Based on the true story of racist and political attempts, led by a state senator. to ban a worthwhile children’s book from the Alabama State Library, Alabama Story is a novel struggling to be a play. Because the senator and many of his followers believe the book encourages integration, he tries to intimidate the major State Librarian, threatening her employment and reputation along with the book’s place in the public library system. The date is 1959. The book features a black and a white rabbit who marry in a forest full of animals and raise a family. In the play’s opening speeches, in which all the characters identify themselves in context, the book’s author (Kevin Cutts, amused) denies any subversive motives in his writing. Jean Tafler impressively takes the lead as very professional librarian Emily Wheelock Reed, assisted by Danny Bernardy (a closeted gay) who lets her (and us) know what locals think and say. Senator E. W. Higgins’s in-love-with-himself first appearance (assured, oily Andy Prosky) makes clear his motive in the role he’ll play. Blond, frilly-dressed Rachel Moulton’s Lily Whitfield (get that name?) and handsome, professionally suited Chris White as Joshua Moore (with Biblically symbolic name) were raised in Montgomery. She’s a stereotypical Southern belle with potential to come-to-realize; he’s a heroic black man carrying scars from their youthful relationship, forgiving but not forgetting. Lily and Joshua meet outside a private park, close-gated to prevent its availability to mixed races, and in conversation reveal complete exposition about themselves. His mother worked in a small house on her parents’ big estate. They played with each other until he, at 12, suddenly moved away with his mother. She’s now a mother (in a hinted not-great marriage that’s never used in the plot). He’s a vet and family man who manages for Vernor’s Ginger Ale in Detroit but returns regularly to volunteer in a church working for civil rights. They have suffered as human equivalents of the fictional rabbits under attack by the Senator and racists. The play follows at great length the Senator’s attempted intimidation of librarian Reed, threats to her employment, and efforts to pass legislation disqualifying anyone like her from employment as an Alabama State Librarian. Prosky as Senator Higgins also engages in bombastic censoring of the book about the rabbits, at first aided and later discouraged by an influential behind-the-scenes politician (Kevin Cutts, doubling). Even after involvement of the Associated Press, legal expertise, and those who abandon the Senator, the play does not end. Actually the action does, but in the manner that I’ve often decried, the playwright doesn’t seem to really know how to end his play. We get a multi-narrated epilogue of each character’s fate over the years and how well the author and his book about the rabbits and legislation about censorship have fared. It’s the kind of thing started by documentary movie-makers. All the stuff is supposed to indicate how the play is relevant to today. But not even an experienced director like Kate Alexander can work that miracle, though she keeps the too-long piece with obvious diatribes and bits of pathos moving. Her technical staff provides authentic costuming, hair and make-up, props and suggestive sets. It would have been nice, though, to have Librarian Reed wear at least one change of skirt over many months and to age Lily more believably.
The Senator even brings out a list of dangerous books to be suppressed. This adds to Emily Reed’s problems, for which she can’t seem to get supportive help from the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago. (The books she’s ordered regularly come from recommended ALA lists.) A reporter (Cutts, tripling) comes in and out to reveal the brouhaha. It and the split focus, half of which lands on meetings between Lily and Joshua and a recreation of a moment of their mutual childhood attraction, add to a lengthy pursuit of the obvious ending of the Librarian’s problem.
