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Black Artists' Manifesto

Black Artists' Manifesto image
Parent Issue
Day
22
Month
January
Year
1976
OCR Text

Requiem of Omega Ebony and Circle of Voices, two plays written and directed by Gerald M. Lemmons. Performed December 19, 1975 at the W.S.U. Community Arts Auditorium to a sizeable black audience in spite of Mother Nature's winter performance outside.

Gerald Lemmons began his directing career in his junior year at Michigan State University with his rendering of Raisin in the Sun. Thus inspired to write and direct his own material, Gerald soon founded B.A.M. (Black Artists' Manifesto) at MSU as a vehicle for the creative work of Black artists with exceptional abilities in acting and writing. Earlier compositions of Gerald's which have been performed in Detroit (at the Institute of Arts) are The Untogether Fall and The Natural Trial which, hopefully, will be performed hero again soon.

At Community Arts the proceedings opened with a poem written and recited by Danielle Render, president of B.A.M., who is also a playwright and director. The piece was entitled "I Am the Ebony Woman."

Requiem of Omega Ebony (meaning "funeral of the last black man") was the first play enacted. It told the tale of modern-day blacks caught up in the stereo-typed cobwebs of themselves. With more philosophy than actual drama, the main character Billy Blackman seemed alienated from his peels due to their negative understanding of him. I am quite definite that everyone who witnessed this play could easily relate to this particular setting.

Next was Circle of Voices, a terror drama with three unsuspecting gents (one puzzled, one intellectual, one paranoid) who each received strange calls in the middle of the night, later meeting up in an awkward situation. All were mentally tormented by a female spectre who once played a role in each man's life. The spectre should receive honorable mention for its noted madness, and for that matter the audience, too! - whose humor seemed quite gross. Appropriate sound effects and controlled lighting highlighted this eerisome production.

Ending the evening on a happy note was The Common Problem, written and directed by Danielle Render. This trivial, simplistic comedy examined two girls who were behind the times on physical hygiene. This modern-day episode reminds one of the roommate at college...the one whose feet you couldn't stand to smell. Ever so passionately funny, the crowd enjoyed The Common Problem emphatically.

All in all, much more is to be seen and heard from this theater group.

-Bernadette Harris