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Ruben Santiago-Hudson: 1956, Lackawanna, New York, like all great lake cities was thriving, jobs everywhere, money everywhere, steel plants, railroads, grain meals, the docks. Everybody had a new car and a conk. Restaurants, bars, stores, everybody made money. The smell of fried fish, chicken [crosstalk]--

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Melissa Harris-Perry: That was Tony award-winning multi high-fitted Ruben Santiago-Hudson during a 2019 production of his one-man show Lackawanna Blues. The play tells the story of Santiago-Hudson's childhood and finds him embodying the many characters who populated his youth. Chief among his cast is Nanny, the woman who raised him. Santiago-Hudson first performed the show in 2001. In 2005, he adapted it to an HBO movie, S. Epatha Merkerson played the role of Nanny.

Nanny: Wherever she at, you going to have to go through me to get to her. Now go on, knock me down, go on. If that's the onliest way you know how to do things, knock Nanny down, because I can handle it.

Melissa: This fall, Santiago-Hudson has brought the show to Broadway for the first time. Part of an exciting slate of works by Black playwrights being produced this season. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform Lackawanna Blues recently, and by the end I was sobbing, just an absolute crying mess under my mask. Apparently that's a fairly typical reaction.

Ruben: I'm hearing that I'm messing up a lot of masks. Well, at least I have my hanky with me.

Melissa: The ability to do any work on stage at this point in the pandemic era carries a certain emotional weight, but I also wanted to find out how performing such a personal work has felt for Santiago-Hudson.

Ruben: On so many levels, it's hit me on so many levels, and it's hard to really explain. There's no one emotion or one effect, or one feeling that I have. The joy and exhilaration of being in front of a live audience again is one thing. The joy of being a sociable human being again, where you can share space with other people and somewhat feel pretty comfortable because of the protocols that we have put in place at the Manhattan Theatre Club and Broadway in general, that's one thing. Then another thing is the visit with the things that make my life and make me comfortable, and also remind me of what I had to go through and what my responsibility and accountability is, now that I'm here at this point.

It's so many different levels, and I try to avoid falling into, or finding myself too captivated by any particular feeling, because I know, my job as a storyteller is to invite you into a world that probably most people don't know and to, I guess, share a reality about the multiplicity of ideas and thoughts, and feelings of people of color, and how universal we are, but yet how specific we are, and how beautiful and magnificent we are. Yet, how disdainful and angry, and joyful, and all those feelings that get robbed away from us as people of color, when other people are telling our stories.

Melissa: I want to build on that for a second in two different ways, but I have to say my first reaction as I left, beyond the crying, which we'll talk about in a bit, I said to my husband as we stood outside, “I feel like maybe this is what Tyler Perry thinks he's doing, but that Ruben Santiago-Hudson does it with a love and respect and interiority that I don't think I've ever experienced before. That ability not only to mimic all of these characters, but to become them.” I guess it's like the deep empathy. As you do that, I’m wondering literally about the emotional exhaustion of standing inside of so many persons in a relatively short period of time.

Ruben: Well, the emotional exhaustion is one thing, but the physical exhaustion is another. When you're playing three four characters in one scene and physically recreating what I remember of their gate, what I remember of their sound, their tone, their rhythms, it's exhausting on all levels, but it also is in incredibly empowering, because all of a sudden I give these people once again, from my viewpoint as the 11-year-old boy, I give these people, again, worth, I give them a place that's their own.

Just to talk a little bit about what you mentioned about what Tyler Perry might be doing, that's a complex conversation, because Tyler Perry has revealed the impact and power of the African American community's money, and if they want to support something. Where he and I part ways is I think there are many more stories in that he can share with many more storytellers. I think that's a big problem, and this is another subject, but that's a big problem.

Our artistic community, as African American people and BIPOC people, is are we really empowering the village the way other communities empower their village? The way the Jewish community empowers their village and supports their stories, and other artists like them. The way Asian people do the same. I mean, listen, I've been in this business 45 minutes and, without bragging but just looking at the facts, I have been heralded in every aspect of what I do as a writer, director, and actor, but yet no one has ever said, “What stories do you want to tell, Rub?”

They want to hire me for jobs. You do this job or do that job. No one has just sat down and said, “What's the most important thing you think that our community should hear and that you can clearly and most profoundly tell that story to us in the next decade? We want you to sit down, and we want to bust your brain wide open and your heart wide open, and share.” No one has ever come to me with that. You look in the paper today in any Variety or Hollywood Reporter, somebody's got a three picture deal.

