![]() ![]() Roger Guenveur Smith in 'Otto Frank' at Magic Theatre in San Francisco. But it doesn’t, and not because that gravity can’t be felt, but-echoing Baldwin-because of the very tone in which he assures us that it can. When Smith counts up slowly from one to six, for instance, and then that six becomes six million, the delivery is supposed to translate the gravity of mass death. The oration stays mainly in one vocal register, and the language is constrained by clichés. His attempt to critique a rigid masculinity that dares not to cry, even in private, ultimately produces its own rigidity. In these musical interludes, Smith pauses the history lesson and breaks out into puppet-like gestures, melodious song, and one final, chilling scream.īut unlike Smith’s other work, Otto Frank gives us very little of the emotional truth behind the facts. The resonant overtones of Thompson’s glassy accompaniment shake the walls and interrupt the oration. ![]() I can count on one finger the number of times I noticed him blink. He sits with monk-like meditativeness for an hour, arms outstretched and eyes wide open. Frank speaks to his daughter from beyond the grave, narrating the circumstances of his life, bearing witness to her death, and lamenting the state of the world since his own passing in 1980. ![]() We are both, it seems, inside the Franks’ “secret annexe,” at the table that Anne fought to claim as writing space in her Jentry, but also in some kind of Beckettian bardo state. The staging in this thrust theater is beautifully minimalist, populated only by a single desk, chair, and microphone. Smith portrays Otto, sole survivor of the Frank family and publisher of his daughter’s famed diary, as haunted by guilt and sorrow. Like Smith’s other plays, Otto Frank is both history lesson and eulogy. Newton, and Rodney King, Smith teams up here with longtime collaborator Marc Anthony Thompson-better known as Chocolate Genius Inc.-to produce an hour of intimate, yet emotionally monotone, theater. Having previously embodied Frederick Douglass, Huey P. Smith, well-known from his roles in Spike Lee’s films, is also one of our era’s great solo performers. The latest iteration of this comparative impulse is Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show, Otto Frank, playing at the Magic Theater in San Francisco through March 29. Some-like Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy-were outright offensive in their tokenism and stereotype others-like Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror-have endured for their innovative exploration of dramatic form. Peaking in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when so-called “Black-Jewish relations” became strained, these works have had uneven legacies. It isn’t, and one knows that it isn’t from the very tone in which he assures you that it is.”ĭespite Baldwin’s caution, the desire to compare Black and Jewish experiences has resulted in a litany of dramatic explorations. All of the surrounding characters are played with a lovely sense of realism, adding hints of texture to each scene but never too much personality.In a 1967 article entitled “ Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White,” James Baldwin cautioned against loosely comparing trauma: “One does not wish to be told by an American Jew that his suffering is as great as the American Negro’s suffering. As always, Haley is great at this, igniting loathing from the audience with his first appearance. Hammer is solid as Sam, although his innate compassion leaves Haley to play the villain of the piece. Living amid such systemic degradation, exploitation and violence simply gnaws away at Nat, and Parker underplays him beautifully, letting the charisma surge quietly under the surface. Parker's script recounts Nat's life story with telling details, contrasting his engaging courtship with Cherry with the series of insults they suffer at every turn. And once Nat decides he can no longer support the immorality and injustice of the system, he has little choice but to lead a slave revolt. But Nat realises that he can't continue with this after his wife Cherry (Aja Naomi King) is brutally attacked by the cruel slave tracker Cobb (Jackie Earle Haley). In fact, Nat is such a great preacher that Sam loans him to fellow slave owners to convey the Old Testament "slaves obey your owners" message. The two grew up together, so Sam is familiar with Nat's intelligence and passion, and also with the fact that Sam's mother (Penelope Ann Miller) encouraged Nat to read and study the Bible. ![]() It opens in 1809 Virginia, where the soft-spoken Nat (Parker) works as a slave for benevolent owner Sam (Armie Hammer). ![]()
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