Blue Door

Today I am still thinking about the moving play we saw last night at Dobama.

Since it is Black History Month, most, if not all the theaters in town, are mounting productions by and/or about African Americans.

Dobama’s Blue Door is superbly acted by two men: one a middle-aged veteran of the theater and the other, a junior at Baldwin Wallace College. Kudos to both men; however, the younger Rod Lawrence was astounding in his portrayal of men from four generations of the older man’s family.

Lawrence took us on a journey from Africa through slavery and the aftermath of the Civil War. The toll these events took on this family was heart wrenching.

Surprisingly, the playwright is a mixed race, young woman raised in Portland, Oregon. Blue Door arose from research she did for a commission for a children’s play. Civil War: The First Black Regiment is about a boy who escaped slavery and joined a regiment of the Union Army that was composed of former slaves.

For Blue Door, she immersed herself in slave narratives and transcriptions of oral histories. The actual events she included in the play are horrific.

This is a play that every American should see; Black History Month or not.