Rich Skidmore as Major Roberts and David Wendell Boykins as Cadet Theodore Franks
in a scene from Black Angels Over Tuskegee
(Photo credit: Alexandra Marlin)
Playwright Layon Gray takes a big chance in his historical drama, Black Angels Over Tuskegee, which tells the true stories of six of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed African-American fighter pilots in World War II. His entire first act is a prologue to the actual story: we listen to the conversations of six candidates waiting to take the test to train as the first black pilots in the U.S. Army Air Force.
This device pays off because by the end of the first act we know these men intimately, their dreams, their interests, their personalities, and their backgrounds. Both this act and what follows is extremely involving and ultimately extremely moving as we root for the young pilots and their fates. Expertly directed by the author who plays one of the leading roles, the cast also features Lamman Rucker who appeared in Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?
The play is narrated by a young man who tells us he will report his story “like it was told to me” and who periodically steps in to forward the plot as well as set the context. He reminds us that through World War II the American Armed Forces were racially segregated. The play then takes us back to a cold waiting room at the Wendover Army Air Force Base in Utah in the winter of 1943. Here we meet six candidates for one of the first aviation tests for potential African-American combat pilots for the U.S. Army Air Force (as it was then called).
The young men represent a cross-section of the nation: brothers Abraham and Quinten Dorsey are from Georgia, Abraham with a degree in pre-law from Savannah State and Quinten (with a child on the way) with a degree in creative writing; jazz-loving Theodore Franks is from Louisiana with a degree in health care from North Louisiana Agriculture and Industrial School; Percival Nash, from Nebraska with a political science degree from Kentucky State College; Elijah Sam is a former boxer and celebrity from Georgia, with a degree in education from Winston-Salem College; and grim Jerimah Jones has a pilot’s license from Coffey School of Aeronautics in Chicago. The men joke around, reveal their fears and aspirations, compare regional differences, and become impatient as they attempt to review the “Aircraft Manual” on which they will be tested.
The stakes are higher in the second act which begins in the Tuskegee Institute barracks where the men are all enlisted cadets at the flying program. We meet the one white character, Major Roberts, who is abusive but grudging in his respect for their total determination. Tempers rise as various occurrences jeopardize their standing and the pressure increases as they approach the end of their training to get their wings. In the last part of the play, they are sent to North Africa as part of the all-black 332nd Fighter Group, where they chafe under the restrictions that do not let African-American pilots fly in the real theater of war, and finally serve as bomber escorts in Europe. The stylized flying scenes increase the tension as to which of the men will come back alive. At the end of the play, we find out how the narrator is related to the story he has told.
Though all of the actors have equal time on stage and all are excellent, some of the cast are more notable due to the plot lines. As Abraham Dorsey, Thom Scott II watches over his younger brother Quinten with the concerned eyes of a mother hen looking after her brood. Gray’s Quinten, who has a medical problem that can sabotage his chance in the Army Air Force if it comes out and worries about his pregnant girl back home, paces like a caged animal ready to break out at any moment. Derek Shaun as loner Jerimah Jones ticks like a time bomb about to go off until he reveals the racial incident in his past which has determined the course of his entire life. Rich Skidmore as the stereotyped major makes him human nevertheless.
Gray’s direction obtains full-bodied performances from the entire cast and his clever staging never allows the small playing area and the long sequences in the single sets to feel claustrophobic or tedious. Josh Iacovelli’s settings and Jason McGee’s wardrobe are perfectly suited to the form of the play. Although Layon Gray’s Black Angels Over Tuskegee is conventional in its storytelling, it is unconventional in its emotional impact as it tells a true story of heroic and pioneering men.
Black Angels Over Tuskegee (open run)
St Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-239-6200 or http://www.telecharge.com