Milwaukee has a remarkably strong theatre community that includes the talent of hundreds living in and around the area producing well over one hundred shows per year. As dynamic a force as it is, this city is going to need to produce more of its own plays--examine more of its own history if it is to truly make an impact in the world of American Theatre.
Far from being a finely-tuned production, Urban Anthropology Inc.'s production of The March To Kosciuzko is a step in the right direction with regards to bringing Milwaukee to Milwaukee theatre. Staged in hall in the historic Basilica of Saint Josaphat, the production featured nearly a dozen actors rendering some of the drama that erupted in public demonstration on the South Side in 1967.
The action followed the drama of a South Side Polish family and a corresponding north side African American family as they dealt with questions of how to relate to a march to the South Side Kosciuszko Park to demand fair housing in Milwaukee. Here we see racism as it plays out on both sides deep in the heart of the families. Jason Draek-Hames and Beth Reichart played a Polish-Amreican father and a Puerto Rican mother trying to explain things to their son Steven (Louis Carlos Saavedra. The family dynamic was kind of schematic, but it was trying to cram an entire family drama into a very small span of time. Drawn from actual interviews of people who were involved back then, the script has a lot of information to deliver. In places it feels like more of an educational tool than a straight ahead drama, but there's no reason something like this couldn't be expanded into a much more engrossing trilogy.
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Written by Jill Florence Lackey, the script is laden with really interesting details, any single one of which has the capability of knocking its audience over. The fate of Milwaukee's Bronzeville has to be one of the more devastating little details in there. It's easy to hear that thousands of homes were demolished to build the highway, but having a single family of African Americans talking about it brings that into sharp focus. Thousands of families were displaced in the path of progress. The scenes between members of the north side Waters family felt just a bit more cohesively defined in a cast including some really compelling performances by Linetta Davis, Crystasany Renee Turner and Damion Thompson.
The entire show was narrated by the statue of General Thaddeus Kosciuszko. No prominent credit given to costuming, but it was particularly cool with Kosciuszko's statue which looked particularly interesting in the front row. The color of the statue blends from hat to hair to skin to colonial military outfit almost seamlessly. Very cool. The man wearing this costume was Ryan H. Nelson. Nelson drew on considerable charisma for a role that had him bringing one of the great little-known heroes of the revolutionary war. A friend of Thomas Jefferson's, Kosciuzko was a tactical expert who helped the colonies win the revolutionary war and founded Wes Point. A proponent of equality on a level that the "founding fathers" only paid lip service to, he asked that his back pay for his device to the US be spent in freeing Thomas Jefferson's slaves and the slaves of others. It was a heroic sentiment, but he was kind of ahead of his time on this and the money was never allocated to the task. Interesting story. Sounds like a remarkable man . . . and again . . . would make for an interesting stage drama entirely on its own. US history is only interesting when you add-in those details that so many classrooms want to avoid. Ryan H. Nelson manages heroism in oratory with an admirable Polish accent. It's a fun performance.
The March to Kosciuszko was a one-night-only affair that sold-out. I guess it's that last part that's probably the most important thing here. It sold out. A fusion of local white and African-American casts in the service of the history of Milwaukee . . . and it sold out. And there was a standing ovation, so everybody clearly liked it. There's commercial potential here because there's an interest. It's nice to see another production of A Raisin in the Sun that's got real money behind it . . . but we've got a cultural and ethnic heritage in this city that's every bit as interesting as it is in Chicago. Milwaukeee needs more shows like this. About Milwaukee.
For more information about Urban Anthropology Inc., visit the organization online.
