Theatre Review

Production: Palmer Park

A Stratford Shakespeare Festival Premiere

By: Joanna McLelland Glass

Director: Ron OJ Parson

Principle Actors: Dan Chameroy, Yanna McIntosh, Kelli Fox, Nigel Shawn Williams, Lesley Ewan, Kevin Hanchard, David W. Keeley, Brad Rudy, Jane Spidell, Severn Thompson

Where: Stratford Festival Of Canada

Theatre: Studio Theatre

Run: August 8^th to September 21^st

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey (Ontario Correspondent - Canada)

Easily, Palmer Park can be declared compelling, and aptly placed in the most progressive part of the Stratford Festival in the intimate setting of the Studio theatre. Guaranteed that if you aren't riveted to your seat at the Studio theatre, then you are on the edge of it; since opening in 2002, this cozy 260 seated theatre continues to bring enlightening, compelling and progressive productions like Palmer Park to the stage every year. Palmer Park is a play of controversy wrapped in a social dilemma; as you see the story of upwardly mobile African Americans in the Detroit area known as Palmer Park (so dubbed by playwright Joanna McLelland Glass) during the late sixties/early seventies, and their white friends who are prepared to take on a challenging social stigma.

Often people, and certain groups fall through the cracks of society, and Palmer Park shines a bright light on a subversively discriminated against sub-culture known as the upper-middle class African American. This discrimination (on both sides of the fence) is as vivid today as it was back in the late sixties, although, now we consider it a ‘Rich Man's Burden' as opposed to a ‘Black Man's Burden.' Martin and Kate, a home-spun young white couple move to Detroit in 1968 and are quick to discover they can have a house beyond their dreams if they are willing to live in an integrated community. Essentially, white people started moving out when successful black people were moving in. The community of Palmer Park is dedicated to creating a fully integrated community of blacks and whites, without prejudice. Idealism at its finest, this community rallies around and works hard for their beliefs. A close friendship is formed between Martin and Kate with their neighbours Fletcher and Linda Hazelton, a successful black couple residing in Palmer Park.

Joanna McLelland Glass draws from her own experience of this situation in the Detroit area between 1968 to 1974; you would need an onion as a diagram to explain the layers to this excellently executed message and fully entertaining production. The playwright firmly plants the story in its 1960s/1970s setting, but makes it so relevant to how we act and react today towards each other. Speaking directly to the audience throughout the production, by all cast members, you feel invested in the characters and their plight. When they succeed we felt it as an audience and we grieved their failures as one living, breathing community. Discussing matters of how media invented the dreadful term ‘flesh-coloured,' makes for an appealing ploy at absurdity.

The stage was set beautifully, but simply as a huge screen at the back was used in multiple ways, but at its greatest facility to the play projected images of the times. Over the sound system bellowed some of the best music in the history of sound. Classic protest and civil rights songs from the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready", "Here Comes The Sun" by George Harrison, one of my favourite's "Give Me Ticket For An Aeroplane" by Jefferson Airplane and the ever resilient one-hit wonders Buffalo Springfield who sang "For What It's Worth"....trust me, if you heard the song, you would know it even as the band's name evades your recollection). A nice inclusion was Sly And The Family Stone's "Everyday People" as they were the first integrated band to garner success. Sometimes hints of a song would be used effectively as set changes were being made; one such example was Aretha Franklin's "Respect." My Father was a stickler for me knowing the songs of the sixties and seventies. I can remember never hearing the end of a tragic mistake when I confused a Mama and Poppas song for Simon and Garfunkel! Now he is gone, those songs imbue a treasured memory, as perhaps, many sat in the audience will also have found the memories rekindled in their thoughts of times gone as they listened to the soundtrack of Palmer Park and a generation of change.

Aside from the floor to ceiling screen that put you back into the time of change and revolution, and the music filling the room, you could find the solace of the past in the stunning costumes that both reflected the times and the class of these young family professionals who sought to live up to their ideals. The costumes were as colourful and tapestried as Versailles, but without over-stating the time period and running into the dangerous field of camp. No, the costumes of Palmer Park felt authentic, and the play has Costume Designer Katherine Lubienski to thank for that.

