse of our fears and prejudices that it promises to evoke different responses from everyone who sees it.

Intellectuals and artists have questioned Savadove's choice, both of his source text and his cross-racial casting, in a smattering of articles over the last several months. Playwright Quinn Eli summed up many people's feelings in an interview with Philly Mag last month: "I question how effective it will be for white members of the audience who won't have to face the horror of what happened to those who it actually happened to."

True: As a white member of the audience, I can say that, had the casting been traditional, I would have focused much more on the horrors of slavery than the story and the characters. And this is likely one of the reasons the cross casting was adopted.

"I believe [the casting] forces us to empathize and even relate with those who we have come to stereotype—thus radically breaking these stereotypes," says Savadove. What is unsaid here is that our stereotypes exist for both slave and master. The casting allows audience members to see not only the horrors of slavery but its mechanisms, and political and economical situations under which people accepted or promoted it.

Yet no one in the packed audience on opening night was particularly excited about seeing white actors playing black slaves (though thankfully without blackface), either. In the first scene, amidst a debate over the nature of blacks, a young slave (played by a light-skinned Hispanic woman) is called out and told to sing and play-act.

All of the vaudevillian stereotypes flash back to us. This is exactly what we were frightened of: whites playing blacks performing for whites—the minstrel show.

Little Henry comes out when called, grim-faced, and when told to dance, dances with a big smile. The moment he stops dancing the heavy frown and slouched shoulders return. When told to play-act, he does so with a huge grin—then becomes grim again, and dull-eyed, when his performance is over.

The audience collectively grits its teeth—and then relaxes. Many even laugh at Henry's dance.

What's powerful is that the characterization here is true; it's not stereotypical, not a minstrel show. The realities of Henry's role as performer, and his intimidation and lack of education, are put in direct contrast.

It also helps that black actors playing slave-owners prefaced this scene. Here, white actors and black actors share in a re-visitation of a deadly and cruel, but real and not so distant past. Eventually, as the story progresses, we stop noticing skin color and the "edgy" casting, in a way that we never could if the casting was traditional.

Though Stowe's numerous characters range from despicable to pious to kind to ignorantly brutal, some of them are quite simple, and this is one of the touchy racial issues which has drawn so much distaste to the novel in recent decades. These cannot help but bleed through into the production. And though the novel is horrified by slavery, the humanist intention is represented in the pious slave Tom, who preaches love for everyone, even the oppressor.

The final message of the play comes in a direct address from Stowe to members of free states—that citizens of the free states must do more than simply denounce their Southern brothers, they must receive and care for escaped slaves, and take direct responsibility for their futures and fortunes—and wakes us up to the fact that Philadelphia is one of the most racially segregated cities in America. "We need to stop seeing racism as a problem that lives in others, and look carefully at ourselves," says Savadove.

"I dream of living in a Philadelphia, and in an America, where race is one factor that makes us individuals, but not a dominant factor," Savadove told American Theater Magazine last month.

But Savadove is no sap. In a pre-show mime, his utopia is represented—a post-race America of lawn parties and violins, blacks and whites playing horseshoes and watching fireworks. But it is broken apart when the jolly fireworks are superseded by the fearful musket-fire of the Civil War, and then a blackout, before the play begins.

Join the conversation: attend EgoPo's Performing Race in America panel discussion Tuesday, June 4 @ 7pm, free with your ticket to Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Buy tickets for Uncle Tom's Cabin: An Unfortunate History here.