RECOMMENDED
In a post-millennial era when government is seeking to stamp out any vestige of diversity, equity and inclusion, it is sobering to realize that nearly ninety years ago, the FDR administration had a Federal Theatre Project overseen by the WPA that included “Negro Theatre Units.” Instead of attempting to cancel anything labeled “woke” as now, the government then was actually making it possible for Black voices of the day to be heard.
Louisiana-born Chicago playwright Theodore Ward’s 1938 “Big White Fog” was, in fact, a WPA play. It was advertised as “A Negro Drama” and premiered downtown at the Great Northern Theatre. The current Court Theatre production, directed by Court resident artist Ron OJ Parson, represents its first production in the part of the city where the play was actually set.
Court is advertising “Big White Fog” as “the big shoulders on which ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ stands.” True that “Fog” and “Raisin” are both Black family dramas by Chicago playwrights set on the South Side of Chicago, where discrimination is constricting the pursuit of the American dream. “Raisin” obviously owes much to “Fog.” But one of the reasons we all know “Raisin” while few of us know “Fog” is that “Raisin” is a Black play looking outside in, while “Fog” looks inside out.
This is an inside world where Black Chicagoans playfully refer to each other by the n-word, and colorism, or looking down on other Black people for having darker skin, is common. In the world of this play, being all-Black is seen as lower status than being part-white.
Entering the world of “Fog” is challenging in that there are many characters—the ensemble is a cast of seventeen—whose stories span across a decade (1922-1932), many serving as mouthpieces for the various ideologies they represent. Does being Black mean identifying as African, where one should seek to charter ships to return to the home continent? Or does it mean identifying as American, embracing an unbridled, pre-New Deal capitalism that thrives on the exploitation of others, including your own people? Perhaps the new Russian option of communism, which seeks at least in theory to make classes equal and could benefit Black Americans?
Bad things happen, but we haven’t had a chance to know characters well enough to feel the full weight of their significance, despite an excellent cast and superb direction.
What “Fog” does provide is an invaluable Great Depression snapshot of a challenged community—struggling with its own identity by looking to its immediate past for possible paths forward.
“Big White Fog” plays through October 12 at Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis. Tickets are $60-$90, available at courttheatre.org.
