STAGE REVIEW : Saga of Laughs and Sorrow of Blackface

SAN DIEGO — How does one pay tribute to the most brilliant performers who ever put on blackface, while conveying an absolute rejection of the racially insensitive form in which those entertainers worked?

That is the dilemma at the heart of “Williams & Walker,” a tribute to the legendary black vaudevillian team of Egbert (Bert) Williams and George Walker, produced by Contemporary Black Arts at UC San Diego and Southeast Community Theatre at the Lyceum Space through June 11.

That Williams and Walker were great at what they did is not open to question. Just as Charlie Chaplin had his Little Tramp, Williams had his Jonah-man, a sad-sack performer in torn pants who sang about how he “never got nothin’ from nobody, no time” in his signature song, “Nobody.”

Playwright Vincent D. Smith conveys the tragedy of Williams--a well-educated man whose greatest dream was to play Hamlet but forced to put on the blackface he hated just to get on stage.

Even though Williams was black, he had to apply black makeup with the oversized white eyes and white lips to conform to society’s exaggerated and cartoonish image of what a black entertainer was supposed to look like.

Though he never was to play Hamlet--a part that is still rarely, if ever, offered to black actors today--Williams did manage to bring the timeless, tormented spirit of the Shakespearean hero into his Jonah-man. It may have been a subtle victory at best, but it helped bring Williams into white theaters, making him the first black performer to cross the color line to headline in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Smith deals with the offensiveness of blackface by having the performers in this two-man play rail against it in between their comedy and song-and-dance numbers. The protests, while poignant at first, lose force through repetition after being used as the only counterpoint to the vaudeville work.

Hassan El-Amin, in particular, is so outstanding as Williams that after the point is made about how much Williams hated blackface, one longs to learn more about how he thought up characters such as Jonah-man or his squalling baby or his prancing chicken in that oppressive genre.

One has to ask why why Smith didn’t move beyond the issue of blackface to show the reality of racism that even a star like Williams faced daily. As soon as he wiped off his makeup, he had to shift from stage stardom to “colored only” accommodations and other Jim Crow slights.

If Floyd Gaffney’s direction falters in some of the weak dramatic moments of the script, it strikes sparks in the vaudeville numbers, some of which hit pathos without commentary. The routine in which Walker tries to enlist Williams’ help to buy a house in a white neighborhood and then sell it back to the whites--who don’t want them there--for twice the money, plumbs its laughs in painful depths.

What was strictly joke fodder during Williams’ career--from 1892, less than 30 years after the Civil War ended, to 1922--became the poignant story of “A Raisin in the Sun” in 1959, when white families tried to buy out blacks in the neighborhood. But by this time, the issue was no longer a laughing matter.

The usually fine Damon Bryant (“White Linen”), who plays Walker, fails to bring the requisite good-time persona needed to counterpoint his partner, the man W. C. Fields dubbed “the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.”

Despite the careful attention to detail shown in the marvelous costumes by Cathy Meachum (what a chicken suit!), the stylish choreography by Lewis Chaviz and the smart musical direction by Kevin Flourney, the whole production is still a bit wobbly, rather like the swaying brick wall in John Redmon’s otherwise elegant period dressing room set.

When and if it does come together, “Williams & Walker” should be one wickedly wonderful thing to see. As it is now, it provides a bittersweet, thought-provoking good time. It is a chance to see the great songs and performers of times gone by get their overdue thanks for moving us from the days of absolute insensitivity a bit closer to the light.

“WILLIAMS AND WALKER”

By Vincent D. Smith. Director is Floyd Gaffney. Musical direction by Kevin Flourney. Choreography by Lewis Chaviz. Set by John Redmon. Lighting by Brenda Berry. Costumes by Cathy Meachum. Stage manager is Thomas Morris. With Hassam El-Amin and Damon Bryant. At 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays through June 11. At the Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego.