Click here to read more Picture This Post Goodman Theatre stories.
Faye Butler as Fannie Lou Hamer bounds onto the stage with weighty purpose in her stride. We register her gait subliminally as both telegraphing more than average aches and pains of age AND way above average determination. There is flag bunting throughout the theater and vestiges of some red, white, and blue confetti throws on the floor that place us in the 1964 Democratic Convention. It is perhaps THE moment for which Hamer is most known. As head of the Mississippi’s Freedom Party Delegation, she is demanding that they be seated. Just as she began making the case against the all-white segregationist official delegation, her microphone is cut off.
Fannie then begins her mesmerizing monologue explaining that she was silenced because LBJ needed those Dixiecrats to win. It is a monologue that holds us transfixed for 70 minutes to (re)learn her history, as a window to the Civil Rights Movement. The anthems of the movement lace the narrative together from Oh, Freedom to We Shall Not be Moved to This Little Light of Mine and more — 14 songs en toto. We sing along at her charismatic urging, and clap—now part of the movement too.
Projections in the background help move the story from the courthouse, where Hamer attempts many times to register to vote, to the jail house where she is tortured, and to the cooperative farm she helped build in Mississippi. Iconic images of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Medgar Evers, and Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner move from backdrop to foreground as the story unfolds. Three musicians that accompany Butler have fleeting moments when they join the action. Yet, but not for a second does the bright klieg light in our mind lose focus on E. Faye Butler as Fannie Lou Hamer. This is a tour de force one-woman performance, in this writer’s view. Butler has simply impeccable timing. Her cadence, her break out into soulful Gospel singing embellishments, and mostly her ability to convey that keep-on-keeping-on look to the future as she marches on refusing to be wearied shows us the entire story of the Civil Rights Movement then and now.
Goodman Theatre’s Production is Screaming for Export to Battleground States
Playwright Chery L. West’s script does not shy away from using a few perhaps exaggerated anachronistic references to hammer home the message that today’s struggles are the same. This isn’t a critique — it’s more of an AMEN! Consider that Emmett Till and Joe Biden were born but a year or so apart. Consider that on the day this review is being inked, it’s being reported that a parent opposing critical race theory instruction is claiming her child had nightmares and was traumatized by being forced to read a novel by (Nobel Prize-winning) author Toni Morrison.
Prepare yourself to burn with the same question this writer now asks—How can we get this production on tour throughout Georgia and beyond to help register voters and get out the vote?
Stone cold racists stay home. Everyone else, change your schedule to see Fannie, the Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Nominate this for The Picture This Post BEST OF 2021???
Click Readers' Choice
Want to see who won the Picture This Post READERS’ CHOICE competition last year?
WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO—
Fannie (The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer)
By Cheryl L. West
Directed by Henry Godinez
A Co-Commission between Goodman Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre
Cast:
Fannie Lou Hamer…………..E. Faye Butler
Fannie Lou Hamer Understudy….Melody A. Betts
Musicians:
Drumset/Percussion/Vocals….Deonté Brantley
Piano/Organ/Auxiliary Keyboards/Vocals…..Morgan E.
Acoustic/Guitar/Electric Guitar/Harmonica/Vocals Alternate…..Buddy Fambro
Acoustic/Guitar/Electric Guitar/Harmonica/Vocals (performances between October 15-31)…..Felton Offard
Acoustic Guitar/Electric Guitar/Harmonica/Vocals (performances between November 3-21)…..Michael Ross
Piano/Organ/Auxiliary Keyboards/Vocals Alternate…..Dominique Johnson
Drumset/Percussion/Vocals Alternate…..Linard Strou
Creative team:
Colette Pollard (Set Design), Michael Alan Stein (Costume Design), Jason Lynch (Lighting Design), Victoria Deiorio (Sound Design), Rasean Davonte Johnson (Projection Design) and Mr. Bernard (Wig Design). Music Direction and Arrangements are by Felton Offard, dramaturgy is by Christine Sumption and casting is by Lauren Port, CSA. Kaitlin Kitzmiller is the Production Stage Manager.
Note: Picture This Post reviews are excerpted by Theatre in Chicago.
WHEN:
Thru November 21, 2021
WHERE:
Goodman Theater
170 N Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60601
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
Amy hopes the magazine’s click-a-picture-to-read-a-vivid-account format will nourish those ever hunting for under-discovered cultural treasures. She especially loves writing articles about travel finds, showcasing works by cultural warriors of a progressive bent, and shining a light on bold, creative strokes by fledgling artists in all genres.
