[Posted Dec. 7, 2007]

"Black Nativity" At Attucks
On December 14-16

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
   
       Two of the four gospels of the Holy Bible—St. Matthew and Luke—record the the birth of Jesus Christ.
        Always looking to use history and religion to explain the cultural evolution of Black folk, famed poet and playwright Langston Hughes had his version, too.

2006 Production of "Black Nativity" shows cast in full costume.

        Forty-six years ago on December 11,  it was revealed in a play written by Hughes initially named  “Wasn’t It A Mighty Day?” which made its debut on  Broadway. It was Hughes’  theatrical and musical view of the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem in a manger on a special night long ago when there was no room at the inn.
Shortly after the show opened, it was renamed  “Black Nativity”.  Four decades later, it remains a popular seasonal production  in African American theaters around the country.
         This year, as he has the past four years,  Antonio Williams, the founder of Edutainment Productions, Inc., in conjunction with the Norfolk Attucks Theater,  will be producing his version of Hughes’ classic holiday tale December 14-16.
        According to Williams, “The Black Nativity” was written in a way that has provided directors with liberty to use their  creative juices  to fashion the  production to changing times.
       So, Williams says, he has crafted a production that  retains the Gospel musical heritage of Hughes’ work,  but  there is also rhythmic African chants, Jazz, and a dab of the Negro Spiritual.
       He also adds a contemporary flavor as the “Four Shepherds”—Jed, Ned, Ted and Zed—do a  hip hop  piece entitled “No Good Shepherd Boy.”
Williams says that his “Black Nativity” integrates the Biblical  flavor of the tale of the birth of Jesus and the historic and cultural voyage of African and African American life through the ages.

       “Regardless of the period of  year  in which ‘Black Nativity’ is produced,  other  directors and I have discovered, one can use the music of that era to emphasis  its meaning to African American people and their culture,” said Williams.
“‘No Good Shepherd Boy’ was written like a rap song, back in the late 1950s when Hughes first wrote the play. That song looks at pathologies facing Black men.  Over the years  the audiences  have grown to love its means for the world of Black men in the 1950s and, especially now.”
Williams was trained  in the shadows of the epicenter of American theater at New York

University (NYU). Later he honed his  theatrical skills overseas in England’s Lambda Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He is among a small community of New York and globally-trained artisans who have returned to their native Hampton Roads  to  use their skills to  develop and provide the community with African American-inspired dance, theater and other artistic endeavors.
       Williams’ view of the theatrical world was shaped  by the huge library of  African American theater, dating back to the Harlem Renaissance, and developed by the artistic generations of Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. The works of these artists, he says, have been all but ignored, and need to be provided to those who have not been exposed to them.
       Williams says Hughes wrote a number of other plays and poems which have just as much meaning today, as they did during the heyday of his career in the 40s and 50s. Hughes was born in 1902 and died in 1967.
       “Black theater  has always been about expressing our view of the world and our place in history...our way,” said Williams. “Think of the birth of the Baby Christ as the  freeing of the Black slave—our emancipation.  This play reflects the Black experience through the entire production from the times of the Pharaoh. I am seeking to give some insight into each stage of African and African American life using the spoken word,  music and dance.”
       Mary and Joseph, parents of Jesus, are given no spoken lines in Williams’ version of “Black Nativity.”
       But there are other colorful characters and cliques of characters who  will move the show along with  very whimsical lines and  singing efforts which keep the plot-line stirring.
       Williams’ 2007 edition of  “Black Nativity” has 83 active character parts to make this production’s machinery move along at a very steady clip.
        Williams said he incorporates an original African song called “A Son is Born,” a celebratory song in the first act highlighted by foot stomping at the hearing of the  news of the Baby Jesus.
        The second act will focus on the  African American church and its traditional rhythm of celebration  of Black life and worship today and in the past.
       Some of the most powerful musical numbers, Williams says, will be  “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day”, “Mary, What You Gonna Name Your Baby?”, “A Song is Born”,  “O’ Jerusalem in the Morning”, “Rise Up Shepherd and Flow”, “Poor Little Jesus”, and “My Way is Cloudy”.
       Much of the musical wind-power will be generated in chorus, but two  of the most dominant voices   belong to Rashida Spivey, who will be belting out  “A Leak In This Old Building”, and Devone Porter, who will render a soulful rendition of “Go Tell it  On the Mountain” in the middle of the play’s opening act.
       “Black Nativity” will only have a three-day run, but Williams hopes to be able to expand the run of the production next year and make it a tradition during the holiday season in Hampton Roads.
       For tickets and more information, call 757-622-4763.

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