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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It, I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us, whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on-demand. I'm grateful you're here. Let me tell you what's going to be on the show this week. We'll hear about the much-anticipated production of Lorraine Hansberry's play The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. Star Rachel Brosnahan and director Anne Kauffman will be with us.

Also, for our big picture series highlighting those behind the camera of Oscar-nominated films, our guests will be the Academy Award-nominated hair and makeup team behind Black Panther, Wakanda Forever. They'll be our guests as well. That is later in the week, but now in this moment, we're going to reconsider Homer's The Odyssey.

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A play at Classic Stage Company reimagines Homer's epic, The Odyssey, is the story of a young Black soldier who served in Afghanistan around 911 named Ulysses Lincoln, who just wants to get home to Harlem where he left his then-pregnant wife Nella, he always calls her Nella P.-- Penelope, get it? He promised he would make it home for the birth of their son Malachi.

Ulysses angered Paw Sidin, god of the sea, and the father of a young boy Ulysses shot maybe not in self-defense. An enraged Paw Sidin and his brother, Deus, god of the sky become locked in a battle over Ulysses' fate. You see, Ulysses is the nephew of the goddess Athena, daughter of Deus. Paw Sidin calls her by her Roman name Minerva because, as he says, she's getting on my nerves. Athena descends to earth as Aunt T with a mission to protect Nella and Malachi and to keep hope alive that Ulysses will return.

As Ulysses himself struggles on his journey to find his way back to Harlem, he encounters all kinds of visions and ghosts, sirens in the form of Diana Ross, Tina Turner, and James Brown as well as the ancestors. Some he encounters will guide his path, others derail his mission. Black Odyssey is running now at the Classic Stage Company through March 26th. Joining me to discuss it is playwright Marcus Gardley, who is also a screenwriter for shows like The Chi, Mindhunter, and Maid. Welcome to the studio.

Marcus Gardley: Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: We're also joined by actor Harriett D. Foy who plays Athena, Aunt T. You may also know her as Pastor Patrice Woodbine on the Starz series P-Valley. So nice to see you.

Harriett D. Foy: Thank you so much. Good to be here.

Alison Stewart: This play, Marcus, was originally developed in Denver in 2014. Please, correct me if I'm wrong about anything.

Marcus Gardley: Oh no, this is good.

Alison Stewart: How did the idea come to you?

Marcus Gardley: Denver Theatre Center commissioned several playwrights to write a play that was impossible to produce. It was this really big experiment and I jumped at the chance. I come from a big family and so I love big plays. I also grew up loving Greek myth and so I thought, "Why don't I tell my own personal story about my family and my ancestors using Greek myth?"

Alison Stewart: Why did that feel impossible?

Marcus Gardley: It felt impossible because there is a Tiresias character who's supposed to come in with a car, so how do you get a car on stage? Also, it has to be a cast, all of this music, choreography, so all of these elements. It is not normally what someone would do in a typical play but it exists in this big epic.

Alison Stewart: Harriett, what did you think when you first encountered this production?

Harriett D. Foy: Well, I knew it from before, we did a reading of it before I think like four or five years back. I loved it then, and then when it came back around and I was available, I said, "Oh, let me do it. I love it. I love Greek myth. I love all of that. The ancestry, African ancestry, and it's all in there mixed together and I love playing Aunt T. I love being a godly woman."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: As you stage this play, and this is so interesting, this interesting fact I learned that you change it a little bit for each city and town center?

Marcus Gardley: That's correct. Because the play is so much about home that I want each production where it's located to be a love letter for that city. It's being produced in San Francisco, so the show takes place in San Francisco there. It's been produced in Boston and Providence and so both times I changed it to fit that location.

Alison Stewart: What's something for the West Coast location that was in the play that has been changed for something in New York?

