{"id":14925,"date":"2014-10-25T18:07:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T01:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=14925"},"modified":"2014-10-30T17:47:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T00:47:47","slug":"musical-traces-pluses-minuses-of-black-panther-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/musical-traces-pluses-minuses-of-black-panther-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical traces pluses, minuses of Black Panther history"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Steven Sapp (right) leads 12-member ensemble cast in \u201cParty People,\u201d a new musical about the Black Panthers and Young Lords. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Kelly C. Wright (right), Bernard Calloway (left) and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp (rear) brandish guns in \u201cParty People.\u201d Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Steven Sapp (foreground), Christopher Livingston (left) and Reggie D. White parade black power symbol in \u201cParty People.\u201d Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cParty People\u201d is a provocative, adrenaline-charged, flashy ride into history.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s depressing.<\/p>\n

The new Berkeley Rep musical, with a fictitious veneer glued atop historical events, is a double-edged examination of good and bad aspects of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s embedded in the \u201860s and \u201870s.<\/p>\n

Yet it displays a legacy that bumps against 21st century incidents like the Florida killing of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch captain, and this year\u2019s police slaying of a black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, which sparked rioting.<\/p>\n

Or the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland that led to a compassionate film reconstruction, \u201cFruitvale Station.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that discrimination against people of color and second-class citizenry haven\u2019t disappeared is precisely what makes the play depressing.<\/p>\n

Also, as a middle-class, suburban white man, I found the show guilt-inducing, discomforting and a little frightening.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Possibly because \u201cParty People\u201d \u2014 after examining compound facets of racial relations \u2014 ends up pushing for new revolution.<\/p>\n

The disturbing play, replete with thunderous cries of \u201cpower to the people,\u201d clocks back to a time when rank-and-file revolutionaries picked up garbage and provided free food and medical care in black and brown communities \u2014 at the same time fighting what they perceived as an oppressive federal government.<\/p>\n

But it also shows betrayal, bewilderment and party in-fighting triggered by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI\u2019s director who\u2019d created Cointelpro, a counter-intelligence program that used tactics of infiltration, surveillance, harassment and assassination.<\/p>\n

Hoover had labeled the Panthers, founded in Oakland in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, \u201cthe greatest threat to the internal security of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cParty People\u201d suggests the radicals were hardly that.<\/p>\n

Rather, a group of complicated human beings with conventional flaws.<\/p>\n

The chaotic times clang in my memory.<\/p>\n

I recall having major difficulty accepting the assassination of Malcolm X. And, of course, those of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n

I remember having difficulty, too, sorting through stacks of news reports in an attempt to excavate a capital \u201cT\u201d truth.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, my vision wasn\u2019t cleared by watching \u201cParty People,\u201d which lamentably degenerates into a polemic despite showcasing brilliant acting-dancing-singing performances by an ensemble cast of 12, exciting live video projections that persistently flicker on 17 screens, and loud, heart-pulsing music that rebounds from hip-hop\/rap to blues, from gospel to rock.<\/p>\n

The exceedingly intense show, based on dozens of interviews, imagines members of the two groups at a modern-day performance-art opening ripe for generational and cultural gaps.<\/p>\n

The fantasy was collectively penned by writer-performers William Ruiz (aka Ninja), who runs a gamut of emotions onstage as Jimmy, one of the two artists who shaped the reunion; Steven Sapp (formidable as Omar, a Panther suspected of being a traitor and forced to confess to things he hadn\u2019t done); and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, who portrays Helita and whose powerful singing voice is mesmerizing.<\/p>\n

Liesl Tommy, associate director at Berkeley Rep, revamped the piece after she directed its world premiere in 2012 for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.<\/p>\n

She obviously can relate to what she\u2019s spotlighting because she grew up in South Africa, where her parents were anti-apartheid activists.<\/p>\n

Practically everyone, of course, is familiar with the Panthers, who were conceived as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, aimed originally at monitoring police behavior and challenging police brutality.<\/p>\n

A lot fewer West Coast folks will recollect the Chicago-based Young Lords, a Puerto Rican independence-promoting group inspired by the Panthers.<\/p>\n

(\u201cWe were a social club but the police called us a street gang,\u201d intones one character.)<\/p>\n

No one, however, is likely to forget the clenched-fist symbols of \u201cblack power,\u201d which are magnificently addressed \u2014 along with staccato militaristic and drug-generated shakes \u00a0\u2014 by choreographer Millicent Johnnie.<\/p>\n

The vigorousness of what she\u2019s invented is reflected, figuratively and literally, by the dancers\u2019 sweat.<\/p>\n

Humor is not absent.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it stems from lighthearted wishful thinking (\u201cThe revolution can have its own website), sometimes with a modicum of irony (\u201cThis is America \u2014 learn to speak Spanish.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cParty People\u201d takes pains to pay homage to dead and imprisoned social warriors.<\/p>\n

It also tries unsuccessfully to sum up a narrative, in my judgment, can\u2019t be condensed to bumper sticker size.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe struggle for justice is always worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have to be consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to ask yourself, \u2018What are you willing to sacrifice?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cParty People\u201d plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre\u2018s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. (off Shattuck), Berkeley, through Nov. 23. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3] \u201cParty People\u201d is a provocative, adrenaline-charged, flashy ride into history. But it\u2019s depressing. The new Berkeley Rep musical, with a fictitious veneer glued atop historical events, is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"