AFTERMATH

Metropolitan Playhouse Virtual Playhouse Presents

A Screened Reading of AFTERMATH

Written by MARY P. BURRILL

Directed by TIMOTHY JOHNSON

Backgrounds by PAMELA LAWTON & DANNY LIETZEL

Featuring RYAN VINCENT ANDERSON, ANTHONY T. GOSS, LINDA KURILOFF, NIA AKILAH ROBINSON, LAWRENCE WINSLOW, & KIM YANCEY-MOORE

Talkback with KORITHA MITCHELL, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University; Professor Emeritus of Theater History, Dramaturgy, and Acting, University of Missouri

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

January 16, 2021, 8 p.m.

Superlative acting and an amazing script make this production a must-see. Designed by the author to provoke discussion among African-Americans in 1919, it was read aloud in homes, churches, and even barber shops. It packs so many issues into its one-act structure that debates about its content could last all night. What is Black manhood? Do you simply behave as necessary to survive, or do you defy the enemy? Do you lean on Jesus or assert yourself? Powerful content in an awesome thirty-minute package.

 In a South Carolina cabin, young Millie irons while her grandma, Mam Sue, repairs a quilt. Gazing into the fire she declares she sees a revelation in the flames! Something will happen that day. Millie is used to hearing about these visions, so carries on with her work while Mam Sue sings a hymn. The Lord is coming with His sword. Millie’s brother will arrive home from World War I today. He won the Croix de Guerre medal in France. In Paris, people greeted him in the street and shook his hand. In his letters, he marveled that he was treated like a “real person” there. So different from the racism back home. What he doesn’t know is that his father has been lynched and murdered during his absence. When he arrives today, how will they break the news?

The inevitable moment arrives. John is enraged and disgusted. His father died because he had the nerve to stand-up to a white man. John has come home empowered, emboldened by the knowledge that the world doesn’t have to operate like that. He picks up his gun, hands a gun to his brother, and says, in effect, “Are you with me on this? Sometimes God saves you, but sometimes you have to save yourself.”

The after-talk by Dr. KORITHA MITCHELL is outstanding and so enlightening. Author of the book “Living with Lynching”, she is a ball of energy and knowledge. A national treasure. Everyone needs to hear her message.

-Karen D’Onofrio-