Theatre in Review: Liberty City (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Thompson. Photo by Joan Marcus.

When April Yvette Thompson was six, her father, Saul, put her in slave shackles. It wasn't an act of abuse. (She was wearing go-go boots at the time.) Saul wanted her to grasp the historical reality of slavery, so, on a family visit to Eleuthera in the Bahamas, he took her to a memorial and locked her up for 15 minutes. It's a measure of Liberty City's narrative power that this event doesn't seem particularly outrageous; as childhoods go, hers was notably larger than life.

Indeed, a family collapses in tandem with the surrounding community in Liberty City, Thompson's memoir of growing up in Miami in the turbulent '70s. Acting as a kind of investigative historian into her own family story, Thompson, and her co-author/director, Jessica Blank, have shaped a collection of memories and interviews into a double-barrelled narrative of family conflict and wrenching social change.

As Thompson tells it, she grew up the daughter of politically engaged parents whose home overflowed with activists, eccentrics, and extended family members. She rapidly sketches in the network of interconnected adults who oversaw her youth. These include Saul, whose organizing activities and career as a city councilman didn't protect him from police harassment and persecution; Lily, her "fabulous" mother, who stands side by side with Saul; Saul's adoptive mother, Carolyn, a Bahamian woman unimpressed by Saul's ideas ("I say we can go back to Africa, but we don't have to stay."); and Valerie, Carolyn's daughter, who agitates for change by day and parties with the members of Earth, Wind, and Fire at night.

For about half of its relatively brief running time, it looks as if Liberty City will consist of nothing more than salty stories about Thompson's one-of-a-kind upbringing. In a six-year-old's flight of fancy, she announces to her class that she's a native of Dahomey; her worried teacher calls for a parent conference, only to have Saul browbeat her with the history of slavery. Valerie vividly recalls the mountains of cocaine on a glass coffee table at a chic Miami party. La'Marr, a hairdresser and Lily's advisor on fabulousness, shows up to give a grisly account of how hair-straightening cream works. Carolyn is always ready with a tart observation. (Discussing O. J. Simpson, she notes, "If you don't marry a white woman, you don't have to kill a white woman.")

It's a life defined by parties, politics, and a shared sense of purpose. Then the bottom falls out. Valerie becomes a crack addict, a harbinger of things to come for the black community, and robs her own mother. Saul is ejected from the city council and starts playing around with other women. Lily turns to a "cult church" (probably Jehovah's Witnesses) to salve her wounds, and soon she's knocking on doors, handing out religious literature.

It all comes to s head when three white police officers are acquitted of killing a black man, and the neighborhood explodes in rage. As the burning begins and barricades are erected, Thompson, now a fifth-grader, and her little brother run a gauntlet of busses, riot cops, and burning buildings, as Lily, Saul, and Valerie frantically try to find them. (In the piece's most shocking moment, she witnesses a horrific act of violence against a small child: "I saw the value of a little black girl's life," she says, a comment made all the more terrible for its understatement.)

When the violence ends, there's a resolution of sorts, and life goes on. What's remarkable is how Thompson and Blank merge the personal narrative with a clear-eyed account of the era's racial politics without ever seeming naïve or narcissistic. Her family was so caught in the life of their time that, when things exploded, so did they.

Blank's production enlists the aid of some very talented designers to further broaden the story's canvas. Antje Ellerman's set includes Carolyn's kitchen and Saul and Lily's living room, as well as a tiny piece of Valerie's condo, placed against a chain link fence, behind which is the Brotherhood Supermarket, complete with a painting of Martin Luther King. This squat-looking structure is instantly recognizable to anyone who has been in Florida, and it adds enormously to the production's look. Placed above the action is a pair of wide screens for Tal Yarden's projections -- a series of Miami skylines (emphasis on the sky), plus spectacular archival footage of Miami in flames. This is some of the most interesting projection work I've seen all year. David Lander's lighting plays a crucial role in the many time and place transitions. Jane Shaw's fluent sound design includes news radio broadcasts, riots, and an exceptionally tasty playlist of '70s funk -- starting with, but not limited to, the work of Stevie Wonder.

It's also a potentially star-making moment for Thompson, whose ability to conjure up characters at lightning speed is put to excellent use here. Her warm, intelligent presence always commands attention, even during the piece's occasional slow passages. Don't be fooled into thinking that Liberty City is a humorless polemic, a feel-bad tract about black suffering. It's a lovingly observed study of a family -- and a way of life -- in crisis that ends on a note of survival and self-realization. Thompson clearly kept her eyes open as a child, and here she brings it all vividly and meaningfully to life.--David Barbour