Play confronts issue of race relations, with goal of challenging audiences' views
Tracey A. Leigh and Philip Casnoff star in “The Many Mistresses of Martin Luther King,” which also features UCLA adjunct assistant professor Judith Moreland and UCLA alumnus Theo Perkins.
Courtesy of Tom Burruss
"The Many Mistresses of Martin Luther King"
March 17 – April 29
Atwater Village Theater
By Matthew Overstreet
March 15, 2012 12:21 a.m.
If the title “The Many Mistresses of Martin Luther King,” grabs someone’s attention, then it has fulfilled its goal. The play doesn’t actually feature Martin Luther King or his mistresses ““ it’s simply meant to provoke a reaction.
Academia, racial tensions and age differences are major themes in the play, which runs through April 29. The plot revolves around Simon Case, a white sociology professor at a small university who marries a younger black graduate student.
Over the course of a cocktail party that makes up most of the play, characters confront race relations and entertain the audience.
Andrew Dolan, the playwright, said that every play needs to entertain, and that as much as he hopes the play will get people talking, he also expects it to entertain the audience.
Dolan also said that he hopes to challenge people’s views on race and how they think about race relations in their own lives. This is a view that he shares with longtime friend and actress in the play Judith Moreland, who is also an adjunct assistant professor at UCLA.
“The play is kind of a comedy. Most of the action of the play takes place at a cocktail party, so it’s very reminiscent of “˜Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.’ When you get academics mixed together with alcohol, mayhem ensues,” Moreland said.
Theo Perkins, a UCLA alumnus, plays Anquan, an aspiring basketball player and college freshman put on academic probation for allegedly stealing an iPod.
Perkins had previously studied under Moreland at UCLA when she taught a graduate voice and speech class in the theater department. Perkins said the experience of working with his former professor was a bit strange and that he found himself worrying about the little things.
“(I would ask myself), am I talking right? I respect her so much, and she taught me a lot while I was here. … She’s just a great person, but it was weird because I was very self-conscious,” Perkins said.
Moreland, who plays a black professor at the college that Anquan attends, said that she was happy to work with Perkins, and that she always looks forward to working with past students.
“I always tell my students, “˜Yeah, I’m teaching you now, but as soon as you all graduate, we become colleagues and I look forward to working with you at some point.’ Now I’m working with (Perkins) and … it’s not professor and student anymore, we’re just two actors in a play,” Moreland said.
In addition to her excitement about working with familiar faces, Moreland also said that she enjoys the play because of the roles it offers. She said it is rare to find a play with so many strong roles for black actors.
Aside from just offering roles, the play provides intelligent dialogue for its black actors, which Moreland said was important to her.
Dolan, who said that the play originally came out of a long series of diversity workshops he participated in, said he hopes that the audience is as varied as the play.
“My hope is that the audiences are diverse, not just in terms of race, but in terms of age and in every manner,” Dolan said, “That will make the whole experience … a more palpably exciting experience.”