Marcus Gardley: There's a scene in which one of the characters calls out different neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Just even the way they use language, all of the scenes with the young kid is like phrases that only people in the West Coast would understand. In Harlem, there's very much this, the angels and icons from Harlem exists in this draft because the play takes place in Harlem. In Boston, there's all these Bostonisms, the dialect even changed with the character, so each location dictates how we change the script.

Alison Stewart: Did you drop the word wicked?

Marcus Gardley: We did drop the wicked. Turn a you-we also was in the script.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: In this one, there's a great line about Apollo.

Marcus Gardley: That's correct, Apollo the Theater, because of course, plus they use kids. There's a scene in which Paw Sidin talks about all of his kids and then he mentions Apollo, which is of course at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Alison Stewart: He thinks he's all that because of that.

Marcus Gardley: That’s right.

Harriett D. Foy: Don’t forget famous fish.

Marcus Gardley: Famous fish, that’s right.

Alison Stewart: Famous fish?

Marcus Gardley: That’s right.

Alison Stewart: What is something, Harriett, that you admire about-- we're going to talk about you like you're not here, Marcus-- that you admire about Marcus's writing?

Harriett D. Foy: It's beautiful, it's poetic, it's always epic, it's moving, it's full of kumor. It is relatable in that way that you just know what he's talking about, then there's a turn and you're like, "There's so much pathos." One moment you're busting out of the gut and the next moment you're grabbing for your tissues which is that part, and it is all familiar, it reminds you of home. The characters always remind you of people that you know, a family. I just love him and I love the women that he creates because they're powerful, they're empaths, they're mysterious, they're spiritual, and they take care and they make great sacrifices to better their people and the life.

Alison Stewart: In the show, Paw and Deus-- I probably said it wrong.

Marcus Gardley: Deus.

Alison Stewart: Deus, thank you-- Are moving human beings in their lives like chess pieces, so what was it about the language of chess that was useful to you in telling the story?

Marcus Gardley: Oh, that's such a beautiful question. I really liked the idea of-- I liked that the play posits the notion, "Are the gods moving us or do we control our own fate?" I really love that as being a big metaphor that looms large in the play. Then I love the idea that one of the gods, I won't give it away, comes down and becomes mortal, and so she essentially becomes a chess piece. What kind of power does she has by making the sacrifice? I also, for Harlem in particular-- when I wrote the play, I lived in Harlem and there's this image I couldn't get out of my head of these two older African American men playing chess in Marcus Garvey Park, so that's what inspired that idea.

Alison Stewart: My guests are playwright Marcus Gardley as well as actor Harriett D. Foy. We're talking about Black Odyssey at Classic Stage Company. It's up through March 26th. As you play Aunt T, what is Aunt T's motivation in life? What is it that she cares about?

Harriett D. Foy: She cares the most about legacy, about making sure her family is taken care of. When she's charged with that task, she sacrifices all to make sure that that family legacy lives on and that she's able to help Ulysses on his journey with the help of all the other ancestors. I love that she's funny, she takes charge, she's sexy. She’s great.

Alison Stewart: Why is she believing so much that Ulysses will come back? Because she's got have a belief for some folks who are starting to lose hope or have lost hope?

Harriett D. Foy: She's been charged with it and she's made such a big sacrifice. This is what she is committed to doing with every breath of her body, in her body, to do this because his family is her legacy, is the last of her lineage. She has to do this to make sure the family continues, the family line continues.

Alison Stewart: Why is it so essential to pass down stories, because that's part of another layer of this, is the importance of knowing your history, and then telling your history.

Marcus Gardley: That's such a great question. My impetus for writing the play outside of it'd be in a commission was my youngest sister is adopted. One of the things she struggled with growing up was her connection to her biological family because we didn't know who they, we couldn't get in touch with them. I tried to explain to her how not only is my family, my blood her family, but in African American culture, we all belong to a large family. In the play, by celebrating African American culture and African American history, I wanted her to see how rich our culture is and that we're all connected.

