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88 DAILY BREAK The Dally Iowan - Monday, April 22, 1991
':River Niger' a true success
L· By Oebrlelle Mull.rkey
T~e Daily Iowan
ove,
rage, barbed words,
dark regrets and emotional
blacltmail: from the
Borgias to the Corleones,
tIle family has been one of the least
sl(lubrious social institutions. And
y~ the family offers the only
pfatform for personal reverie and
scUiloquized angst in a world
r~unding with the rhetorical
emptiness of "How are you?" Tell
other folks the truth and watch
your party invitations dry up.
The Williams family in Joseph
Walker's "The River Niger" lives
ami shouts and looks back in anger
within the confines of their Harlem
brownstone. Brought to the stage
l~t week by the ill Black Action
'l1heater, the play provided plenty
ot scope for tour-de-force acting.
~ere
were no secrets in this
fllDrily, only misinterpretations and
udtpoken guilt.
:tuis Siel'J played John, a failed
l~er whose early promise was
s~ted by the burden of supportinC
his mother-in-law, her two
ecoming the lawyer that John
never was.
But there was something rotten in
the state of Harlem. Jeff'fj reputatiOn
preceded him in the form of
Ann (Me'Lisa Sellers), his doting,
intelligent and gutsy girlfriend,
and some fIgures in raincotts and
knotted head8C8TVes who looked
like pirates with "flasher" tendencies
but turned out to be members
of Jeff's boyhood gang.
Perhaps hampered by this garb,
the gang members boun.ced on and
off stage with uneasily exaggerated
gestures, intonations and funny
(yet intimidating) walks. Charles
Joyner, as gangleader Mo, was so
self-effacing I expected him to
trade in his knotted hanky for a
seat at the United Nations negotiating
table.
Jeff's homecoming became a fIght
for self-identity, an erupting anger
against constant self,justification.
He rejected Mo's gang and its
formless raison d'etre as part of a
mythical black revolution: "Revolution
ain't nothing but talk, talk,
~. '" The law is something I
can do, not talk about." Unwittj~gly
he echoed his father's
maxini that "thinking is for idiots.
Wise men act." The irony is that
both were thinkers, acting on
quicksilver but imaginative impul­
BeS.
Siera bonded the entire playas the
pathetic, lovable and commanding
John, His character, a man of
passion, acted as foil to Dudley
Stanton (Nathan Else), the poised,
cynically humorous doctor who
acted as John's drinking and verbal
sparring partner. And as Jeff,
White moved deftly between petulant,
misunderstood child and man
of conviction - straddling the gulf
between one's place in the family
and one's place in the world,
When father and son met, the
play's two most powerful characters
circled and spatted in impassioned
eloquence. Jeff refused to
don his Air Force uniform, despite
John's point that "It is an accomplishment.,
fool.· Parental disappointment,
that terrible burden for
a child, goaded Jeff into admitting
that he flunked out of navigation
school and "never wanted to be a
super-nigger .•
Walker's narrative did justice to
his characters' bombastic tendencies.
There were nice observations:
"Honesty sticks to some people's
mouths like peanut butter," and a
poetic undercurrent, both thematically
and semantically, that beautifIes
even angry exchanges, "Poetry
is the cement of the universe ...
the rocking horse of the human
spirit," shouted John at Jeff.
John's relationship with his wife,
Mattie, was equally poignant and
multilayered, Despite her iron rule
in the domestic sphere, Mattie was
torn by the knowledge that she
stopped John from kicking out her
burdensome family, and so blamed
herself for his failures.
Stacy Gray made Mattie an utterly
believable mixture of world-weary
mother and sharp-tongued wife,
dispensing advice to Jeff's girlfriend,
admonition to her husband
and qualified adoration to Jeff. At
the same time, Gray revealed
enough glimpses of inner panic to
throw light on the real woman
behind this self-preserving image.
