Diandra Reviews It All- Native Son On The Internazing of Racism

The key to “Us Vs Them” is not solely the opposing of two sides against each other, but one side against itself. Think about it! How far can you go in dignity and defense if you think you are disgusting? If you think your people are the lowest form of life? When you don’t love yourself, every move you do to defend yourself is the equivalent to entering boxing ring with Muhammed Ali and having no arms to fight. Nambi Kelley’s Native Son has Bigger Thomas confronting a world that thinks him nothing while feeling like it is right.

Jason Bowen plays the Black Rat that follows Galen Ryan Kane’s Bigger Thomas. The latter is a good man trying to see the point of being good; it is a crux that every member of an oppressed community/ the black community must face. When you think HOW LONG the black community has suffered by the same indignities and injustices that “excuse” their deeming as criminals while being the victims of systemic crime, you understand why Kane has a Black Rat sniveling through any drop of positivity he can get. This young man has dreams of being an aviator that he KNOWS won’t come true. Trust me, carrying a dream you want while knowing you will never have it feels horrendous.

With a hauntingly vivid set by Neil Patel, the play takes place in 1930’s Chicago. By then, black people already had hundreds of years slavery and human torture, but what is alarming about Native Son is that, currently nearing the 2030’s, you wonder if things have or can change.When you are a black man in America, you can’t make mistakes because even those are seen as crimes. The pressure of this point defeats and beats at Bigger Thomas leading him to actual, deadly crimes. Directed by Seret Scott and Janet Zarish, both meld ideas of manifest destiny and systemic racism into the script; as if to say, “If you tell someone they are a savage all their life, within time, they become it.” It is as if that identity becomes a badge glued to your heart.

With such an exceptional cast, the same as Measure For Measure, the 90 minute plays churns with Thomas’ desperations and viewers’ devastations. Once again, Bowen is creepy and crawly as he follows Kane through scenes like his other conscious. He feels his strong, faith-filled mother, Rosalyn Coleman’s Hannah, can’t save him, his girlfriend, Bessie as (Katherine Renee Turner) receives the horrible brunt of his growing madness, and his hopeful brother, Lorenzo Jackson’ s Buddy, is lining up for the society’s impending doom. Kane’s performance drips with an unspoken pain carried within the black community: hopelessness.

This plays is about hopelessness and how, sometimes, it is the only thing you can feel. Bigger Thomas’ life is a question of whether he has ever truly been “free,” especially after a fatal interaction with a white heiress, Rebekah Brockman’s Mary. Hence, my point of systemic racism: it is about making a race of people so confused about who they are as a community that it feels impossible to become better as a simple individual. Native Son plays until August 24 at The Duke Theatre on 42st. Click Here To Buy Tickets.