Ruben’s Lackawanna Blues won more awards than anything that season, had more viewers than anything that season, never got a deal or a multiple deal. My Jitney won Tony’s, August Wilson’s estate didn't offer me another-- all this was in play. Lackawanna Blues was shut down in 2001 until the pandemic. I had to put it on the road myself, so-- and here it is, 20 years later with this country in absolute turmoil, and it was-- we’re trying to rebuild now, as we all know. They needed Nanny to say, “It's going to be okay again.”

They needed this product, this love letter that I owned, and I'm back. We, the Tyler Perrys, the bigger people-- not to pick on him-- I think their mission-- it’s just my opinion-- should be to how do we empower the village? Where is the village being built stronger? Not where is my empire being built stronger, not in just hiring people, in getting artists that you respect that you think are very talented, that have vision and have a lot to say that's important to our community.

I think Nanny's important to our community, and I'm not going to run on this, I know we got short time, but that woman who is the rock and foundation of the African American community that's never heralded, that's never celebrated, and people say, “Give them their flowers now,” Well, here's your flowers, Nanny. Here's your flowers, Aunt [unintelligible 00:07:06]. Here's your flowers, Aunt Minnie. Here's your flowers, the big mama. Here's your flowers, Mama Overton. That's empowering our community, reminding us of the foundation that we stand on.

Melissa: What you just said cut through something politically critical. You said they needed Nanny to come back and tell them it was all going to be okay?

Ruben: Yes. Think about it, Melissa, think about it. Think about it and all these old movies, and stuff. Who is the one that’s hugging the little white child that’s distraught? Who is the one that’s coming in and-- they always just use that aspect of these Black women, and be the comfort, and be the wisdom, but they don't use that all the rest of that stuff. Where were their faults? Where did they fall short and how did they build it back up? What about the other things? When that big Paul Munnion--? When that big John Henry--? When that big iconic Black figure walks in, and he needs that shoulder, and also he needs advice and needs to be told what the hell to do? That’s mama.

Melissa: I think you also just went to the core of the only discomfort I felt, sitting in the audience, which is, when you tell Nanny's story, you're telling a story I recognize as my Nana, who I just lost. I recognize nearly every single person you embodied, a particular love that does not allow any foolishness but also is without limits. Sometimes, the laughter from non-Black people in the audience at particular moments and moments that are funny, that have to be told in order to tell the full humanity of the story, still, it kind of like would get me. I just wanted to sometimes turn around and be like, “Shh, no, not you.”

Ruben: Yes. The good thing about that-- sometimes, it's difficult for me as well, particularly when I say something—and I'm using the colloquial language that I knew, and things, “half-pressed head”, “can I grease your scalp?”, things that are ours. We own that. Just like the blues, just like jazz, never existed before us, and there're sayings and things that never existed before us, the way they're said, the rhythms, the style. That's what's great about August Wilson's work, in a sense, saying things like “half-pressed head” or “you my baby,” or “I ain't going to say it no more,” or “listen to me good now”.

These are quotes that I've heard, these is not imagination. When Nanny went to get Mr. Taylor, the one-legged man with the tongue, little problem, when I traveled with her, I was carrying a pot for him to eat, and in that pot was chicken feet and dumplings. I'm not ashamed to say that's what we brought. Some people may say, “Ew,” and, “Oh,” but if you go to France right now, the Paris, and order chicken, the feet’s going to be on it.

Melissa: No, that just made me hungry. When you said it, I was like, “Oh, now I got to sit here another hour [laughs] and now that's what I want.”

Ruben: You think about them dumplings. Then she gave him a sweet potato to keep his hands warm. Now, where is that from? That's in my house at Nanny, she had sweet potatoes. We had a wood-burning stove. We didn't have a potbelly. We had a wood-burning in the kitchen, because we, in Buffalo, we needed more heat. She always had sweet potatoes sitting on the top wrapped in aluminum foil or by themselves or in a flat pan. If you wanted a quick dessert, a quick lift, you take and you split that sweet potato in four or five pieces, put a little butter on it, maybe a little sugar, if you want, a little brown sugar.

That was your-- you could take that, put in your hand and keep your hands warm, too, before you eat it.

That's my culture. What I'm trying to do is share the incredible depth and beauty of our culture, and that yam goes all the way back to Africa. If you really look at the lineage of what I'm saying in that play about our journey, the African diaspora, the migration, the forced migration. Snatching and the slavery, that's one thing, but that was a migration that we had no control of. The other migration we had control of, but we brought all those other things with us. The way we sing, the way we dance, the way we court. I have my harmonica on stage, it's more than entertainment. It's enlightenment.

