Richard Wright is having his revenge. The great Black writer was persecuted by this country in the 1950s, vilified by the right-wingers and Hoover’s FBI because of his politics and militancy. Wright fled the USA for Paris, where he died in 1960, a bitter and disillusioned man. But his work lived on after him; his best-known novel, Native Son, was twice turned into a motion-picture, with a third one about to be screened by HBO. In 1942, the book was also adapted for the stage by Paul Green and Wright himself. Now, four decades later, yet another dramatist, Nambi E. Kelley, has taken a shot at the play. Her modern version of Native Son was produced in L.A. last year by the Antaeus Theatre Company and is now being reprised by Center Theater Group as part of its Block Party Festival. As directed by Andi Chapman, this Native Son is radically different from the book, which was 500 pages long and realistically written. Chapman has cut the story drastically and taken all kind of other liberties with it. Now events take place in the hero’s mind (we are asked to believe) and have a nightmarish quality. Scenes take place abruptly and swiftly, jumping back in forth in time, with myriad voices and snatches of music intruding, and people appearing and disappearing. The moody lighting and constant use of video projection also adds to the kaleidoscopic nature of the adaptation. At the heart of all this surrealistic busyness is the story of Bigger (the charismatic Jon Chaffin), a young Black man on Chicago’s south side who is seething with hatred and rage over the racial oppression he has experienced while growing up poor and exploited. Bigger, we are told by his alter ego, The Black Rat (the powerful Noel Arthur), is a victim of double consciousness, a fractured black identity. “I know what I’m doing, but I can’t help nothin’,” Bigger says. “It’s like somebody stepped in my skin and started acting for me.” This legacy from slavery has damaged Bigger, pushed him to the margins of society, given him a criminal streak. But at the same time he yearns to put Chicago’s mean streets behind him, become a pilot and soar high and free in the skies. Instead, Bigger takes a job as a chauffeur to a rich white family whose slutty, hard-drinking daughter Mary (Ellis Greer) comes on to him, with disastrous results. Bigger accidentally smothers her and is charged with murder. Hunted down by Chicago’s racist police, Bigger becomes a fugitive and goes back to his dysfunctional family for help, only to get into more trouble there, especially with his clueless girlfriend Bessie (Mildred Marie Langford). The only truly sympathetic character in the play is Jan (Matthew Grondin), the communist lawyer who tries to save his life in court. Bigger is a flawed hero, to be sure, but the play makes us care for him, a would-be Icarus whose wings were crushed by a society that didn’t want him to get off the ground.
