Lifeline Theatre’s “Native Son,” 2024/Photo: Jackie Jasperson
RECOMMENDED
Lifeline Theatre’s new production of “Native Son” is brutal, powerful and relentless. Like a big, stiff drink, it hits you right in the gut, and you leave the theater reeling.
Adapted from the 1940 Richard Wright novel, the Nambi E. Kelley play debuted in a joint American Blues-Court Theatre production in 2014. It uses two actors to play the main character of Bigger Thomas—Tamarus Harvell as Bigger himself, and James Lewis as “Black Rat,” Bigger’s other voice. This gives theatrical life to the idea of “double consciousness,” defined by sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois as the struggle African Americans face to stay true to themselves and Black culture while at the same time conforming to an oppressive white society.
It’s a struggle Bigger can’t win. This fast-paced, no-intermission production, with its claustrophobic set by Regina Garcia and dreamlike projections by Eme Ospina-López, artfully illustrates Bigger’s impossible situation. He wants to be a man—in fact, he wants to be an airplane pilot—like the newsreel heroes. But 1930s Chicago sees him as a rat, and that’s how he comes to see himself.
Lifeline Theatre’s “Native Son,” 2024/Photo: Jackie Jasperson
The play starts well into the novel, with Bigger’s accidental killing of a white heiress (Laura Nelson), and then goes backwards and forwards in time. Bigger lives with his mother (played with stately authority by Kamille Dawkins) and siblings (Dairyon Bolden and Ashli Funches) in a miserable South Side flat. He strives to improve their situation by working as a chauffeur for the wealthy Dalton family.
His first assignment is to drive Dalton’s only child, Mary, to an event. Mary is an immature rebel with leftist leanings and a communist boyfriend, Jan (Nick Trengove). They make Bigger uncomfortable, since they imagine they’re treating him as an equal when they’re really objectifying him as an exotic. Mary gets so drunk that Bigger has to help her to her room. She comes onto Bigger, and he kills her while trying to keep her quiet.
The rest of the play deals with Bigger’s attempts to lie his way out of the trap, and then escape in Chicago’s bitter winter. He’s not likable—he’s cruel to other people in his life, especially his girlfriend, Bessie (Funches). But he is sympathetic, as his fate seems inevitable in a racist society.
Lifeline Theatre’s “Native Son,” 2024/Photo: Jackie Jasperson
Harvell is outstanding as Bigger—bumbling and naïve at the start, and then overcome with rage and grief. Lewis is sharp and funny as Bigger’s other self—saying the things that Bigger can’t say aloud. Gabriel Fries is terrific as Britten, the hateful detective who would be delighted to take down either a communist or a Black man as Mary’s killer. Fries suggests a young Jimmy Stewart, if his character in “Call Northside 777” had been a villain. Mandy Walsh’s Mrs. Dalton is well-meaning, but oblivious to her part in the rigged system—her character is both literally and figuratively blind.
Less satisfying are the characters of Mary, Jan and Bessie. They are cartoon-like—Mary is such an obnoxious phony and Bessie such a needy drunk that they almost seem to deserve what’s coming to them. The women are more sympathetic in the book, though still not as rounded as the male characters. In this efficient play, they are more flattened out, which creates a puzzle for Lifeline artistic director Ilesa Duncan. In their drunk scene with Bigger, Nelson as Mary and Trengove as Jan are very funny, with their cringy bellowing of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” But it’s a bit much if you want to accept them as real people.
Beyond this problem, this is a good and necessary show. If you haven’t read “Native Son,” one of the essential American novels, this will inspire you to pick it up. And if you haven’t read it in a while, you’ll rush home to find your copy. Things haven’t changed as much as we’d hoped.
“Native Son” runs through June 30 at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 North Glenwood. Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 2:30pm and 7:30pm; Sundays at 2:30pm. Tickets are $15-$45, available at lifelinetheatre.com.
