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It was an incident Shay Youngblood would never forget. She was riding on a train en route to studying with playwright Paula Vogel when she picked up a copy of The New York Times and saw an image of a Black baseball player with a price tag around his body. The rage she felt at seeing said man with what she viewed as his humanity being denied fueled her next play.
The train incident was in 1992 and by the next year she had written Square Blues. It’s taken some time but it’s now getting a world premiere at Horizon Theatre, running through August 21. It’s a complex and powerful comedy-drama, even if it could use more clarity and structuring.
Square Blues follows three generations of activists over the course of one summer weekend in 1992. Odessa (Olivia Dawson) is re-opening the Atlanta-based Fifth Avenue Happy Café, a soul food eatery and a place where civil rights activists met in the ’60s. It has been left to her by a White Russian-Jewish man who was the love of Odessa’s life in the 1940s. Their son Square (Jay Jones) has been gathering names on a petition that demands Black pay back, as well as waiting for an apology for slavery. Square (sometime also called Blue in the script) has received a Black reparations tax credit from the IRS, but they’ve now sent him a note demanding repayment, and Odessa is worried that he is not taking the matter seriously and that the café could be lost.
Square’s daughter Karma (Chantal Maurice) is dating Lola (Patty de la Garza), a Latinx poet who is trying to convince Karma to move to California. Karma’s own form of protest is trying to bring awareness of issues such as homelessness, LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS via performance art using nude models and spray paint. She is making a habit these days of getting arrested afterward, however.
The other central character is Miss Tuesday (Parris Sarter, filling in for Marliss Amiea on opening night), a farmer who is Square’s love interest and an activist herself.
Horizon has mounted several productions written by Atlanta-based Youngblood, including the highly successful Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery in 1988. Square Blues was set for a 1993 debut at Penumbra Theatre in Minneapolis, as part of a season of Black women playwrights, but was eventually canceled, as was much of that innovative season, because of the conservative climate. It was devastating for Youngblood, since the play had fans such as Anna Deavere Smith and Edward Albee, and she moved on from the work. But after returning to Atlanta three years ago after living everywhere from Mississippi and New York to Spain and France, she has dusted it off, made some changes and workshopped it to get it ready.
Directed by Thomas W. Jones III (in his 16th Horizon production as a writer, actor or director), this is an observant play about how activism changes over the years and how each generation decides to take its own kind of stand. It isn’t an angry work, either, with some comedic and lighter moments.
During the play, Square paints a wall of resistance mural inside the café featuring modern day heroes and activists. It’s convincingly staged, as Karma’s work is later projected onto these walls. Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay have designed the café, and Robbie Hayes handles the shifting interior wall projections.
Penned 30 years ago, Youngblood’s work is potent and as topical as ever, such as Karma’s observations that she always gets arrested for what she does, while her White girlfriend does not.
The playwright has created some fascinating characters here, who’ve all been activists yet while employing different methods. Dawson is a quiet, proud center, looking after her family and trying to hold them together while still mourning her lost love. There’s a nice parallel here between her and the man she could not legally marry because of her race and her granddaughter’s own relationship with a woman of a different race, in a time where same-sex marriage had not been legalized.
The character of Square is fascinating. He’s a single father doing the best he can for his family but stubborn, with Odessa and Miss Tuesday pleading with him to repay the IRS money. While he is unapologetic as he continues to collect names and wait for justice, he has lost a bit of patience at having to bail his daughter out of jail for her convictions. Jones coaxes natural and convincing work from the cast, although de la Garza’s performance is less than animated.
Yet this doesn’t flow as naturally as it could. This relatively short (90-minute) two-act leaves you wanting more, especially between the characters. The protests are thrillingly handled by Jones, but the play’s dream sequences are oddly staged and detract from the story. Some of the subplots, too, feel rushed, as do the conflicts between the family members.
While the play’s ending has a sense of sad inevitability, it misses the chance to make a real emotional mark.
Youngblood has taken out some of the sexuality and nudity by the protestors from her earlier version, as well as tweaked the ending. It’s now a subtle play, maybe a little too subtle. I would love to see the original 1992 work staged at some point.
Square Blues is as relevant as any play on a local stage right now and features some noteworthy acting, especially by Jones as Square. Too bad, though, that in spite of its intriguing and well-drawn characters, this works better in individual moments than it does as a cohesive whole.
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Jim Farmer covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival. He lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog Douglas.
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