Melissa: What is the most important story that you want to tell that you think audiences need to hear right now?

Ruben: If I had my druthers, I would do probably a five-part Harlem Renaissance. A huge epic. If they did Roots twice, that we were slaves twice in Roots, and we got over that, and the victory is ours today. Who has really hit the Harlem Renaissance other than just a two-hour movie? Let's go through the intellectual aspect of it, the musical aspect of it, the sexual revolution that was taking place, the political revolution that was taking place, the religious fervor that was going on, the movements, the Garvey-isms, the political stuff. Let's do five parts. Let's don't truncate it.

I've been offered to do two hours, and I just said, “I'm not going to do it.” My stubbornness. I'm not going to-- I can hardly get through Madam CJ Walker. The real story, I posted it, what I saw, nothing against them. That's theirs, but the woman who wrote the book, she wasn't even happy, because they didn't let her tell her story. Give me five parts. Let me get a host of writers, a host of historians, a host of dramaturgs, a host of five directors, and every Black actor in Hollywood that wants to be a part of it, and listen, do it, and do it right. That's when we were kings and queens again.

That's important to me, and I don't know if in my lifetime I'll get it done, but I spoke to Lou Gossett, and [unintelligible 00:12:38] different people. They want to get it done, but we are not the compounder in the village. We have the wherewithal to do it. We have studios. We have billionaires who are Black people. What happened is that even me, when we reach a certain level, the white establishment takes you and provides something for you financially and position-wise, but you work with them. The Black folks-- why am I not at [unintelligible 00:13:02]? Why am I not at Tyler Perry? Why am I not at Macro? Am I not visible?

This ain't no complaint, because I'm looking more at the end of my career. I'm looking more at retirement now, and I'm empowering the young generation. I have mentees to take over this whole thing. There's going to be the next stars in the next four years, but we need to be supported. We need to be financed. There are white bullies out there that stop a lot of things I'm trying to do. I need one Black bully to stand with me and say, “We ain't stopping this man. He wants to empower our village.”

Melissa: Your village is also complex, being both Black and Puerto Rican, being part of the Afro-Latinidad. Talk to me a bit about that particular intersection.

Ruben: Well, having that duality of cultures, which they also come down to a certain stream, where it's the same culture, but there is a complete and specific delineation between those cultures. Then there's, like I said, coming together. I am as proud of being Puerto Rican boricua as I am of being Black. The thing is I was raised in a Black [unintelligible 00:14:05] house with country people from the south. That's my gate. That's my rhythm. That's my sound.

I love-- my father Ruben Santiago, whose story I didn't tell in this play, was very, very loving in day-to-day with me, growing up, to the point, whereas when he's the one that went and got me from my mother's people, when my mother left me originally, early. She left me with her family in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh. My father drove from Buffalo to Pittsburgh and pleaded his case and said, let his mother raise me, who was Nanny. They thought it was going to be his real mother, but it was [unintelligible 00:14:38] Nanny Ma. Nanny got me.

When my Black family found out I was with this woman who wasn't my mother, they had a conversation. Nanny convinced them that she would send me to Pittsburgh with them in the summer and keep me in one place so I can get my education. My father, who wanted me to move with him, he moved next door to Nanny, three doors away, so he kept see me every day. He took me to Puerto Rico as a child a few times. I took him, as he got older, when I became successful. My next project after Skeleton Crew is a Latin musical. Musical was really a play with a lot of music by a Mexican writer named Karen Zacarias. Destiny of Desire is the name of it.

I'm starting to find my root and my way into the Latin culture, the multiplicity of that culture, because that's what? You're talking Cuban, Mexican, Spanish, Portuguese, we’re talking Brazil, and Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. I'm trying to figure out how do I build that now? It's beautiful though, because somebody asks me my favorite dish, and this is a simple thing, but it’s I love my rice and beans. I can eat them every day. My daughter is just like me, Lily. She's an actor on the show Labrea on NBC. You ask her her favorite dish. Me and her said [unintelligible 00:15:52] a plate of rice and beans every day we could. That's that Puerto Rico in me.

Melissa: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Tony award-winning theater artist and writer, director, and star of Lackawanna Blues. Ruben, I just want to say I want to see that five-part Harlem Renaissance piece. I want to live that. I hope that you are able to make it.

Ruben: Well, thank you. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to speak with you and in all the work that you're doing. I've been following you for a while, and I'm excited to see, what you're doing in the future. I appreciate--

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