Goodman Theatre Presents FANNIE LOU HAMER Review

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.

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.

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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.