Memphis Clean Response
The power
in Memphis Clean is the reclaiming of
a distinctly Memphis story, that has been coopted and neglected, in the the
shadow of Dr. King’s assassination. The
playwright, Brittney Threatt, is deliberate about what she includes and what
she leaves out, in this narrative. She
is deliberate about who claims the stage presence. She is deliberate about the language and
cadence the actors use. This attention
to detail and intentional story-telling pays off in a remarkably coherent story
fifty years old, with clear implications on the political-socio atmosphere of
today. Simply put, Memphis Clean is required reading/viewing for Memphians, and those
who want to understand the soul of this city.
Threatt incorporates
a discussion on black masculinity and systemic white supremacy through dynamic
characters and clever prop usage. The the
play consists of four characters: Mother, Mr. Manning, Boy, and Son. The year is 1968 and Son is preparing a
report on the civil rights movement for school.
On the way to school, he often talks to Boy, who sits on the steps,
reading a pocket Bible and talking about the disenfranchisement of the black
man. Mr. Manning is an elderly man who
works as a sanitation worker. Mother is
raising Son as a single parent, since her husband, Son’s father, died from poor
health conditions brought on by his occupation in the public works department
as a sanitation worker. Mother insists Son
stays in school, though the bills are difficult to pay as a domestic worker, so
that Son may have a better life than the menial conditions which ultimately
killed his father. Son is discouraged by
the prospects for a black man in the city, realizing that black Memphians are generally
relegated to positions of unskilled labor in the city. He becomes further dismayed in his
conversations with Boy, who has adopted a virtually nihilistic outlook on life.
Boy, in his
mid-thirties, is a trained lawyer from the thriving black community near
Greenwood, Oklahoma. Yet, after his arrival
in Memphis, Boy has been rendered stagnant by what he sees as a despicable and
insurmountable climate of racial discrimination and disenfranchisement. Mr. Manning cannot understand how someone of
Boy’s educational level would give up in the fight for a better life. In the background of the characters’
dialogue, the audience learns that the Sanitation Workers in Memphis are
disgruntled and on the verge of illegally unionizing and going on strike. Activism is brewing. The play wraps up as Boy, revived through his
conversations with Mr. Manning and the others, decides to utilize his talents
in the collective black struggle for a better life in Memphis. Son fulfills Mother’s dreams and stays in
school, composing an excellent report on the condition of the sanitation workers
plight, arguing its place in the civil rights canon.
The most
rewarding aspects of the play are the symbolic Biblical language and the use of
a broken table. At the beginning of the
play, Son and Boy talk about how Memphis crushes
the spirit of a black man. Later, the
tragic story Robert Walker and Echol Cole is referenced as the genesis of the
Sanitation Workers’ Strike. The two men
were literally crushed to death in
the back of one of the city’s malfunctioning garbage trucks, while they were seeking
shelter from a cold, hard rain on February 1, 1968. Threatt’s use of the word “crushed” to
described the black man’s spirit in Memphis devastatingly corresponds to the real
life tragedy of Mr. Walker and Mr. Cole.
There is
the peculiar case of the table in the home of Mother and Son throughout the
play. The table holds up under a certain
amount of weight (Mother’s purse), but it collapses with any additional or off-center
weight (Son’s research books). Son attempts
to fix the table, but it continues to collapse.
The collapse is always loud, alarming, and frustrating. The table came with the house Mother and Son rent
from Mr. White (an allusion to paternalistic white supremacy). Son realizes that the table is not broken, but it does exactly what it is
supposed to do. This clever device
articulates the frustration of institutional racism and the unjust ends of
capitalism. These systems were not meant
to be tweaked to be fixed, but must be replaced altogether. Institutional racism allows for the “lighter
weight” of blacks getting jobs, as long as they are menial (i.e. domestic maid
or a sanitation worker). Mother’s purse
is light from the pitiful wages of her job.
But the system will not support “heavier weight” of black power, thus,
Son’s research books, through which he is gaining knowledge and power for a
better life, collapse the table every time.
Likewise, the capitalist system is not broken, but requires (even thrives
off of) a disenfranchised working class, and racial discrimination maintains
that class. The table was past the point
of fixing, the table needed to be replaced.
Threatt also includes discussion
between the characters of a little-known Biblical location, Lo-debar in the
region of Gilead. Lo-debar, it is
discovered, is essential a ghetto in the region of Gilead, a place of
despair. The characters see themselves
in a modern Lo-debar, yet they also come to realize the “balm” or healing which
can be found in Gilead. This is a compelling
allusion to the African American Spiritual, “There is a Balm in Gilead,” the
lyrics of which are so relevant to the heart of Memphis Clean:
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
Some
times I feel discouraged,
And
think my work’s in vain,
But
then the Holy Spirit
Revives
my soul again.
Though the black Memphians found themselves in Lo-debar,
there was a balm. Though their
circumstances were abject and oppressed, there was hope. A beautiful moment occurs at the end of the
play, when Boy becomes a man. He reveals
to Mr. Manning his real name is Emmanuel.
The Hebrew meaning of his name indicates a hope that keeps them going, “God
with us.”
Memphis has
suffered from the “dead dog” syndrome Threatt wrestles with in the play. Being the place of the death of Dr. King has
had a psychological affect on the city in many ways. It is time, however, for Memphis to reclaim
the power of the story and movement which brought Dr. King in support. There is a resurgence of the collective
energies of the civil rights movement, manifest in #BlackLivesMatter and the
activism resisting the current presidential administration. Threatt’s work deserves more recognition, and
contains a certain power which can add to the building momentum for change in
Memphis and across the country.
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