Ross Zentner
Marvette Knight and Gavin Lawrence play parents devastated by the loss of a son.
One of the great privileges of being a critic is having the opportunity to see art and think about it deeply. How does it fit into history? What is it trying to tell us? Is it successful in transforming the way we see the world? Every so often a play comes along that touches on all these questions at once. The Mojo and the Sayso, a co-production of Bronzeville Arts Ensemble and Theatre LILA, is just such a show.
Mojo, which runs through Feb. 21 at the Overture Center, was written by playwright Aishah Rahman in the late 1980s. But it feels ripped from today’s headlines. A young black boy, age 10, is shot by police in the back, as he and his father run away from what the police believe is an attempted robbery. The murder fractures the family in a million pieces. Mother Awilda (Marvette Knight) seeks refuge in the church. Father Acts (Gavin Lawrence) hides inside a car he’s restoring, and the boy’s older brother Blood (Isáyah Phillips) disappears into a life of rage and violence. As a result of the racist act, each survivor seeks a “mojo,” a talisman against vanishing into horrible loss and pain.
But here’s where the show differs from the conversation today: Mojo isn’t so much about systemized white racism as it is about the family. In this sense, the script evokes the work of other great American playwrights: Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and probably most directly, August Wilson. The reason behind the policeman’s act is left unexamined — or at least taken for granted — while the central drama centers around how the family can reunite after splintering.
This production has all the hallmarks of Theatre LILA’s impeccable work. Beautiful stagecraft, including a layered stage dressed elegantly with a candlelit altar on a family piano, an old car angled on a living room floor, and in the background, wire fencing holding snapshots and newspaper headlines, screaming of the killer’s eventual release. Actors fully embody their characters, using music, gestures and dance so that the audience feels the hurt and betrayal. The use of language is particularly powerful: Knight’s damaged mother evokes the gospel praise-song of church; Phillips the clipped, resonant beat of hip-hop. Lawrence is a powerhouse, both likeable and suspect as he lovingly lingers over the body of his car, as he might his fallen son.
Mojo may not be the play you expect, coming out of 2016’s justified fury over the deaths of young men like Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, or Madison’s own Tony Robinson. But it has a ferocity all its own. The program implores audience members to “ask yourself: what can you do?” about the current crisis of police shootings in African American communities. Start by seeing The Mojo and the Sayso. Let its lyricism and passion sink in and transform you.
