Exploring the unlikely friendship between two Black cultural icons—Muhammad Ali and Stepin Fetchit—professor and playwright Will Power’s 取粘土，造人 用L打拳.A. 观众
In 2005, during a visit to the United States’ oldest Black-owned bookstore—Marcus Books in San Francisco—Will Power was flipping through the pages of an oversized poster book on Muhammad Ali, when he saw a picture of Ali and his entourage. Next to him was Stepin Fetchit—the controversial Hollywood 演员, 40 years Ali’s senior—with a caption that described Fetchit as his “secret strategist.” The photo was taken in the midst of the 公民权利 Movement, a jarring discovery given the two figures’ divergent reputations in Black cultural memory.
“Muhammad Ali was everything that we wanted to be as young Black boys: smart, 有趣的, 才华横溢的, 勇敢的,鲍尔说。, an assistant professor of theater at 十大正规网赌平台 since 2020. “我对斯捷潘·费契知之甚少, but I do remember a couple of elders in the community saying, “他是汤姆叔叔, 他是个叛徒, 永远不要像他一样.’ When I saw that picture of them together, I thought, ‘How could that be?’”
His discovery set him on a course to uncover details about their friendship. More than five years of research, interviews, and writing culminated in the opening of 取粘土，制作 男人。 in 2010 at the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, N.J., with subsequent productions across dozens of theaters and regional companies. Power recently made his Center Theatre Group debut with a new production of the play, 导演:黛比·艾伦, which ran from June 18 to July 16 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.
为权力而欢呼 纽约 magazine in 2006 as “the best verse playwright in America”—获取粘土, 使 男人。 是洛杉矶独有的故事吗, both because it harkens back to Hollywood’s Golden Age and interrogates the tensions that permeate perspective, 感知, 和赋权.
“I’m trying to unpack the complexities of who we are as human beings, particularly when we’re trying to mold our public image and our private image in the context of class, 性, 比赛, 和性别,他说. “穆罕默德·阿里的一生是史诗般的. He was at the crux of real transformational change in American culture. His life was so critical to how we see the modern world.”
Power credits Allen for leading the 洛杉矶 cast (led by Ray Fisher as Ali and Edwin Lee Gibson as Fetchit) with a deep understanding and reimagining of the story’s spacing, 字符, 和节奏. “She’s an icon, one of the greatest artists I’ve ever worked with,” Power says. “The whole cast is phenomenal—it’s like an acting clinic, what they’re doing every night.”
On June 26, Allen joined Occidental President Harry J. 拦,小.—a noted theater scholar and 导演—for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of performing arts. 事件, sponsored by the California African American Museum in partnership with Center Theatre Group, 是在聚会地点举行的吗, a work and event space in 洛杉矶 focused on ideas and collaboration between African American entrepreneurs.
“Will Power wrote the play in a way that really appealed to my brain because it was moving in a way that was cinematic, almost going in and out of time periods and from this person to that person seamlessly,艾伦说。, 获奖制作人, 导演, 作家, 演员, 和舞蹈指导. “So, it was a really wonderful challenge for me as a 导演 to see how I could create the vision of what this piece is about and what it means—and give it even more resonance that it already has.”
At different moments during the hourlong conversation, the crowd erupted with laughter and murmured in agreement with Allen’s plea for more activism and involvement within the performing arts.
“We have to get people back into the theater, in the seats,” she told Elam. “Really good theater will leave you thinking—entertained but thinking. That’s why it’s important to have places like the Center Theatre Group, 宽阔的, 沃利斯的, 韦科[剧院中心], 黛比艾伦舞蹈学院. It’s important because we’re able to be free to express ourselves in ways that you can’t in other places.”
In the classroom, Power hopes the play pushes students to grapple with the complexities of life. “有一个版本, 或版本, 我们在公共场合发布的照片, and then there’s a more complex side that we may or may not even be aware of,他说. “I learned that both men were so much more complex than their public persona.”
Power reached back into Greek mythology to find the subject matter for his next play. 门农 (named for the biracial African king of Greek mythology who battled Achilles during the Trojan War) will run at the Getty Villa in fall 2024.
Additional reporting by Jasmine McKay.
Top photo: From left, Alexis Floyd, Ray Fisher, Edwin Lee Gibson, and Wilkie Ferguson II in 取粘土，造人. 照片由克雷格·施瓦茨摄影
