Umbrella Stage Company, 20 May – 5 June 2022
Producer: Brian Boruta
Director: Pascale Florestal
Assistant Director/Dramaturg: Abraham E.S: Rebollo-Trujillo
Stage Manager: Tim Andrew
Assistant Stage Manager: Shani Farrell
Music Consultant: Jermaine Hill
Scenic Designer: Baron Pugh
Tech Director: Al Forgione
Costumes Designer: Becca Jewett
Sound Designer: James Cannon
Lighting Designer: Samuel Biondollio
Hair/Makeup Designer: Schanaya Barrows
Properties Manager: Susan Harrington
Set Painter: Page Evett
COVID Safety Officer: Cathie Regan
Performers:
Kai Clifton
Yasmeen Duncan
BW Gonzalez
Lorraine Victoria Kanyike
Damon Singletary
Smashing our fatherS’ idols
by abraham e.s. Rebollo-Trujillo
Jewish legend tells the story of a young Abraham who, tasked with watching over his father’s idol shop, proceeds to smash all the idols and place his weapon in the hands of the largest. His father confronts him, and he replies, “The largest idol did it.”
“That’s ridiculous, idols can’t do anything, they’re idols,” says his father.
“Do you hear yourself speaking?” retorts Abraham.
Indeed, New York Times editor Jeremy Gerard summarized the plot of The Colored Museum well when he alluded to the Jewish myth in his 1986 review. George C. Wolfe’s work plays on the idols of African American history and irreverently flips them, juggles them, and lets them come crashing to the ground. The characters take off on a bumpy transatlantic flight from the Gold Coast of Africa and land in Savannah, Georgia, where they’re subjected to the construction of their African American identity, the terrors of war, an all-Black musical where no one dies, and a party where everyone from Nat Turner to Aunt Jemima dance together for eternity.
In the end, the question remains: What is to be done with these idols? We can’t sweep them up and toss them away, lest they come crawling out of the dumpster with a vengeance. Nor can we, gripped with nostalgia, cling to these relics of bygone years in hopes of attaining salvation through them. And if we embrace them—in all their colored contradictions—how do we do so while moving through the chaos of American history? How do we rebuild from the rubble of our idols towards a more enlightened future, where all can take part in a celebration of life with the ancestors? The idols are smashed; now we must create something useful.