There was nice interplay between
her and Angela Wilbon as the
outspoken Grandma (revelling in
that old age licence to be obnoxious
as immortalized by SofIa in "The
Golden Girls"). ,
When familial electricity wasn't
crackling out of the rafters, there
was a sub-plot about the search for
a stool pigeon in Mo's gang -
which led to the final cathartic
tragedy and sanctification of selfless
family love over family venality.
"The River Niger," John's
long-awaited poem, was both a
tribute to Mattie and his own
swansong.
~my Grant tops singles charts
.J,~ Associated Press ' 7,"Cry for Help" Rick Astley (Motown) - Gold (More than
(RCA) • 500,000 units sold.)
. The following are the top record
hits and leading popular compact
discs as they appear in this week's
issue of Billboard magazine.
Copyright 1991, Billboard Publications,
Inc. Reprinted with permission,
8."Touch Me (All Night Long)"
Cathy Dennis (Polydor)
9."1 Touch Myself' Divinyls (Virgin)
lO,"Hold You Tight" Tara Kemp
(Giant)
ll. "Sadeness Part I" Enigma
l8,"Silent Lucidity" Queensryche
(EMI)
19. "More Than Ever" Nelson
(DGC)
20."Save Some Love" Keedy
(Arista)
(Charisma)
TOPLPs
TOP SINGLES
l2."Rhythro of My Heart" Rod l."Mariah Carey" Mariah Carey
I."Baby Baby" Amy Grant (A&M) Stewart (Warner Bros.)
(Columbia) - Platinum (More
2."Joyride" Roxette (EMI)
13."Voices that Care" Voices that than 1 million units sold.)
3. "You're In Love" Wilson Phillips Care (Giant)
2."Gonna Make You Sweat" C & C
(SBl{)
14'"Just the Way It Is, Baby" The Music Factory (Columbia) - Gold
4."1 Like the Way" Hi-Five (Jive) ~mbrandts (Atco)
3."Wilson Phillips" Wilson Phillips
(SBK) - Platinum
5."Here We Go" C & C Music 15."I Don't Wanna Cry" Mariah
Factory featuring Freedom WH­ Carey (Columbia)
4."Out of Time" R.E.M. (Warner
}iams & Zelma Davis (Columbia) 16."Rico Suave" Gerardo Gnterscope)
5. ·Shake Your Money Maker" The
Bros.)
6."I've Been Thinking About You"
LondonBeat (Radioactive)
17. "Iesha" Another Bad Creation Black Crowes (Def American) -
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BIJOU
Madonna discusses
many, many things
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Warren Beatty can breathe a
sigh of relief. At the last minute, his phone
conversations were edited out of Madonna's new
movie, "Truth or Dare."
In an interview with The Advocate, a gay magazine
published in Los Angeles, Madonna expressed
herself on gay men, Michael Jackson, the music
industry and why she cut some of her phone calls
with Beatty out of the upcoming documentary
about her.
"There were phone conversations I thought were
really moving and touching and revealing, but
Warren didn't know we were recording. It wasn't
fair," she said.
"Plus, it's a federal offense," she added.
Madonna said she'd "like to completely redo"
Michael Jackson's image, "and I also want to get
him out of those buckly boots and stuff.
"What I want him to do is go to New York and
hang out for a week with the House of Extravaganza
(a group of drag queens). They could give
him a new style."
Much of the interview is taken up with talk - in
at-times salty language - about sex, gay and
straight. And Madonna speaks at length about her
affinity for gay men, including her brother. She
said she felt like an outcast as a teen-ager until she
discovered gay dance clubs.
"I just felt at home. I had a whole new sense of
myself. . . . I started spending a lot of time with
dancers, and almost every male dancer that I knew
was gay. Then I went through another kind of
feeling inadequate because I was constantly falling
in love with gay men.
"I think everybody has a bisexual nature. That's
my theory," she said at another point.
ste~e ",_e 1.1
todA'"
Over Tbe Edp
By Toby CoUrII
YGreal, just great, what are we supposed to eat, wild
turkey or 50mething~'
$". c.·~t'tit\'t
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puul, art alllliebia by touch·tont
phone: 1·900-420-665«1 (75e each
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