{"id":32617,"date":"2016-03-07T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T06:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=32617"},"modified":"2018-10-09T13:38:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T19:38:49","slug":"the-past-is-now-selma-65-from-pygmalion-productions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-past-is-now-selma-65-from-pygmalion-productions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Past is Now: Selma ’65 from Pygmalion Productions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3-8_selma_-_color\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Night after night, a young white woman watches news broadcasts about police violence against African- American citizens. Although she lives far away, she is moved to act against the brutality she sees on the screen by joining the protest effort. The year is 1965\u2014but it could just as easily be 2016. The scenario seems all too familiar.<\/p>\n

In Selma \u201965<\/em>, playwright Catherine Filloux draws on the story of Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist who traveled from Michigan to participate in the famed march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. While driving fellow activist Leroy Moton back to Selma, Liuzzo was killed by a group of Klansmen following behind. Among the Klansmen was an FBI informant, Gary Thomas (\u2018Tommy\u2019) Rowe. Today, 50 years after the Selma Voting March, Pygmalion Productions brings Liuzzo\u2019s and Rowe\u2019s story to Utah audiences.<\/p>\n

Stage director Lane Richins explains, \u201cA number of years ago I directed Seven,<\/em> an autobiographical composite play by seven different playwrights, Catherine [Filloux] among them. Catherine eventually saw another play I directed, and we became friends. Since I\u2019m always on the lookout for new and interesting material, I asked her to send me some of her work. That\u2019s how I learned about Selma \u201965<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Richins, not all of Filloux\u2019s works are even meant to be staged. \u201cSome pieces aren\u2019t easy to visualize,\u201d Richins continues. \u201cBut those works appeal to me because they present a challenge\u2014how does one actress portray both a victim and the victim\u2019s murderer? How does an audience keep track of one character who must interact with between 20 and 25 characters the audience never sees? And then there are the dozen locations the character needs to \u2018travel\u2019 to during the course of the play. Those are challenges we needed to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, the director found the right actress to take on these challenges. \u201cI\u2019ve known Tracie [Merill-Wilson] for a decade and have performed in two shows with her,\u201d Richins says. \u201cShe\u2019s brilliant\u2014and she\u2019s also not afraid to explore all the undercurrents of this show. I auditioned over 40 actresses for the part, and Tracie was able to embody everything I needed. Lots of actors have intelligence, but Tracie has the EQ, or emotional quotient, to make the characters real human beings instead of caricatures. She also knows how to use her body to express subtleties between the characters she portrays. Tracie quite literally does a sensational job, in that she brings powerful sensations to each performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting the play\u2019s relevance to current events, Richins turns somber. \u201cThis play presents a direct challenge to the audience\u2014a challenge to recognize our collective human rights. It\u2019s not about 1965; it\u2019s about what we learn from history and how we interact with others today. Do we ignore what we hear on the news about violence in our own city? Or do we, like Viola Liuzzo, respond and act? If we don\u2019t learn from history, it tends to come back and bite us. The past becomes the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the play opened on March 4th<\/sup>, members of the local NAACP were in attendance. \u201cIt was important to present this story in a way that wasn\u2019t manipulative of the audience,\u201d says Richins. \u201cWe wanted to give our guests proper respect, and cutting out the artifice onstage allowed us to respect them as well as respect the lyricism of the play. It\u2019s poetic\u2014it\u2019s the \u2018fever dream of a song.\u2019 When you have a story like this, you don\u2019t want or need an elaborate set. It\u2019s a simple set, but beautiful. Tracie has one costume. There are minimal props. Those choices mean the audience can really focus on the story. And\u2014in the end\u2014those choices create immediacy, a currency that makes the audience feel complicit in the story, to the point that they confront their personal views of race, of humanity. It\u2019s an intense experience. In fact, some audience members don\u2019t know what to say afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence today suggests that the FBI took great pains to protect Tommy Rowe from prosecution while defaming Liuzzo. Since Liuzzo\u2019s murder has not been widely discussed in Civil Rights era histories, the smear campaign may have worked on some level. However, today there\u2019s a greater interest in Viola Liuzzo and other key figures in the Civil Rights saga.<\/p>\n