By Davida Singer
The Blue Heron Theatre on East 24th Street opens its 16th season this month with the New York debut of “Bee-Luther-Hatchee”, a mysterious drama by Thomas Gibbons.
The play is the second part of a trilogy by Gibbons, who’s had eight of his works produced, and is currently the playwright in residence at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia.
“I wanted the title itself to suggest intrigue,” Gibbons says. “It came from an African-American dictionary, and means ‘an absurd or ironic situation’ or ‘the next stop after hell.’ I’ve been influenced by the British socialist writers of the 1970’s, like David Hare and David Edgar, because of their engagement with a wider world. I tend to write about race. I’m fascinated by the different racial experiences of living in America – what that experience is like from black and white perspectives. The hardest thing about doing these plays has been representing all sides fairly. I like to have the audience itself decide which side, if any, is in the right.”
The plot of “Bee-Luther-Hatchee” deals with an African-American editor working on a series of books by neglected Black writers. After Sheila publishes the memoirs of Libby Price, the book wins a prize, and she decides to bring it to Libby in person, in a nursing home down south. But when she arrives, she’s told that Libby isn’t there.
“This is when the play becomes a real mystery,” explains Gibbons. “Sheila gets involved in the search for Libby, and it all evolves into a larger search for answers about imagination and authenticity. As we learn that a white man actually wrote the memoirs, we also face the question of whether anyone owns a story. My challenge here has been trying not to make it an advocacy piece between white and black. I wanted each to make their own case. It’s an interesting idea for me-that of someone on the outside dealing with an issue of race, or whatever else. It could as well be (an outsider) writing about a particular religion or lifestyle or gender.”
According to Gibbons, the original idea for the play came from a true story in Austraila about Aborigines. “Bee-Luther-Hatchee” has been produced a lot around the country, and it although it’s been staged quite differently, it always seems to bring questions and controversy. The New York production, directed by Blue Heron’s Jim Pelegano, has very simple tech values, and according to Gibbons, this works well for a play which is strongly actor driven.
“I love what actors can do,” the author says, “and the challenge for them here is to not just be a viewpoint, but to find the character. The relevance of it is that this is the kind of issue that’s going to crop up more and more in the future. Sheila represents the growing middle class of African-Americans, so her issue isn’t money but reclaiming her history. Once you move past questions of survival, other questions become more prominent-like visibility.”
For Gibbons, the play’s real essence centers on the issue of communication, and he hopes his audience will leave the theater ready and willing to “have a great argument with someone about this.”
“I want them to be jolted and prodded by the issues,” he adds, “and turned completely upside down. I think the focal point is really this: if a story can only be treated by a certain person or group, we’re all marooned in our own separate universes where no communication is possible.”
