Photo Credit: Ross E. Zentner
In 2006 in Jena, La., someone hung a noose from the branches of an oak tree. The tree stood at the center of Jena High School’s courtyard and was considered the “white tree.” Black students usually sat elsewhere when outside. The noose, starkly evoking the history of racist violence, set off a chain of events that led to the conviction of six black Jena High School students for beating a white classmate. In the aftermath came accusations that white attacks on blacks were treated more leniently in Jena. Thousands of protestors gathered at Jena in one of the largest civil rights rallies in years. The upheaval was a precursor to Black Lives Matter.
Jena also inspired a play: Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root, opening this weekend at Next Act Theatre. The production is directed by Marti Gobel, a familiar face for Milwaukee theatergoers as a performer with Next Act, Renaissance Theaterworks and Uprooted, a company she cofounded. Blood at the Root marks her directorial debut at Next Act.
Gobel sees special urgency in presenting Blood at the Root—and not only because new incidents of racist behavior by high school and college students continue to spread virally. The play reflects on “where we are headed as a species. We are riding a tide of change,” she says. “A wave of redefining so many things: what family is like; what gender is; what politics looks like; what self-identify is like. Change will come from the young. This play examines how those things that came before us can only be changed when young people decide that enough is enough!”
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Enough should have been enough years ago. Blood at the Root’s title alludes to the 1939 anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit,” sung with laconic matter-of-factness by Billie Holiday. The lyric “blood on the branches, blood at the root,” written by Jewish activist Abel Meeropol, contradicted the mythology of “the gallant South” at a time when popular culture gave birth to Gone With the Wind.
Gobel calls the play “a devised memory piece” that addresses the “Jena Six,” the black students arrested in the incident that followed the hanging of the noose. “It is heavily rooted in a contemporary hip-hop beat, recognizing that the roots of the issue come from the jazz of the past,” she continues. Morisseau, a provocative, contemporary, African American playwright, wrote Blood at the Root “with a rhythm that needs to be honored.” Gobel cites Hamilton as a breakthrough. “People are primed for storytelling in a different rhythm than they used to be.”
No trace of the mindless glee of most recent Broadway shows can be heard here. Not wanting to impose her own ideas on hip-hop, Gobel turned to her son, Kemet, to compose original music. “I put in music anywhere I can,” she insists. “I include more dance and music than Dominique Morisseau intended, but that’s just my style. She gave me permission to do that!
“Here’s the cool thing,” Gobel continues. “Half of the cast is very young. The lead actor, Chantae Miller, is 17 and plays a character [Raylynn] her own age.” Youthfulness is at the center of Gobel’s mission to teach with Blood at the Root by conducting workshops around the play at a half dozen Milwaukee urban high schools. The takeaway: “How the roots of the past led to who we are—the fresh branches of the American tree. It’s about young people and their voices,” Gobel says.
Blood at the Root shows Jan. 31-Feb. 24 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, call 414-278-0765 or visit nextact.org/shows/blood-at-the-root.
