A 60’s Trilogy digs deep into two of the ugly blemishes on our country’s history: racism and violence. Written by Tommy Carter, the three short plays artfully show the connection between race relations and the love of violence in the 60s: the bombings of black churches, the attacks on civil-rights marchers, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the brothers Kennedy. Oh, and let’s not forget the bloody war in Viet Nam, too. Carter, a brilliant L.A.-based, African-American playwright (Hellz Kitchen Ablaze), captures all of the above in his three short plays, which have been produced by United States Veterans’ Artists Alliance, a non-profit arts organization founded in 2004 by military veterans and artists. Director David Fofi leads the theater wing of USVAA. A 60’s Trilogy is broken down into three “movements,” the first of which, “Jack Ruby is My Idol,” is set in a hotel room in Memphis (the very room MLK stayed in when he was shot). Julie (Chantel Deniese), an African-American woman in a wheelchair, is being importuned by Chuckie (Joe Dalo),a white guy who grew up alongside her in Tennessee and loved her dearly. That didn’t stop him, however, from taking part in a bombing attack on her church which left her partially paralyzed. “It was all supposed to be a joke,” he tells her. “I thought we’d be throwing firecrackers, not bombs, at the church, just to give the militants there a scare.” He’s sorry about her injury, but really can’t understand in his white-empowered way, why she can’t or won’t love him again. There’s more white befuddlement in “Montgomery,” where a couple, Mary (Jean Noel Ruhland) and Larry (John Charles Meyer), turn up all bloodied in an emergency war, having been beaten in the civil-rights march there. They simply had no idea how deep white hatred of blacks was—deep enough to have included them in their wrath. In Movement III, we meet a small group of Americans at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial “Wall” in Washington, DC in 1982. Francie (Lorna Duyn) was a nurse in Nam; Vince Speeze (Tony Williams) was a pilot; Julio (Mark Adair Rios) and Meadows (Lawrence Dillard) were grunts. All of them, to one extent or another, were shell-shocked by that brutal, horrific war. As they taunt and tease each other, Ray (Scott Krinsky) shows up and lets it drop that he was a “protestor” in that war, a guy who burned his draft card and fled to Canada. Now all of them have a common enemy. But just as they are about to beat him up, he lets it drop that he has come to the Wall to mourn his best friend, who died in action there. What’s left of their blighted humanity comes to the fore and links and emnobles them. Carter’s writing throughout is staccato-like, powerful and pungent. His gift of being able to encapsulate big ideas and turn them into riveting drama is remarkable. He is also fortunate enough to have a sympathetic director and a crew of wonderful actors working at the top of their game for him. The result is one of the best shows in town.
