Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing
Austin Arts Center
Trinity College
Oct. 19, 2024
HartBeat Ensemble’s production of Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing, which chronicles the friendship of famed African-American writers James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, brings two of the giants of American literature to a present day which has gotten better, but perhaps not changed as much as they would have hoped.
Jon-Michael Reese does a superb job of embodying James Baldwin, from his mannerisms and vocal inflections to the righteous fury that boils just beneath the surface as he confronts the massive injustices of his era. Vanessa R. Butler is equally magnetic as Lorraine Hansberry. Her inquisitiveness and passion for words and justice shine as brightly as Baldwin’s, and I found myself wanting to know more about the author of one of my favorite plays, A Raisin in the Sun.
The play is divided into four sections, with each essentially covering a different time period of their friendship, organized around themes. While the organization of the play works, the difficulty of reviewing a play such as this one is that it’s impossible to tell where the historical documents end and the playwriting begins. Part 1 was the weakest to me, as I wasn’t quite sure what the organizing theme was. The decision to have the actors talking over each other at multiple parts made it hard to understand what was going on.
Part 2 was stronger, as the actors dramatized the historical meeting between Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Baldwin, Hansberry, and several other African American cultural and intellectual leaders such as Harry Belafonte, Lena Horn and Jerome Smith, a Freedom Rider. Reese and Butler portrayed the exasperation that Baldwin and Hansberry must have felt perfectly. Nick Roesler, who played Bobby Kennedy and other White characters throughout the play, is hilariously out of touch as the do-gooder AG who had no idea how deep the problems ran.
The part of the play that resonated most with me was the third section, titled “Which Battles to Fight?” Baldwin says that if he has to educate one more White person about the Negro problem, he might scream. That’s when Hansberry asks the question which gives this piece its title:
“Aren’t you bored of the Negro problem?”
I’m not so arrogant as to think that my writing can even hold a candle to what Baldwin produced on a bad day. However, I often motivate myself to write by telling myself that what I’m writing is what Baldwin would have written if he hadn’t been forced to spend so much time defending his humanity.
I’ve been Black for almost 40 years, and I’ve spent the last 16 of those writing for the public as a freelancer. I can tell you without shame that I’m completely done explaining racism to White people. It is boring, because it’s so fucking obvious. It’s self-exploitive. It centers Whiteness because it’s constantly defined by what they are doing to us. I’m tired of orienting what I enjoy around the burden I have to bear. Yes I will be poorer, die sooner, and experience more hardship. Believe me, I KNOW. And White people know too. So leave me alone to enjoy this life as best I can.
Baldwin and Hansberry debate this same issue throughout the play, as Baldwin is living in Europe at the time. He decides that it’s time for him to “pay his dues” and return home to take up the fight once again.
The play ends in part 4, which focuses on Hansberry’s untimely death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Baldwin is devastated by the loss; now I understand too what a monumental talent we lost at such a young age. What could Hansberry have given us had she lived longer, without the yoke of racism around her neck?
After watching Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing, I feel more confident in my decision to write what I write than ever before. Because yes, I AM bored of the Negro problem, because as Baldwin says in the play, it’s not our problem. It’s theirs.
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Jamil is going to enjoy the rest of the weekend. See you next week!