Palmer Park is a fast-paced production, with a detailed storyline that keeps you involved for every moment. A memorable part of Palmer Park was a fabulously energized play-by-play of the world series in 1968 with all the guys of the Palmer Park community doing a synchronized storytelling-performance with lots of emotional appeal; even someone not indoctrinated into baseball lore would find the scene very intense and exciting.

A play of such delicate balance and brewing subject matter that still raises relevant today needed a solid cast of performers to tell the story with the correct tone; luckily the Stratford Festival has some incredible home-grown talent that showed the full array of perspectives with pure authenticity. Female performers like Yanna McIntosh, Kelli Fox, Jane Spidell, Lesley Ewan, and Severn Thompson are a delight to watch as each woman matches her male and female counter-parts and also manages to maintain a strength and range to work cohesively as a unit within their own right. You see from the initial interactions that Linda and Kate will be good friends as Yanna and Kelli make that connection so plausible. Jane Spidell, and Severn Thompson put in great performances, as does Lesley Ewan who really seems to embody the elegance and sophistication of Alice Marshall. Jane Spidell and Severn Thompson make the stage seem like an effortless place for them to be, as they are both natural in their performances and yet you see a secondary layer of complete professionalism always at work.

The group of men were equally as prolific in their acting; Nigel Shawn Williams, Dan Chameroy, Brad Rudy, David W. Keeley and Kevin Hanchard play off each other wonderfully and each achieve that delicate balance of the renaissance man who was both idealistic and dedicated to his beliefs and his community during the 60s/70s. Chameroy is wonderful in everything he plays, from belt-buckled-steel-toed Curly in Oklahoma! last year, to a gentler and optimistic Martin in Palmer Park this year. Shawn Nigel Williams took the challenging lead role in The Odyssey last year, but this seems to be his gem in Palmer Park, as he plays a man simply trying to better himself and his family, no matter what his colour; Fletcher sees the that true power lies in knowledge and so he will make that his destination for change. Williams's true passion for the plays message seems to shine through in every line he speaks. Both Brad Rudy and David W. Keeley set the bar higher yet again, and I must admit to having a affinity for Keeley's chameleon abilities as he seems to slip into the mind of every character he plays with complete expertise which makes him a delight to watch every time. Yes, it is worth mentioning every performance, as all were so well constructed, especially the smaller roles of Ron Marshall and Alvin Wilkinson played by Kevin Hanchard who performs the opposing roles so perfectly you are amazed that one person can slip back and forth so seamlessly between such extremes.         

Each character is so well-developed that it is easy to see each performer's natural talents and how they work as a community of actors; the equality sought after in the storyline is matched by the sharing of performance by the actors onstage. No one-upmanship required, as everyone allowed each other to shine in their own right.

Intermission was a complete delight, almost as exciting as the play because all those complex realities of race seemed to boil to the surface at half-time. White people were being extra nice to black people by opening doors for them and apologizing for bumping into each other, and black people looked like they felt as though they had a big neon arrow above them as they walked around. We weren't conscious of being racist before the intermission, but we were amply aware of it during the break! This conduct reminded me of the Ricky Gervais' TV Show Extras which highlights people who are trying so hard not to be discriminatory that they actually end up by being discriminatory anyways. You knew Palmer Park was working on the human-psyche at this point as people's awareness had been provoked.

The only downfall of this production was the lack of young people in the audience. Why aren't our young peoples' minds being expanded and developed by such a highly-relevant play as Palmer Park? School segregation is being discussed in Toronto presently and somehow we are reverting back to what people fought to make obsolete only a few decades previous. Why aren't high school students being sent down from Toronto in bus loads to see Palmer Park so that they too can learn the virtue of idealism?

Easily one of my top five plays of the season, and definitely a "must see." Palmer Park is dynamic, brilliant and strikingly poignant. The last story told, and the finale of the production, I have found myself incorporating into my conversations at least once a day, because that is how relevant the message of Palmer Park truly is.