Ron Milner's "season's Reasons" Back On Stage "Just A Natural Change"

Detroit playwright Ron Milner, a product of the city's east side and author of the nationally-recognized "What the Wine Sellers Buy," brings his acapella black musiIcal "Season's Reasons: Just a Natural Change" back to the Langston Hughes Theatre April 22nd for a second extended run at the west-side playhouse. With new leads playing the starring roles - R.B. and Lois -and a tightened, carefully edited script spurring the second production of this ground-breaking theatrical work, Ron Milner and the Spirit of Shango Players hope to move the musical to the Music Hall and out around the country later this year, bringing a breath of artistic fresh air from the Motor City to the American stage. 
"Seasons' Reasons" will run Thursdays through Sundays at the Langston Hughes Theatre, Livernois at Davison, through the month of May. In commemoration of the event, and in the hope of introducing this masterful work to more of its natural audience, the Sun has secured Ron Milner's permission to print excerpts from the working script of "Seasons' Reasons", several of which follow below. (Editor's Note: In the first scene R.B., a black militant imprisoned for unspecified crimes against the state, escapes from the penitentiary and returns to Lois, his lover, "who is now working as a schoolteacher. Reunited at last. R.B. and Lois begin in Scene II to compare their expericnces while separated from one another.

R.B. You've changed, baby.
Lois (Looks at him a half-beat; shrugs) That's time's trademark. Puts it down everywhere he qoes; change. Just marks it right on over everything and everybody.
R.B. When they put you in a hole and cut you off from everything for all those years, with no day, no night, no books, no papers, it's like time got arrested and sentenced too. The whole world is locked up in that one tiny little cell, waiting for daylight that never comes.
Lois (Coming to him) No letters, no medical attention. They told us you were sick. They tried to just let you waste away, to be just . . . just a memory.
R.B. But I knew all the time something was happening out here. I couldn't stand it. I had to break out.
Lois Oh, baby, I remember the day when it hit the news! R.B. busts out! R.B. breaks the chains! I was so happy! I jus' cried for joy. I knew they wouldn't get you again! I knew it! (Gun shots continue throughout. R.B. moves away from her.)
R.B. But everything's funny out here. Except for my man Penny Ante, I can't find none of the dudes. Where are they? My dudes. The real dudes of the sixties (Gun shots. Lois indicates the sound.)
Lois They're still hunting them down and killing them. The ones they haven't bought out, or squeezed to their knees. Some - (sudden change) most of them just carne to their senses and left all that mess alone. Like you're gonna do, just forget it! Let it go! It's all over!
R.B. Naw, I'm not gonna forget it. It's my whole Life! You understand? My Life!! I gotta know what it was about! What became of it!?
Lois Nothing! It was about nothing, and nothing became of it! Now jus' ... jus' forget it!
R.B. No! I'm a man - a man of the sixties! (Goes into song, "Man of the Sixties.") Don't you understand that's what I stood for! Lived for! An' I've got to see it again- be it again!
Lois OK, R.B., but I warn you, it's all changed. Everything's changed. (Goes into song, "It's Just a Natural Change.") Change, baby. You won't get ten steps out there looking like that. Black and white both will shoot you down. (Lois brings him a change of clothes, a razor, hair-clippers, and offers them to him.)
R.B. All right, I'll change then. I'll shave, and wear this mess. (Putting on shirt, suit, coat.) And I'II go back to being a musician.
Lois (Laughs) To do what you want to do, you better go as a magician.

(END OF SCENE II)

(Editor's Note: In subsequent scenes Lois takes R.B. to check out the church, the disco/nightclub scene, a college campus, and other former arenas of mass struggle. The following scene is set on a ghetto street corner; as Lois and R.B. enter, the people on the street sing "These Streets." After the song, as the crowd congratulates itself:)
R.B. see the folks are still dealing with it - rolling with the punches.
Lois Yeah, rollin' and rockin' too.
R.B. No matter what they throw down on us, we just keep gettin' up, and gettin' up, an' gettin' up. Hot dog, my black beauties. That 's what got me booked, what got me into all this, you know?
Lois What?
R.B. Love. When you really love your people you can't stand to see 'em being jabbed and jammed. You have to get in there and help 'em fight.
Lois Even when they don't wanna fight?
R.B. Even when they don't wanna fight. You have to help 'em understand that they have to fight. Have to help 'em know what they're fighting and how to fight it. Remember, baby, how in the sixties we used to recruit workers for the struggle right off the streets? The old street interview?
Lois R.B., you act just like there ain't nobody lookin' for you out here.
R.B. Later for them! Think I'll try me a little interview - see what the temperature is like out here.
Lois I know what it is - cold!
R.B. (Looking offstage.) We'll see. I'll start with these sisters here. (Three women come bopping across stage.) Women We dip, and we bop, and we know the latest hop! (Three times)
R.B. Uh, sisters? Could I talk to you for a minute?
Woman No.1 Us? (R.B. nods)
Woman No.2 Uh oh, hold on to your purses, ya'll! When they come with that sister shit, you better watch it!
Woman No.3 (Suspiciously) What you want, nigguh? (R.B. is stopped by the cold attitudes, looks to Lois. She shrugs and sits down to watch.)
R.B. The first thing you can do is give up that word, sister. You wanna call me - something, call me 'black man'...
Woman No.1 Oh oh, one of them!
Woman No.2 thought they had locked all these nigguhs up.
Woman No.3 There's still some loose - and this one looks kind of familiar, too.
R.B. Uh, sisters, wouldn't you like to change things? Re-arrange things? Un-estrange things? Equalize the chores and make life more livable for you and yours?
Lois Run it to 'em, baby.

continued on page 27

"We dip, and we bop, and we know the latest hop!" 

"Season's Reason"

(continued from page 9)

Woman No.1 Uh, run that by me again?
Woman No.2 What this nigguh say?
Woman No.3 Nuthin' - he ain't said nuthin'.
R.B. Naw, lissen, now: this is the richest country in the world. How come there's people starving and living in holes like that? (Points)
Woman No.1 I'll have you know that's where I live! R.B. Excuse me, sister, I'm sure you're doing the best you can. But how come? How come the government taxes you proportionately higher than it does millionaires?
Woman No.3 Lissen - no matter where you say it's at, we can't do nuthin' about all that!
R.B. Yes we can - if we get together and understand the game and make us a game plan. If black people all just stand up together at the same time, this ol' world will rock on its axis!
Woman No.2 On its whatzit?
R.B. Divided we're just so many loose fingers, easy to take and break. (Holds up finger, grips and bends it with other hand.) But together we're a fist! (Makes fist.) Nobody can break this! (Women look at each other for a moment, then No. 3 steps out.)
Woman No.3 Man, for what you're talkin' about you need a lot of love and trust and carin'- and there ain't none of that out here. (Women go into song, "Love Don't Live 'Roun' Here." After song:)
Woman No.2 Right on', sister! (Slaps palms with No.3)
Woman No.1 Yeah, later on, mister.
(R.B. stands looking after them as they move up-stage. Lois comes over to him.)
R.B. Damn, they sound like back in the middle 50's . . .
Lois Worse- there was a little more money and a lot less dope out here then . . .

(FADE)

"Seasons' Reasons: Just a Natural Change" (C) 1975 by Ron Milner. Printed with permission. Music by Charles Mason, with additional lyrics by Ron Milner. At the Langston Hughes Theatre thru May.