“And So We Walked…” — A Missed Opportunity

And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears, a one-woman play written and performed by DeLanna Studi. Directed by Corey Madden. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Paramount Center, Orchard Stage, 559 Washington St., Boston, MA, through April 30.

DeLanna Studi in And So We Walked. Photo: Octopus Theatricals

By Robert Israel

Not long after opening curtain, DeLanna Studi holds an identification card aloft. In her at times compelling but most often tedious two-hour one-woman show, we are told that this card identifies her as a full-fledged member of the Cherokee nation. Born in Oklahoma to mixed parentage — like our own Sen. Elizabeth Warren — she clarifies that claim: she’s a “half-breed,” an appellation I assumed to be derogatory. But not necessarily. And So We Walked is about the performer finding her roots and that quest is often meandering. That, as well as all the myriad details that pile up during her search, end up weighing the show down, especially when she is probed by others she meets regarding her understanding of her Cherokee/Caucasian ancestry.

Studi takes us along with her father (she assumes all personas) as she confronts uncomfortable questions about her ancestry. Father and daughter are on a trek along the Trail of Tears. This is the traumatic path that Native Americans took in 1830 – a forced march that left over 4,000 dead. I attended this play only a few weeks after Passover, and I could not help but draw a comparison between that tumultuous journey and the quest my ancestors took through the Sinai desert millennia ago. This similar expulsion lasted, according to the Hebrew Bible, 40 years to complete. It’s an important story to remember, because we are not out of wildness yet. We are told in a prayer at the Seder table, “not only one enemy has risen up to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us.” The growth in contemporary outbursts of ethnic and religious hatred in the United States are evidence that these enemies are increasing around us. But Studi evokes no Biblical resonance in her vision of her ancestor’s struggles. She does not dramatize exile as a powerful theatrical metaphor — her show is stripped bare of poetic symbolism.

Instead of providing full-bodies drama, Studi retells her journey through an accumulation of details … and more details. To the point that And So We Walked comes off as a tour through the items in a catalogue. The performer’s tone is flat and usually prosaic; there is no attempt to evoke the spiritual importance — and agonies — of the Native American experience. When she does share an emotional outburst – her hatred of President Andrew Jackson, for instance – we see the fire in her eye. But that’s a rare occurrence.

The giveaway is when she turns to us, standing center stage near the close of the show, and exclaims:“I haven’t had an epiphany!” She’s been waiting on that thunderclap, that blast that will stir her soul. Somehow it has escaped her.

A gifted thespian, Studi peppers And So We Walked with moments of physical vigor as she nimbly moves about the stage. She uses only a handful of props – a scarf, suitcases, a backpack, a cell phone. Norman Coates’ lighting helps to bring the visuals of her journey to the fore, most notably when Studi shares her perception of fireflies. We see, magically projected against the back wall of the stage, small blots of light rising skyward, destined to mingle with the stars in the night sky. If only the audience were treated to more experiences like this. Dangling out of reach is a moment when Studi realizes that she and her people have an indispensable place on this planet, that she understands the meaning of her ancestors’ hardships. All the alienated pieces stitched together. But that never happens.

Studi’s play comes at a time when Americans are seeing more work by Native Americans, such as the scripts of playwright Larissa Fasthorse, who has written The Thanksgiving Play, a revealing look at the dark side of our national holiday. (Now slated for a Broadway production.) Studi is seizing the day: it is a time of national introspection as we probe the country’s problematic past regarding issues of ancestry, identity, and race. But when creating compelling drama, listing injustices and inequalities is not enough. In this piece Studi needs to pull the audience in, forcing them to see how their personal stories interact with collective histories. Which means commanding, perhaps even expanding, theater’s storytelling potential. And So We Walked does not do that. It is a missed opportunity.

**

A previous version of this review appeared in The Arts Fuse (Boston) on April 28, 2023.

A Salute to Bernie

Bernie Hyatt 1923-2023

By Robert Israel

Bernie Hyatt died on March 27, 2023, at the age of 99. He was the former editor and publisher of (the now defunct) The Jewish Advocate in Boston. He was my colleague when I served as Advocate editor. He was also my friend.

Bernie and I met before I joined the paper, when I was at Brandeis University working as assistant director of public relations. Brandeis was in the midst of a public relations nightmare that cut to the core of the school’s Jewish-sponsored identity. Dr. Evelyn Handler, then-president, told a newspaper reporter that the school needed to diversify. For this reason, she said, the cafeteria would proudly serve pork and shellfish at a food station in the cafeteria close to the kosher facility. This plan, she said, would better accommodate the dietary needs of “Asian students.”

Even before the invention of social media, her remarks went viral. Asian students objected to being stereotyped. Jewish students – and more specifically Jewish donors — said her statement was disrespectful to Jewish dietary laws.

Since I was the only Jew on the Brandeis public relations staff at the time, my supervisors dispatched me to suture the wounds. I would later meet with Jewish editors and reporters in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. But my first meeting was with Bernie in Boston.

“You’ve got to find a way that the school can develop an editorial calendar that champion Jewish studies on the campus,” Bernie said. We discussed what possible stories might interest him, and when they might appear in the newspaper. He rattled off the names of other Jewish newspaper editors and said he’d provide me with introductions.

This was quintessential Bernie: grasping big picture and then drilling down to how it would play out locally. He had legal training – he was a graduate of Harvard Law School – but at his core he was a journalist. He said his readers did not want endless harangues about what Dr. Handler meant or didn’t mean by her remarks, or how the public relations staff might spin the story. He did not want to interview her, and, given her callousness, cautioned against anyone interviewing her. And he predicted the matter would ultimately end badly, and cost her the Brandeis presidency.

