Playwright takes new approach to civil rights

Playwright takes new approach to civil rights

1968 Memphis strike provides backdrop for one man’s plight

By Jennifer Richmond

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

OyamO absolutely didn’t want to write another play about Martin
Luther King Jr..

Although he feels that King is an important historical figure,
OyamO wanted to focus on another side of the civil rights
struggle.

The Michigan-based playwright agreed to write a play about the
historic 1968 Memphis strike. It focuses on an ordinary man
contributing to an extraordinary event. That’s how the play, "I am
a Man," showing at the Foutain Theater for Black History Month, was
created.

When he started, he didn’t have a lot of information.

"We knew that there was a strike and we had the name of a man
who was the initial leader of that strike, and his name was Thomas
Oliver Jones. So, with that one sentence of information I started,"
OyamO explains over a cup of tea with lemon.

Once he began, OyamO found a book titled "At the River I Stand"
by Joan Beifuss which he says helped him tremendously. It was a
journalistic account of the events that took place during the
strike.

That book, along with a dissertation about the Memphis
sanitation strike and the labor history in Memphis acted as the
foundation on which OyamO began to build his play. He researched
the event further in Memphis libraries in order to get a feeling
for the community. He says he found enough stuff to keep him
working for the next 15 years.

"I did all this because I was determined not to write a play
about Martin Luther King. I wanted to write a play about a simple
working class man or person who got caught up in history.
Essentially, he stepped to the front and just got swirled up into a
hurricane," OyamO explains.

But researching the event was just the beginning. Writing the
play was a different process entirely. OyamO says a year and a half
elapsed before he actually started writing the drama.

"Usually, I start thinking about the play after the idea is
there. I don’t worry about it, I just put it in the back of my mind
and let it percolate," the writer explains. "Very often, I set up a
folder or two and every time an idea comes to me in the middle of
an interview or eating breakfast, walking along the road or just
waking up, I write down the idea and put it in the folder. Pretty
soon I look up and this folder’s starting to get full and somewhere
around there I know it’s time to start writing."

While adding to his folder, OyamO read and studied the event and
took notes during a trip to Memphis. He even interviewed Jones’
son. Once finished he returned to his home in Michigan and started
writing.

"Something in me just made me start even before I finished all
the research," he says. "The play started coming out of me and I
had to just start writing it down right away.

"As I was writing it," OyamO says, "I found it most
inspirational that an individual could effect such a change in the
local circumstances – that in a society in which they increasingly
urge everyone to conform; it’s not easy to find that everyone
doesn’t.

"And that some of these individuals who don’t conform are
individuals who give us our best ideas, some of our best art and
also help to keep alive the tradition of our political freedoms.
So, it’s inspirational to see what an individual can do when
pressed by need and having no other alternative."

Even though it took OyamO over a year to research the play, he
says the actual script only took him a month to write. Since then,
he’s written several drafts and seen several productions of "Man."
He’s even written a movie version of the play for HBO.

"If I had all the drafts here, they’d probably be standing about
here," the writer says as he holds his hand about a foot off the
table. "I don’t know. I never keep track of all the drafts, but
there were plenty of them."

Even with all the drafts and changes, the audiences have never
been displeased. If anything they’ve been surprised.

"A lot of people were surprised because I don’t really draw any
villains. I wasn’t interested in accusing anyone of anything. I was
just interested in seeing what happens in a life of one person as a
result of that whole event."

Thomas Jones’ widow and another involved in the strike saw the
production and enjoyed it. OyamO says they liked the play and "they
were glad that someone had gone back and dug up some of that stuff
and put it out there."

While OyamO hopes other audiences have the similar responses to
the drama he really wants them to learn from it.

"I want people to understand that it truly is a complex
situation that we’re living through and that (the strike) was very
complex. It wasn’t simply black against white. It was an event that
involved many social forces in our country that were entangled in
all kinds of ways with each other.

"(The civil rights movement) taught us that when the law is
absolutely not correct, when it’s immoral and it’s not justified,
you have to break the law; and that was an important thing to learn
in this country," OyamO says emphatically.

"So, (in writing this play) I just wanted to be reminded of how
hard so many people fought to make the quality of life better in
this country. And I wanted to indicate that it was across the
board, it crossed racial lines, it crossed gender lines, it even
crossed nationality lines.

"But I did not want to write another play about Martin Luther
King. I want that absolutely clear. It’s not about King. It’s to
show the relationship of one man’s life and events juxtaposed
against (King’s)."

STAGE: "I am a Man." Running through March 30 at the Fountain
Theater. Performs Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m.
TIX: $18-22. For more info call: (213) 663-1525.Comments to
[email protected]