Blood really is just biology. There are deeper things that connect us and so that was my impetus for doing that. There's a moment in the play in which a character talks about passing down your story. That's the thing that really connects us, that our own personal stories and the stories of those that come before is what connects us and combines us and for me, it inspires me to be an artist and to continue this work.

Alison Stewart: Harriett, would you feel comfortable sharing an ancestor or a family story that's been passed down in your family that really connects you to your people and to your [crosstalk]?

Harriett D. Foy: Oh, Lord, I'm just thinking, when Marcus was saying that, thinking about my grandparents and just they're gone now and I know they're always with me. Just stories they would talk about my grandfather was so funny. They were so funny. I can't think of a particular one right in this moment, but that was the best part of us hanging out, the holidays, is how much laughter there would be and everything they would share about our town and what they experienced, and then we would laugh about it and add our own color to it. I think Marcus said something in the rehearsal. He said, "We're all on this journey together to find out who we are." It just stuck with me. I'm like, "Yes, we are on this just to-- who are we? Where do we come from?" I miss those times with my family, but I'm glad I have that with Marcus.

Marcus Gardley: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: My grandfather worked at the post office on West 83rd Street, which was a good job.

Harriett D. Foy: Yes. That's a good job.

Alison Stewart: At the time, it was a very good job.

Harriett D. Foy: Benefits.

Alison Stewart: Exactly. I can remember my dad who grew up on 143rd Street telling stories about going to the post office with Pappy Joe and how, at those times, they were able to have guns because they were protecting the mail and he thought that was so cool. When I'm walking around there for West Side and suddenly I'll just find myself in front of that post office and I just have a flood of memories. You know what I mean?

Marcus Gardley: Yes. It's the power of place and story right there.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about Black Odyssey at Classic stage company. My guests are playwright Marcus Gardley and actor Harriett D. Foy. Ulysses seems not only lost physically, but lost emotionally and spiritually because he doesn't know his story.

Marcus Gardley: That's right. Ulysses also grew up in an orphanage and really never knew his biological family. One of the key tenets of the play is him coming to terms with what his history is and also his connection to African American history.

Alison Stewart: There's a lot of music in the show. When did you decide you were going to put music in it and then what did you want the music-- what's its job?

Marcus Gardley: That's a beautiful question. I always felt like the music was in a lot of ways the heartbeat of the show, because even though I'm pulling from Greek myth and my own personal history, the music is the one artifact in the show that is timeless, that those songs still have the power that they do now that they did when they were created. I wanted that to be in the world, so that it's something that you feel. Even if you didn't, you're not well-versed in African American history, even if you don't "necessarily identify" with the stories, the music is undeniable. The music is the one thing that connects everybody watching this show.

Alison Stewart: What do you like about the role of the music in the show, Harriett, because you-

Harriett D. Foy: I sing a lot of it, yes.

Alison Stewart: -you get to sing a lot of it. Yes, you do.

[laughter]

Harriett D. Foy: We were just having a conversation about that the other day. I love the music because it pulls you in. It tells a story. It's familiar. I think my character says, "If you can't hold a tune, then hold a hum, sway." It's always there. It's always going to connect everyone. It's something that is universal in that and the songs that have been chosen, we are familiar with. I know it's something that people can relate to. I love singing. I love singing the beautiful spirituals and the hymns and the African songs that we sing. It's a lovely challenge.

Alison Stewart: Speaking of challenge, thank you for the segue, you asked the audience to do some work. We have to pay attention, there are time jumps, there's a little bit of your history. I'm thinking specifically of this one scene where Ulysses is dropped with a family on a rooftop as the floodwaters rise echoing Hurricane Katrina.

Marcus Gardley: That's right.

Alison Stewart: But as he looks out left and right, they see Emmett Till and they see-

Marcus Gardley: That's right.

Alison Stewart: -the four little girls in the Birmingham bombing. What's happening in that moment? Is it purgatory? That required some work for us.

