AMERICAN THEATRE | Christina Anderson Wades Into the History of Swimming Pool Segregation

Playwright Christina Anderson has a penchant for historic fiction. In the Tony-nominated musical Paradise Square, the e-book of which she co-wrote with Larry Kirwan and Craig Lucas, African Americans and Irish immigrants in New York discover their favourite watering gap, to not point out your entire nation, disrupted by the Civil War. In How to Catch Creation, 4 feminist artists in San Francisco see their lives intersecting with that of a queer artist from the Nineteen Sixties. And pen/man/ship follows a gaggle of African Americans on a voyage to Africa in 1896 as Jim Crow took maintain within the South.

After studying the 2007 e-book Contested Waters by Jeff Wiltse, Anderson discovered one other method to dive into America’s murkiest water: race. In particular, Anderson seems on the historical past of the desegregation of public swimming pools. There are at present greater than 300,000 such swimming pools within the U.S., however African Americans have solely been in a position to absolutely entry them for the final 50 years. The battle to offer Black folks entry to water, and the toll of that activism, are the premise for her latest play, the ripple, the wave that carried me dwelling, commissioned by Berkeley Rep in 2014 and produced there final yr, in addition to at Portland Center Stage. The play is continuous its victory lap this yr at Goodman Theatre, the place it ran Jan. 12-Feb. 13, and can subsequent run at Kansas City Rep, close to Anderson’s hometown, March 14-April 2, and at Yale Rep April 28-May 20.

In the ripple, a lady named Janice learns from a personality known as Young Chipper Ambitious Black Woman that her father, Edwin, is being honored for integrating public swimming pools in her hometown, which brings up unhealthy reminiscences for her. She recollects her father’s obsession over his lawsuit and a devastating incident along with her mom, Helen, each of them elements which have saved her away from the water for many years. The story that unfolds addresses the unhealed wounds that racism, sexism, and segregation left on her household, and the ways in which water could possibly cleanse them.

I spoke to Anderson just lately about crafting new performs, activism, political efforts to ban theatre, and extra.

KELUNDRA SMITH: Your performs typically take care of excavating the previous, particularly a Black previous, for connections to right this moment’s points. What do you assume the previous can educate us in regards to the current?

CHRISTINA ANDERSON: I’ve at all times been enthusiastic about issues earlier than my time. Even once I was a preteen and teenager, I used to be obsessive about film musicals starring Doris Day, Judy Garland, and Barbra Steisand. I learn Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez’s early work. As my analysis expertise progressed, and I had entry to [the JSTOR research database] in faculty, I’d spend hours within the library. Reading made me notice how repetitive we’re as human beings, notably [pertaining to racism] in America. I used to be tremendously affected intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually by what I used to be studying, and performs felt like an efficient method to ask, How are this stuff stirring feelings in me?

What impressed you to write down the ripple?

I knew I needed to write down about water as a component, however I didn’t know what I needed to write down about particularly. Then I used to be researching environmental injustice and I discovered Contested Waters, and I used to be fully floored. I can’t swim, my mom can’t swim, lots of people in my household can’t swim, and it by no means occurred to me {that a} public coverage may decide my entry to water. That compelled denial can flip issues and make folks imagine that they’re just for white of us, in order a child I by no means felt prefer it was a factor I used to be lacking.

I’ve additionally been within the youngsters of activists and the toll [that activism] takes on the household, so I needed to make it a household drama. When I used to be determining the construction, I learn Ohio State Murders and The Alexander Plays by Adrienne Kennedy, and Wallace Shawn’s performs, notably his direct-address and solo items. I knew it was going to be a [play that utilizes] direct handle and it was going to be about swimming.

Let’s speak about naming for a second. In your performs, your characters’ names typically point out what they symbolize somewhat than merely being a reputation. Why?

I nonetheless prefer to have these moments in my performs that remind folks we’re experiencing a theatrical piece. I don’t need anybody watching the piece to imagine they know what this world is or that they know who these individuals are. They can see themselves within the folks onstage, however I’m enthusiastic about having one thing be acquainted, but in addition distanced and playful. In ripple, I knew Young Chipper could be from an upper-class Black household, and I needed to seize culturally how that lives. But one factor that I inform administrators engaged on this piece is that Young Chipper is completely a three-dimensional particular person on this world; she shouldn’t be an summary determine. She’s chosen how she needs to commemorate her group, and I hope the viewers laughs along with her.

In the script, Helen is the one who has the concept to revive the general public pool, however Edwin is painted because the hero. What are you saying in regards to the erasure of Black ladies from the story of the Civil Rights Movement?

I used to be actually interested by the forms of activism. You can have these activists, who’re what I prefer to name disruptors, who will bodily put themselves ahead to protest an injustice. Then you might have these folks within the again rooms. I bear in mind in faculty discovering out about how Martin Luther King Jr. was supported on so many ranges. Harry Belafonte paid for his housing; Andrew Young’s brother [Walter Young] was a dentist and did free dental work for everyone within the Civil Rights Movement. When you concentrate on Coretta, after Martin died, she was on the telephone doing fundraisers, lobbying and doing a ton of labor that wasn’t on digital camera or within the press.

I used to be enthusiastic about how Black ladies navigate politics and activism in ways in which aren’t so public however nonetheless have an immense influence. With Helen and Edwin within the play, loads of the scenes are home and at dwelling. Sometimes Helen can see the truth of the dream faster than Edwin, however he at all times listens to her.

I need to contact on a few your different performs. I’m interested by How to Catch Creation and pen/man/ship, each of which take care of factors in historical past that some politicians try to suppress the instructing of proper now. What is happening with these performs?

How to Catch Creation had productions lined up earlier than the pandemic, however every part got here to a halt. Recently, Geva Theatre in Rochester, N.Y. and Julliard produced it, and from my understanding they each went properly. I don’t know what’s going to occur, however hopefully it is going to choose again up. 

Molière within the Park did a few superior on-line productions of pen/man/ship. Young folks ship me DMs on Instagram that a number of the monologues have gotten them awards and into undergraduate performing applications. I’m additionally enthusiastic about adapting it right into a screenplay, and funnily sufficient, that script additionally offers with water.

I’ve been pondering loads about this banning that’s been taking place, and what just lately occurred with Indecent [in Florida]. It’s a tragic and wild time, however that is additionally historical past repeating itself. The arts are the primary goal. When politicians try to get elected or get on greater political levels, the humanities are the very first thing they attempt to regulate. I hope the response to it might change. 

What are you engaged on proper now?

I’m doing a stage adaptation of Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’, based mostly on the e-book by Zora Neale Hurston. It is a fee for the Public Theater, and I’m excited to select it again up. 

What would you like your performs to do on the earth? What would you like your influence to be?

When folks come to see my work, I’m nonetheless purposeful and intentional find moments of pleasure and laughter. In my life, when unhealthy issues are taking place, there are nonetheless these moments the place miraculously I can discover humor. I would like folks to see a superb piece of theatre and see incredible Black actors. I would like folks to take pleasure in reside theatre, I would like folks to see elements of themselves and likewise see one thing new, or rethink issues in a brand new gentle. I would like folks to speak about what they’re seeing.

Kelundra Smith (she/her), a author based mostly in Atlanta, is a frequent contributor to this journal.

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