The Talented Tenth
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
The Robey Theatre Company at The Los Angeles Theatre Center
Through December 10
“The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men,” is how renowned Black sociologist W.E.B. Dubois began his seminal 1903 essay, from which playwright Richard Wesley’s draws the title for his anachronistic 1988 play. Dubois’ idea was that uplift for Black folks could be derived by “developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst” — and this would happen if only ten percent of its men eschewed personal gain, received a college education, authored books, and toiled for social change. Dubois, however, was also socialist, so that in making his protagonist a successful but unseemly businessperson, Wesley rejects another of the essay’s premises: “If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men.”
Just as White 1960s college leftists exchanged love beads and long hair for Brooks Brothers suits and corporate suites, Bernard Evans (a fevered Nic Few) and his fellow radical Howard University civil rights activists have traded in their dashikis and Afros. Twenty years after marching into Selma with Dr. King, Bernard is in his forties with a comfortable job, a loving wife in Pam (Tiffany Coty), an equally loving and younger girlfriend in Tanya (Jessican Obilom), and the requisite male midlife crisis. But all is not well. After substantially boosting profits with cutting edge political, cultural, and racial programming at the Black-owned New Jersey radio station chain where he works, Bernard learns that the firm’s owner Griggs (director Ben Guillory) is considering a buyout by a bigger White-owned conglomerate, without giving the loyal Bernard first dibs. .
Bernard is disillusioned. He feels he has abandoned the teachings of his icons MLK, Malcolm X, and Dubois, as well the revolutionary dreams he shared with a former college lover. His fellow Howard alums, however, have no such qualms about parting with The Movement and assimilating into a moneyed world; they regard their passion for college activism as youthful folly. Ron (a droll Stirling Bradley), married couple Rowena (Monte Escalante) and Marvin (Julio Hanson), and Pam herself all have lucrative careers and they implore Bernard to be “practical” instead of pursuing his quixotic attempt to acquire Griggs’ company.
Director Guillory brings out stellar performances from others in the cast, notably Few, Coty, and Obilom, but, at the performance I attended, struggled at time with his own lines. Despite mostly admirable performances, Wesley’s script comes off as bloated, with forced and interminable scenes (The woman sitting next to me even checked her watch a few times). While some scenes are commanding, like Rowena’s and Pam’s debate on colorism, others tend to ramble.
The play is 35 years old, and it shows, notably in its gender dynamics, making it difficult to sympathize with Bernard. He is more than just flawed: he is mendacious, manipulative, and mean with the women in his life — yet somehow they still love him, fight over him, forgive his boorish and macho misconduct, and even wish him well. The utterance of a slur used for Asians — which drew gasps from some in the audience — also reflects the work’s datedness.
As for Wesley’s premise that the road to Black elevation for the many is a Black economic elite of the few – a path Bernard wishes for his son (Rogelio Douglas III) — it’s ironically countered by Dubois’ 1940 essay, “Dusk of Dawn,” written after he revamped his thinking: “My own panacea of an earlier day was a flight of class from mass through the development of the Talented Tenth; but the power of this aristocracy of talent was to lie in its knowledge and character, not in its wealth.”
The Robey Theatre Company, LATC, 514 S. Spring St., downtown LA. Opens Sat., Nov. 11; Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm; thru Dec. 10. http://therobeytheatrecompany.org Running time: two hours, including a fifteen-minute intermission.