Marcus Gardley: Yes, absolutely. I think it is a form of purgatory. I think part of it is we're seeing this world through his eyes. I think he is grappling with basically the history of his people and their pain and he's experiencing his own pain. That's what he's identifying with. I think also in this moment because he's on the precipice of deciding if he's going to live or die, when he's faced with these people who have faced death or who are in a purgatory, he's grappling with the notion of, "They didn't have the option to live. They didn't have that option and I do." I think that's what I'm after in that moment.

Alison Stewart: The play has a lot of humor, and to your point, there's moments when you really want to cry. For you as an actor, how do you calibrate that? How did you work with your director, Stevie Walker-Webb, about that balance?

Harriett D. Foy: Well, Stevie Walker-Webb is a great collaborator and I always get a note from Mark. It's literally in every show, "You can't cry there. You can't. It's not." I was like, "Well, I can't help it. The character wants to." "No, no, no, you've got to hold it until the end." You do your homework as the artist, as the actor. You do your through line, your journey, and what that looks like and impacts. If you stay true to what the text is, you will do what is necessary, but the room is very collaborative. It's a safe space.

If you have those moments where I did, a couple times I was overcome with the emotion and I had to stop and just said, "Just let me have this moment," because I felt like the ancestors were coming in. I felt like there was an approval. You just have to allow that, and he creates that. We feel safe to do and make choices in that way.

Alison Stewart: How do you handle that as a playwright because you have to think about rhythm, you have to think about pacing?

Marcus Gardley: To me, the one tool that I always keep in the back of my pocket is humor. One of my teachers used to always say, "It's easy, easy to make them cry, but it's hard to make them laugh." He said, "We laugh and cry with the same muscle." What I try to do is I try to infuse a lot of humor at the top so that muscle's warmed, so that when you're emoting, when you get to the moments that are more tragic, it doesn't feel forced. It doesn't feel cheated. You feel like this was coming. It's almost part of the underbelly of the story, the tragedy.

Alison Stewart: It's earned.

Marcus Gardley: Humor is the key to unlocking everybody when they watch the story, because it's something we all relate to, but it's something that, I think especially in this day and age, we need joy. Everybody needs, could use a lot of joy. I think that's why it's a perfect time to do this play.

Alison Stewart: There's a moment, speaking of joy, when you are doing a fierce Tina Turner-esque.

[laughter]

Harriett D. Foy: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: First of all, how do you feel about the wig?

Harriett D. Foy: I love it.

Alison Stewart: That's a big old wig. I love it.

Harriett D. Foy: It's a big wig. We love the bigger, the better. [unintelligible 00:16:30]

Alison Stewart: I have a hair closer to God. What is it like to have that big old wig on? I kept thinking about you in that.

Harriett D. Foy: Well, it's very secure. Dan, our wig person, is very secure. I love it. It really gets me into character, because here he's facing these, they're monsters in a sense and they want to take him and eat him, but it's an honor. It's a great honor and challenge to play her in that moment, an elevated version of her, but it's really fun.

Alison Stewart: Did you watch videos? How did you prepare?

Harriett D. Foy: Of course. I had to do my research and I went back in and checked in to make sure I was singing the correct way that she sings the song, of course, and how she moves this to make sure I had the proper movement. We had a choreographer, of course. Getting the perfect shoe and this the perfect look.

Alison Stewart: Talk to me a little bit, Marcus, about this particular theater. It's a very intimate space and the audience is on all three sides. What do you like about it? What in this play lends itself to that staging?

Marcus Gardley: Oh, I love this question. First of all, the very fact that the theater is named Classic Stage and we're doing a play, you know about the classics, I think that is important and really powerful, but because the stages and the thrusts are the way we are setting it, it's in a thrust, audiences are not only watching the actors on stage, they're watching other audience members watch it, which is part of the very Greek theater. It's a very powerful idea. Even in the play, I won't give it away, but there's a moment in which two characters are reflecting back on each other. They're reflections of each other.

