Reclaiming a voice for the real Emmett Till
THEATER | 'Ballad' recalls Chicagoan as 'fun-loving kid'
African-American history has always found a way into playwright Ifa Bayeza's work. She brought to life an 1839 slave rebellion in "Amistad Voices," and the Harlem Renaissance in "Club Harlem." This type of play takes plenty of research, but even Bayeza wasn't prepared for what she found when digging into her most recent work — "The Ballad of Emmett Till."
About 10 years ago, Bayeza was working on another play when she wrote a scene that included a spectral visit from Till. Eventually, she abandoned that work to concentrate on a play about the 14-year-old Chicagoan who was kidnapped, tortured and killed while visiting family in Mississippi in 1955.
(Courtesy)
PHOTO GALLERY
• The real Emmett Till
• Grand jury to review Emmett Till case
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn
Tickets: $23-$70
Phone: (312) 443-3800
"Emmett walked into the scene in that old play and his personality and story took over," Bayeza recalled. "I felt it commanded its own treatment as a play."
The result of that command -- "The Ballad of Emmett Till," a play in four movements -- opens today in a world premiere at the Goodman Theatre under the direction of Oz Scott. The 13-member cast includes Joseph Anthony Byrd as Till and Deidrie Henry as his mother Mamie.
At first, Bayeza wasn't sure where this tragic story would take her. As she began her research, contradictions about Till began to surface. "I discovered a counter-narrative to some of the traditionally recognized parts of the story," Bayeza said.
Till was visiting relatives in Money, Miss., when he visited the local store where a white woman named Carolyn Bryant worked. Till reportedly made a pass at her and whistled at her. When her husband, Roy Bryant, learned that a black boy had approached his wife, he went on a manhunt. Till was kidnapped from his bed at night, tortured and shot. His mutilated body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River.
Bayeza read newspaper accounts, as well as the court transcripts of the trial of the two white men accused of the crime. She also interviewed Till's relatives, several of whom were with him in Mississippi, and traveled south to interview people there.
It was the court records that caught her attention. Carolyn Bryant's account of the advance was that of a very manly, aggressive attack, what today would be called sexual assault, and this did not jive with other accounts of Till as a chubby, charming, fun-loving teenager with a stutter that his mother said he often controlled by whistling.
It was the interviews with family members and friends that helped Bayeza build a picture of a young teenager coming of age in the 1950s. Over the years, family members had grown frustrated with misrepresentations of Till's character.
"Emmett was a fun-loving kid, always in the middle of everything," said his cousin Wheeler Parker, who accompanied Till to Mississippi. "He was a great talker; there was never a dull moment when he was around."
Bayeza says she was trusted with the "precious memories of very real people." There was a great need and desire on her part to get it right. It was an intense decade-long process but she feels she has reached her goal of collaging all the different elements into a "credible portrait of a living breathing human being."
As he molds Bayeza's drama into its final form on stage, Scott feels she has accomplished what she set out to do.
"Ifa has not made a docu-drama about this incident," says Scott. "Instead, it's about giving the spirit of this 14-year-old boy a voice and creating a world for him. She takes the facts and weaves this story to find out who Emmett Till really was. He is more than the incident that has come to define him."
For their part, Parker and other family members feel the play helps keep the history alive.
"Some people have forgotten or simply do not know how we were in America 50 years ago," Parker said. "It's important to look back on that but also to see how far we have come."