His prediction came true: Dr. Handler was fired. Soon afterward, I left academia to join Bernie at the newspaper.

At the Advocate, Bernie counseled me, helped me re-write headlines and lead sentences, and he shared his editorials before he sent them to the publisher, attentive to my feedback. When he needed to take a few months off to recover from a surgical procedure, I wrote the editorials, learning how difficult a task that truly can be since it did not reflect my point of view, but, rather, the publisher’s viewpoint.

Bernie loved the work, Judaism, and the Jewish community. He wrote on deadline and with an enviable clarity. He was passionate about social justice. He had an encyclopedic memory of back stories about individuals and organizations in the community.

Bernie often shared off-color stories, most of them unprintable. He traveled extensively, and during his tenure at the newspaper he visited Europe, Asia and South America on press junkets. He and I had lunches at various downtown Boston eateries. Inevitably, at these luncheon confabs, people stopped him to exchange greetings. He was a bit of a prankster, too. With Bernie, there was always a lesson to be learned: “Don’t take yourself seriously, but take what you do seriously,” he told me several times.

Bernie took newspapering seriously. I believe he regretted selling the newspaper, wishing he could have held onto it. He witnessed support for the paper wane. We never spoke about the shuttering of the paper – but I knew he was heartbroken when the paper closed in 2020. Given what we both knew about how and why the community had turned against the paper, he accepted that it was a foregone conclusion.

I salute Bernie and treasure the memories of our friendship.

Review: “Clyde’s” — A Riotous Food Fight

Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Taylor Reynolds. Co-produced by Huntington Theatre Company and the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at 264 Huntington Ave., Boston, through April 23.

Wesley Guimarães and April Nixon in the Huntington Theatre Company’s presentation of Clyde’s. Photo: Muriel Steinke.

By Robert Israel

Playwright Lynn Nottage delivers a sock-o punch with Clyde’s. The show — which makes its Boston appearance at the Huntington Theatre Company after having been staged in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — is the best production I have seen so far this season. And, while it has many comedic moments, it has been mistakenly marketed as a comedy. My take: disregard the reassuring label. The HTC production features a lively and athletic cast of five who transform a vibrant set by Wilson Chin into a raucous battle zone. If the text could be summed up in one word, call it … picaresque: the characters are rogues who bear combat scars thanks to the volatile lives they’ve chosen to live, the desires they pursue. A predictable laugh riot it is not.

Playwright Nottage, at 58, has been awarded two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama (Ruined in 2009 and Sweat in 2017). She has also penned an opera, a musical, others plays, and films. Her training took place at Brown University. She was an undergraduate student of playwright Paula Vogel, who admonished student playwrights “to never romanticize the theater…There’s a battle out there. Think of yourselves as generals.” Nottage took that note seriously. She has taken military command in Clyde’s. Her campaign is devoid of sentiment. And she takes no prisoners.

Nottage tells us that she has set the play in a “truck stop sandwich shop in Berk County, Pennsylvania.” We meet, at the opening curtain, Montrellous (Harold Surratt), who may or may not be trying to seduce Clyde (April Nixon), the owner/lead warrior of the place. He thinks of himself as a “sandwich sensei” and he’s trying to lure Clyde into his orbit by way of his exotic creations. The ambiguity here is intentional. The theme of sexual politics is amplified by drawing on the seductive nature of food. But Montrellous knows that Clyde, hardened by life’s impetuous twists and tumults, will be hard to please.

Clyde’s is not a fancy-schmancy place: it reminded me of Koerner’s Lunch, formerly located on Aborn Street near the industrial neighborhood of the Providence of my youth. At my greasy spoon, short order cooks plied their trade using (unwashed) bare hands, pressing the fixings into soggy slices of bread with their palms before serving it to the customers. Food is treated similarly in this play. Montrellous – and the other kitchen staff – entertain pipe-dreams about creating designer sandwiches, but Clyde isn’t buying these upmarket desires. She has no time for foreplay. She wants hard core action.

The way Clyde sees it: she’s given the cooks jobs and she wants results. The kitchen crew also share a common thread — they have served time behind bars for sundry misdeeds, so they can be replaced if they don’t produce. The owner tells Montrellous, “I’m not indifferent to suffering. But I don’t do pity. I just don’t. And you know why? Because dudes like you thrive on it, it’s your energy source, but like fossil fuels it creates pollution.”

The cast is top-notch throughout. As Rafael, Wesley Guimarães takes the stage with a marvelous light-stepping force, wielding a knife and wisecracks with aplomb. The object of his desire, Letitia (Cyndii Johnson), is alternately lulled and repelled by his confident overtures and sweet talk. Will the two ever get it on? And Louis Reyes McWilliams, in a difficult role, makes Jason an excellent foil: he is the new guy, a bit of a dunderhead who is compelled to think out his moves if he is going to keep his job in a pecking order that could be scrambled up at any moment.

If Nottage can be accused of a fault in this play it is not standing outside of her characters, letting them take on an independent life. Occasionally, one senses the dramatist’s polished voice infusing itself into the action, running interference. This generates some dramatic inconsistency: there is a clash between her command of language – it is a recognizably cultivated pitch — and her characters’ traffic in rough-hewn banter. That said, there is the converse issue: her characters lob a multitude of f-bombs throughout. She might consider trimming the use of these (and other vulgarities). The excess profane verbiage becomes numbing, dulling our awareness of the dramatic tension and the characters’ frustrations.

That noted, the HTC’s co-production is spirited and sassy. You might not want to order a sandwich at Clyde’s. But you will want to stay to watch the show.

**

A previous version of this review appeared in The Arts Fuse (Boston) on April 2, 2023.