So much about the play is asking the audience to look at the people that are watching the play with you. Look at the people that are watching the play across from you and enjoy this moment together, laugh together, sing together, cry together. This is a play for all people.

Alison Stewart: There's a moment at the beginning of the show, the cast ask the audience to express how they feel, to clap, to sing, to hum. Lady next to me was like, I was like, "Are you in the show?" [laughs] She was full-on. I was like, "You do you." It was just moving her. Tell me a little bit about the audience reaction and you just started up, but I'm curious what that's like for you on stage.

Harriett D. Foy: Oh, it's the best. I love the thrust. I love an audience being that close. I love being able to feel when they breathe together, when they laugh together, when they sniffle, when you hear them going in the purse to get their tissues. I love being connected to them in that way and this piece, yes, it's very Greek theater, very big, and all those moments coming through because there are moments where you can see us traveling around to get to our spots because it's just that kind of space, but I love it there. It's a wonderful, wonderful space.

Alison Stewart: There's an American flag that features prominently in the show and in the program, you ask us, Marcus, to consider this quote from Calvin Coolidge as we look at the flag and the quote's this, "The stars in the red, white, and blue colors have a significance of their own, but when combined and arranged into the flag of our nation, they take on a new significance, which no other form or color can convey. We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth. It represents our peace and security, our civil and political liberty, our freedoms of religious worship, our family, our friends, our home. We see it in the great multitude of blessings of rights and privileges that make up our country, but when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all of our rights, we must remember that is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty done." Why did you want us to think about this quote?

Marcus Gardley: I love that. There's a moment in the play where the Nella P is told that her husband is dead, and they give her a flag. I'll never forget the moment my grandfather served, he was a Navy man. When he died, my mother got the flag and she was so conflicted about what to do with it. I watch her really grapple with it. I barely knew my grandfather because I was really young, but I remember distinctly, her just looking at it. What Nella P does in the play is she starts to sew things into the flag, in hopes that her husband will come back.

If he does, then she will have recorded all the moments he missed in the flag. For me, that represents my complicated relationships with this country. I love this country, I'm so proud to be an American, but it does have a history that is complicated, and oftentimes breaks my heart. That's what I want to flag to symbolize in this play.

Alison Stewart: What are some changes that you had to make or that you wanted to make from 2014 to 2022 in the script?

Marcus Gardley: Oh, I love this question. Some of the changes that I'm constantly making is, one, because the language of teenagers changes quite often, that I'm always changing the language of that character and trying to keep it as contemporary as possible. I'm always grappling with the police officers in the play because our dialogue around policing often changes. One of the scary things is I haven't had to change much, which is pretty tragic.

Then, the gods. What's beautiful about working with actors is that each actor will bring something new to it and this particular class is so phenomenal. Everybody is really great and they've taught me things about the play. I've made tweaks based on their performance.

Alison Stewart: Harriett, what's a one-moment people go see it because I really hope people will go see it.

Harriett D. Foy: I do, too.

Alison Stewart: I do, too. I think they will. I know I'm going to go back.

Harriett D. Foy: You all have got to come see it.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to go back with my son. I thought that it was a play that he would really, really enjoy. He's a teenager, I think there's somebody in this play that everyone who sees it will have some--

Harriett D. Foy: Connection to.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Harriett D. Foy: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Is there a part that you want people to play special attention to? Sometimes I ask people--

Harriett D. Foy: Yes. Every time I come on stage.

Alison Stewart: That's good.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: That will not be hard. Black Odyssey is at the Classic Stage Company through March, 26. I've been speaking with playwright Marcus Gardley and actor Harriett D. Foy. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate it.

Harriett D. Foy: Thank you, Alison. Thank you.

Marcus Gardley: Thank you for having us. It's been an honor.

 

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