I’ve given up on trying to write reviews of plays I see at the Firehouse Theatre immediately after leaving the show. Maybe I’m slow, but there is always so much to process that “sleeping on it” is the only way I’m going to unpack the turmoil they’ve left me with as I walk out the door.
Detroit ’67, currently showing, is no exception. The Firehouse continues to challenge RVA treater goers, excelling at gut-wrenching productions deftly executed by the best stage talent you can find in this city. Before I get too long-winded on my thoughts on the work, I’ll leave my advice here. Go see this pitch-perfect masterstroke immediately.
The story drops you into the lives of two siblings, recently deprived of their hardworking father, beneficiaries of his modest home and estate. They are joyful, expectant, hopeful – in the short and long terms. Chelle (played by Katrinah Carol Lewis) has a grown son, newly in college. A bit domesticated but empowered in her matriarchal position, she tends to her community. Langston/Lank (played by David Lyve Watkins), her younger brother, and his best friend Sly are confidently making their way through Detroit with a charming hustlers’ mein, players without an ace up their sleeves – honest optimists against all odds. The opening act’s cast is rounded out with their longtime ride-or-die, Bunny, portrayed beautifully by Nicole Cowans. They’ve been arranging after-hours parties in the city to make a few under-the-table bucks.
Now for context. It’s Detroit. It’s 1967. And the characters I just mentioned are all black. The ensemble is so likable, refreshingly supportive of each other, gleeful in the domain of music, family, friends, partying, and good times, that you KNOW there’s a rug to be pulled out from under us. The play takes juuuust long enough to make you identify with and love these characters that you’re angry before their worlds are challenged at all. Because you KNOW it’s coming. I’m not sure if it was a note discussed around the table reads or rehearsals, but that slow boil into conflict sells the subsequent action impeccably.
I don’t want to spoil the plot points in the show, but if you have a cursory grasp of recent American History, you’ll know that Detroit was ground zero for one of the bloodiest social uprisings in the United States since the Civil War draft riots nearly a century prior. The conflagration was unsurprisingly ignited by the Detroit Police Department and exacerbated by the arrival of the National Guard and US Army. Against this backdrop, the hopes and dreams of our protagonists are met.
Enter a wildcard that the trajectory of the show hinges on that I will not spoil. Suffice to say, an unexpected visitor, Caroline (played by Marie Lucas), brings to bear the commonalities of disenfranchisement, hope against hope, disparities in justice, and the banality of evil. That is all you get of the plot.
Here is where I break my own heart. I’m not old enough to remember 1967. The closest thing to that level of race-based upheaval I can recall was the 1992 Los Angeles riots and, of course, the BLM protests of 2020. So very little has changed. We still live in a country patrolled by vicious pigs and the “good” cops who turn a blind eye to protect their pensions. The lives of brown people are still target practice for the untouchable civil servants in blue.
I used to scoff at the very idea of trigger warnings on media. Callously, I’d roll my eyes at the concept. We should be able to face the ills of our time full-gaze, right? There’s a reason I’ve only seen Schindler’s List once. Selma too. I can’t bring myself to sit through Twelve Years a Slave. I sat through a good portion of this play with heat behind my eyes. I did everything I could to rationalize away the atrocities on the stage with how far we’ve come as a society, and so on. But I couldn’t, because we haven’t. Allies have always existed, as is brought to stage in this piece, and I was in the presence of a roomful of them while I watched it. The thought brought no comfort. Allies aren’t enough to keep the bodies from hitting the floor and I’m done telling myself otherwise. In the end, there’s a ‘smallness in the malicious void’ feeling that follows, and it takes some shutting down of your most noble thoughts to traverse the darkness. This a verbose way of stamping a trigger warning on this show.
The cast is so good, the performances so nuanced and compelling. I saw so much of my family and friends in them. Jeremy Morris’ Sylvester is so many people I’ve known. He’s a favorite uncle or your dad’s best friend. I’ve been Lank. I’ve dated Bunny’s (and Carolines). I wanted to get under Chelle’s protective wing, too. I cannot congratulate a cast more than this. I literally wanted to know them. I wish they were real people.
On the technical side, the set was perfect, inspired even. Costumes, lighting, and sound are always, and I mean always, on a world-class level at Firehouse. Big ups and a standing ovation to Dr. Tawnya Pettiford Wates for Directing this incredible achievement and a personal thank you for moving me so.
Main image: Two police officers in full riot gear arrest a Black man on the West side of Detroit, Michigan, July 23, 1967. Getty Images archive
Buy your tickets to Detroit ’67 HERE
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